Humphrey Bogart, lean and mean in an early starring role, plays a factory worker in small town America who joins an organization not unlike the Ku Klux Klan--this after a foreign co-worker gets the promotion Bogie wanted. Melodrama has some sad brutality but is otherwise rather low on sparks. There are no real characters or surprises in the plotting; the only interest the picture may have today is in Bogart's casting, and in the political implications of the narrative vs. today's perceptions. Abem Finkel's script from Robert Lord's original story is all worked up for an explosive set-up, but neither took the time to shape the film's second-half (a ridiculous, hysterical wrap-up in court). Watchable but mediocre yarn. ** from ****
Review of Black Legion
