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As if to counterpoint the darker drama to follow, the initial scene of "Black Legion" opens to a factory setting with it's workers all dressed in bright white uniforms, with names neatly embroidered over each man's left pocket. Contrast that with the black anonymity of hooded members of the titled organization, and you have Warner Brothers take on another facet of injustice in pre-war America.

Humphrey Bogart portrays Frank Taylor, a disaffected employee passed over for a promotion to a book reading, intelligent Polish worker. While his work suffers his ego simmers, ripe for the pseudo intellectual babble of a disembodied voice on the radio clamoring for the rights of native white American workers. When the time is right, fellow employee Cliff Summers (Joe Sawyer) introduces Frank to an organization known as the Black Legion, championing the rights of workers, while engaging in night time raids on those they wish to eliminate. Taylor's induction into the Legion is conveyed with the utmost symbolism, vowing an oath to the death to protect it's secrets, while a gun points to his head to insure his allegiance.

Taylor's involvement with the group comes at the expense of his family, wife Ruth (Erin O'Brien Moore) and son Buddy (Dickie Jones). They attempt to keep him honest, as does friend Ed Jackson (Dick Foran), but before long, Taylor is in so deep he no longer recognizes himself. As Jackson learns of his friend's involvement in the group's local hostilities, the situation reaches a boiling point for Frank, and the legion kidnaps Ed for a traditional whipping. It's Taylor's own handgun that cuts Ed down as he attempts to break free, putting Frank over the edge and setting him up for capture by the authorities. As newspaper headlines proclaim "Jackson Killing Bares Black Legion", Taylor faces threats of harm to his family if he testifies against them while in jail.

In a scene reminiscent of James Cagney's breakdown at the end of "Angels With Dirty Faces", Bogey's character erupts a confession while on trial, bringing down the participants in his crime and exposing the Legion's secrets. In a follow up scene, the entire leadership of the organization involved in Jackson's murder stand trial and are sentenced to life in prison. The textbook speech by the judge (Samuel S. Hinds) to the defendants is a resounding affirmation of the American right to freedom and opportunity.

The Warner Brothers films of the era did a good, if sometimes melodramatic job of presenting the ills of society in an unfavorable light. More noted for their crime and gangster dramas, they also keyed in on the effects of poverty (1937's "Dead End") and wildcat truckers (1940's "They Drive by Night"); it seems there wasn't a subject they wouldn't touch. This film still resonates nearly seventy years following it's original release, presenting it's condemnation of a hate group characteristic of a "new Ku Klux Klan".

I'm not sure "The Black Legion" is quite the searing issue movie it probably wanted to be; it bears more of a relationship to the post-war Ministry of Information documentaries in Britain (which were often very good). But considered purely as popular entertainment, it's pretty striking, with Bogart's performance hovering just this side of 'over the top' -- an amazingly youthful-looking Bogart, in comparison to his later starring roles...

The issue of anti-immigrant prejudice has of course taken on new life of late -- if ever it really left -- and Bogart portrays convincingly how the man on the street can become sucked into an otherwise preposterous world of blood-curdling oaths and death's-head regalia, at first through petty personal grudge and then through the surge of power that comes with group action. He depicts with equal conviction the disintegration of the man who finds himself pinned between that same power and what really matters in his life, and Erin O'Brien-Moore is excellent in the role of the wife whom another actress might have represented as too perfect to be true.

And the anti-feelgood ending still comes as a shock, after all these years. Justice is even-handed but implacable.

The message isn't always terribly subtle, the music likewise, and the acting occasionally veers a little too far into bravura territory, vindicated by a reassuring speech to the effect that actually, no matter what you may have seen in this movie, Americans are inherently nice, tolerant people (just in case the audience might feel bad about themselves, presumably) -- but it's a brave attempt at covering contemporary events, despite the standard disclaimer, and still stands up pretty well as a film in its own right seventy years later. To a modern viewer, the real period piece is the fascinating depiction of a live radio news broadcast, complete with a large cast of supporting actors voicing all reported dialogue with split-second teamwork, and a conductor and full instrumental section behind the microphones to provide the swell of background music as required!

Particularly considering the year -- 1937 -- this is a remarkably powerful film. Powerful enough that the original story received an Academy Award nomination, and Humphrey Bogart was named best actor by the National Board Of Review. And although this is a year after "The Petrified Forest", I have to rate this film and Bogart's performance here as far superior.

Humphrey Bogart's acting as a simple factory worker who gets wrapped up in the Black Legion (a sort of KKK organization) is remarkable. First, the common man with a nice wife and wonderful kid. Then he loses out on a promotion to a "foreigner", and he becomes a bitter man. Then he joins the Black Legion and becomes a cruel thug. And then, when he murders his own friend (Dick Foran) he becomes a humbled and scared man who -- in the end -- stands up in court and names names, exposing the secret society, but also results in putting himself in prison for life.

Dick Foran is good here, as in Bogart's wife Erin O'Brien-Moore. You almost won't recognize Ann Sheridan as the neighbor, but you will recognize many of the character actors in this film...although you probably won't know their names.

This film is based on a real-life story that occurred in 1935. The Ku Klux Klan actually sued Warner Brothers for patent infringement for the film's use of a patented Klan insignia, but a judge threw out the case. Interestingly, first choice for the lead character was Edward G. Robinson -- a much bigger star at the time. Fortunately, he was too busy, because as an ethic looking actor, he would have been badly miscast in a story about resentment about foreigners! An "8"!

In order to fully appreciate this movie a person needs to understand what the United States was like back in the 1930s. America was in the midst of the most severe depression it had ever known with approximately 25% of the workforce unemployed at one time. That said, here we have Humphrey Bogart playing the role of Frank Taylor who has worked at his job for many years, is well-liked and happy. He is fortunate to have a good wife named "Ruth Taylor" (Erin O'Brien-Moore) and an adoring son. Unfortunately, because a Polish immigrant gets a promotion he thought was rightfully his, he angrily joins a secret society known as the Black Legion. At first, things are going very well for him. But so much anger and hatred has a way of dragging people down and things begin to spiral out of control very quickly. He eventually loses his wife and then his job. Not long after that he kills his best friend due to fear of being exposed and gets sentenced to life in prison. As he's being led away he looks mournfully at his wife who is in tears and seems to wonder how everything went so wrong. One interesting aspect of this film is that Humphrey Bogart got to deviate from his typical "tough guy" role and showed a bit more emotion in this film. Additionally, even though Ann Sheridan (who played Ruth Taylor's next-door neighbor) gets more credit, I thought Erin O'Brien-Moore gave a truly excellent performance. The film was well-directed, had a decent supporting cast and the original story was nominated for an Academy Award. Not only that, but the National Board of Review selected it as the best film of 1937. In short, a very good movie for its time and I think anyone who gives it a chance will be glad they did.

Some Hollywood mogul once said, "If you want to send a message, call Western Union." I forget the mogul's name and I'm too lazy to look it up but I'm sure it wasn't one of the Warner brothers. They didn't make family-friendly gems like Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. They ground out message movies by the score during the Great Depression and during and after World War II. They were fast and artless.

In this one, a little more emphatic than most, Humphrey Bogart is a happily married factory worker. He's good at his job. Everyone likes him. And when there is an opening for a new foreman, it's assumed that he'll get the promotion. He doesn't get it. "Dombrowski" gets it.

Dombrowski is an interesting character. Played by the handsome and gay Henry Brandon -- who went on to play Scar in "The Searchers" -- he's a genuinely nice guy too. When the guys are shooting the breeze about Bogart's coming promotion, Brandon says, "He'll make a great foreman." Brandon gets the job because he puts a little more into his work. He's going to night school and spends his evenings studying instead of listening to radio thrillers or drinking beer with the rest of the fellas. He lives on a chicken farm with his immigrant Pop. His ethnicity is never mentioned.

I'm going to have to skim over the slightly intricate plot. It's enough to say that Bogart becomes embittered, joins an organization called The Black Legion that looks a lot like the KKK, and winds up murdering Dick Foran, his best friend, the son of an Irish immigrant who subscribes to "da Roman hierarchy". The Legionnaires are all arrested and sent off to spend their lives in the slams, Bogart included.

Seeing it now, in our current political climate, one of its most impressive elements is the argument presented by the leaders of The Black Legion. The immigrants are taking over. They're introducing alien ideologies, stealing American jobs, undermining the welfare of good Americans. The air was filled with bumper sticker slogans, as it is now. The hatred is incandescent.

Happily, no explanation of the Legion or its members' motives is offered. "Happily" because there really isn't any. Social scientists have a variety of theories, ranging from the simple to the complex, but nobody really knows why these outbreaks of collective paranoia and aggression take place -- and they DO take place more or less regularly.

In America, prohibition (1919 - 1933) was in part an expression of anger against the Germans who were our foes in World War I and against the second wave of immigrants from central and southern Europe, for whom alcohol was not only not a sin but a ritualized part of both everyday and spiritual life. And who ran the breweries? Schlitz, Blatz, Anheuser-Busch, Pabst, Coors, Budweiser, Schaefer, Ruppert, Hamm. Notice anything about that list? We couldn't send them back but we could make 'em suffer.

As the protagonist, Bogart follows Archie Mayo's direction, hits his marks, and says his lines. So does everyone else. Bogart's performance seems the least rushed, the least perfunctory, and Ann Sheridan's stands out as well. The writing doesn't sparkle but the message is clear and the story gripping, and that's enough to hold the film together. I don't know that the message will get through though. Most of us may sit back and shake our heads at how irrational the good folks were, way back there in 1937. It's a good thing we're so much more sophisticated, so much more thoughtful, today.

**SPOILERS** Shocking exposer of a dreaded Klu Klux Klan like hate group using its dislike of, mostly non English speaking, foreigners then its usual dislike of blacks Jews and Hispanics to take its wrath out on.

In the movie we have a happy go lucky Frank Taylor, Humphrey Bogart, who hasn't a mean or racist bone in his body get corrupted and radicalized by this shadowy group of dangerous troublemakers called the Black Legion. It's when Frank lost out at being made foreman at his machine factory job to a son of Polish immigrants Joe Dombrowski, Henry Brandon, that he became rip picking for the Legion in it exploiting his frustrations of being skipped over for what they called a non-American. Frank started to change his opinion of his friends and fellow workers who were not like himself: Full blooded die in the wool Red White and Blue Americans! That radical opinion on Frank's part soon lead to him losing his job at the factory in him trying to recruit fellow "All Americans" like himself into the Black Legion instead of doing his job. Frank's radical and racist views also lead to his wife Ruth, Erin O'Brien, leaving him together with their 8 year-old son Buddy, Dickie Jones.

With nothing to look forward to Frank descended into his own living hell that was the Black Legion whom its existence and members he was sworn to secrecy at the cost of his and his family members lives if he ever exposed them to the pubic or police. It's when the Legion, together with a hooded Frank, grabbed Frank's good friend Ed Jackson, Dick Foran, who's been mouthing off, to everyone within earshot, about what a dirty rotten and cowardly bunch of cut throats and malcontents that they are that Frank suddenly got seconds thoughts about them. That's when Ed ended up getting killed by the Legion when he tried to escape with Frank being the person who gunned him down.

It was Ed's tragic death that he was responsible for that finally made Frank see the light in the darkness that he got himself involved in: The Black Legion. Trying to make right the mistakes he made Frank decided to turn himself over to the police and spill the beans on the Legion in what they did what their all about and even more who their members are! This had Frank blackmailed by the Black Legionaries in threatening not only his life but that of his wife Ruth and son Buddy as well!

***SPOILERS*** It took a lot of courage on Frank's part to ignore what the Legion threatened to do to him and his family in him exposing them-in open court-and the vicious crimes they committed! Like the torching of the Dombrowski chicken farm as well as kidnapping Joe and his dad, Egon Brecher Jr, who were never seen or heard from again! In the end Frank's honesty and guilty conscience brought an end to the Legion's reign of terror with them all ending up behind bars for the rest of their natural lives where they couldn't harm anyone including Ruth & Buddy. As for Frank he'll never see the light of day in being giving a life sentence for the murder of his good friend Ed Jackson but he'll at least know that he, by putting the Black Legion out of business, in some way made up for it.

P.S As it turned out "Black Legion" was in fact the first movie that Humphrey Bogart got top billing in. Not in what's always been thought in the film "The Wagons Roll at Night" which was released some 4 years later.

There is a lot to be said about this movie, and many of the previous commentators have done so very well. A couple of things made me wonder a bit. Did the maniacal orator at the first meeting Frank attended represent that the filmmakers were starting to see some problems with European-style Fascism and National Socialism, and tying it in with a known American problem, the Klan? And then the scene with the Legion leaders, caring only for money, and not a whit of concern for ideology. Is that a warning to Depression-era middle classes not to trust seemingly populist organizations like lodges and unions? Just wondering. Anyway Bogart and the rest of the cast were quite good, but I found the movie preachy and condescending.