Black Legion
Casual fans of Humphrey Bogart probably know that he often played bad guys in his earlier film roles. But
they may not be prepared for the hard-hitting ugliness of
Black Legion (1937), a Warner Bros. crime
melodrama that pulls few punches as it tells the story of a real life white supremacist organization.
Bogart plays Frank Taylor, an auto worker and family man who becomes enraged when he's passed over for a
promotion in favor of an
industrious Polish immigrant named Dombrowski (Henry Brandon).
Embittered by the experience, Taylor is recruited by the Black
Legion, which promotes hatred of foreigners and other races.
Taylor's transformation into a brutal racist is a shocking thing to see, because it's genuinely unnerving, and,
probably more importantly, because you see it happening to Humphrey Bogart. The character's downfall is
eventually all-encompassing, and the studio,
much to its credit, didn't tack on an unconvincing happy ending. Considering the era, it was not your typical
escapist film fare.
Warner Bros. was, of course, famous for its "ripped from the headlines" brand of filmmaking, and
Black
Legion was a prime example of the studio's ability to strike while the iron was hot. As already stated,
there actually was a white supremacist organization called the Black Legion that had been making headlines
throughout 1937, and its story was exceptionally sordid - everything from kidnapping to lynching and murder,
with a variety of other atrocities thrown in for good measure. If you read the papers that year, you had heard
of the Black Legion.
Still, Warner Bros. knew it could be asking for trouble by releasing a film about the infamous group. One of
those much-read newspaper stories included the revelation that the district attorney of Detroit was involved in
some of the Legion's activities. And he was still re-elected to office after the news broke. In addition, U.S.
courts had recently broadened the scope of what could be viewed as libel, and Warner Bros. had no choice
but to tone down the particulars of how the Legion made its money. In
Black Legion, instead of
getting mixed up with upper echelon politicians, the subversive group simply run guns and swindle their
members out of money but much of what's in the picture is still accurate. There's a word-perfect version of the
Legion's initiation oath, and the final trial sequence is a re-creation of the confession delivered by the actual
person who inspired Bogart's character.
Even after taking a little bit of care to protect themselves, however, Warner Bros. nearly found itself in legal
trouble for the bizarre charge of infringing on a KKK copyright! While researching a variety of distasteful
organizations, the studio stumbled upon a logo
that it felt would look good on the Black Legion's hooded outfits.
Unfortunately, the logo they used turned out to be the Ku Klux Klan's
official trademark, as covered by United States design patent 68219.
Luckily for the studio, a judge threw the case out of court the next year.
Several critics felt that
Black Legion would finally turn Bogart into a major star, and said so in their
reviews. The role of Frank Taylor was certainly a major step up from his usual job of
playing generic heavies, and he attacked it with charismatic gusto.
But Warner Bros. was too busy cranking out down-and-dirty genre films to concern itself with promoting
another possible star. (Career management was never the studio's strong suit, as
evidenced by its legendary mishandling of Bette Davis and James Cagney who were continually given inferior
material after proving their star power).
Unfortunately,
Black Legion, despite its dramatic impact, critical acclaim and Bogart's standout
performance, was promoted no differently than any other Warner Bros. assembly line feature. Bogart wouldn't
ascend to superstardom until several years later, when he appeared in Raoul Walsh's
High Sierra
(1941), and, 66 years later, he remains an American icon.
Director: Archie Mayo
Producer: Robert Lord
Screenplay: Abem Finkel, William Wister Haines (based on a story by Robert Lord)
Editor: Owen Marks
Cinematographer: George Barnes
Music: Bernhard Kaun
Costumes Design: Milo Anderson
Cast: Humphrey Bogart (Frank Taylor), Dick Foran (Ed Jackson), Erin O'Brien-Moore (Ruth Taylor), Ann
Sheridan (Betty Grogan), Robert Barrat (Brown), Helen Flint (Pearl Davis), Joe Sawyer (Cliff Moore), Henry
Brandon (Joe Dombrowski).
B&W-83m.
by Paul Tatara
Black Legion
Tough and hard-hitting,
Black Legion (1937) features one of
Humphrey Bogart's more interesting and challenging roles of the 1930s.
Just a year earlier, Bogart hit the big time with his riveting turn as Duke
Mantee in
The Petrified Forest (1936); here he is asked to deliver a
less showy but more layered performance as a depressed factory worker
lured to join a Ku Klux Klan-type organization called "The Black
Legion."
Bogart plays Frank Taylor, a blue-collar worker in a machine shop (which
was and still is a real shop on the Warner Brothers lot). Taylor's not very
educated, but he is a decent and solid worker who does his job well and
expects a promotion to foreman. Instead, the job goes to worker named
Joe Dombrowski (Henry Brandon), whom the film clearly implies is a Polish
Jew. Stunned and depressed, Taylor retreats into himself at home, ignoring
his wife and son. Another machinist named Cliff (Joe Sawyer), who had
made some racist remarks about Dombrowski, senses Taylor's state of
mind and invites him to join a secret group called The Black Legion. At a
Legion meeting, a Hitler-esque speaker riles up Taylor and others even
more, with talk of "rotten, ungrateful foreigners" and the need to remain
"free, white, 100% Americans."
Taylor joins, and is forced to take an oath of allegiance at gunpoint,
consigning his soul to the devil for all eternity if he should ever betray the
organization. Afterwards, he's made to shell out some bucks for a uniform
and revolver. The movie is smart enough to include this - to show not only
how repugnant beliefs can prey on the weak-minded and easily
manipulated, but also how it's all a scam, a cynical way to make money,
which makes it perhaps even worse.
In any case, Taylor is soon wearing a KKK-style hooded uniform and
carrying out raids against immigrants and other undesirables, stringing
them up to be whipped or forcing them out of town. These scenes are
scary and powerful, and the movie as a whole is utterly compelling (which
explains why Robert Lord drew an Oscar nomination for Best Original
Story.) Eventually, Taylor has second thoughts about his decision but
finds it may be too late to do anything about it. His marriage deteriorates,
and ultimately the picture becomes about whether Taylor has the spine to
make things as right as possible under the circumstances. A final
courtroom sequence is superbly written and directed, and Bogart really
steps up well here, asked to say one thing and show another.
Even more impressive is the way director Archie Mayo and his studio editor
weave in a purely visual "second" story to this sequence: that of Taylor and
his wife. Using just camera movement, close-ups and well-timed cuts while
Taylor, the lawyer and the judge exchange dialogue about the case, we
easily see that what's
really going on is the devastation of Taylor's
wife, Taylor's self-hatred at having to lie on the stand, his desire to tell the
truth and do right by her, and so on; they essentially communicate with
each other (and us) by cinematic means, right down to the powerful
fade-out. It's the kind of simple storytelling one sees too rarely in movies
anymore, and which used to be a normal part of moviemaking even in
ordinary studio products like this one.
Erin O'Brien-Moore also deserves credit as Bogart's wife in making that
sequence work. Best known (if at all) for this film and
The Life of Emile
Zola (1937), she is quite appealing and attractive, and a fine actress.
Unfortunately her face would be disfigured in a 1939 nightclub fire and her
rise to stardom curtailed; she subsequently moved to radio, eventually
returning to the screen on television and a few minor movie roles in the
1950s. Also in the cast is a young Ann Sheridan, before she became
really famous. She is very charming here in a way that changed noticeably
when she was glamorized into "The Oomph Girl."
One of the astonishing things about
Black Legion is how bizarrely
relevant its depiction of xenophobia is to the America of 2008. Some of
today's radio and TV personalities aren't too far off from the kind of
demagogic talk that Bogart hears on the radio in this movie: "Hordes of
grasping, pushing foreigners are stealing jobs from American workmen and
bread from American homes," exclaims the radio host. "It is to combat
this peril, to preserve and protect standards of living which have made
American workmen the envy of the world, that we the challengers have
raised our rallying cry 'America For Americans!'... The real, 100%
American, must stop and think. He who is not with us is against us." The
radio tirade taps into Taylor's (Bogart's) sense of frustration and anger:
"Listen to this guy - he's talking sense," he tells his son while listening.
Interestingly,
Black Legion is the best known of a mini-spate of
similar movies which came out at the time. The others were
Legion of
Terror (1936) and
Nation Aflame (1937).
Warner Home Video's DVD boasts fine picture and sound and comes with
appealing extras. The commentary by film historians Anthony Slide and
Patricia King Hanson shows they've done their homework and know their
stuff. A somewhat bizarre 2-reeler called
Under Southern Stars
(1937) is a reverential look at Stonewall Jackson's last Civil War battle and
his death. Filmed in 3-strip Technicolor, it has pretty good production
values and costumes and mixes in some musical numbers. There's also a
period newsreel, a great Cab Calloway Vitaphone short, a Porky Pig
cartoon, and trailers for
Black Legion and
The Perfect
Specimen (1937).
Black Legion is available by itself or as part of The Warner
Gangsters Collection Vol. 3, which also includes
Smart Money
(1931),
Picture Snatcher (1933),
Lady Killer (1933),
The
Mayor of Hell (1933) and
Black Orchid (1940). There is no
question that it is a better value and totally worth it to get the entire
collection. These are very strong movies and they all come with many
entertaining extras. Warner Home Video continues its excellent job of
packaging and releasing its classic movie collection. Only a few weeks ago
the label released its Forbidden Hollywood Collection Vol. 2, a set of
pre-Code films and another gem for movie lovers. Most of the titles in this
Gangster collection are also pre-Code. Together, the sets should provide
several weeks' worth of first-class home entertainment.
For more information about
Black Legion, visit
Warner Video. To order
Black
Legion, go to
TCM
Shopping.
by Jeremy Arnold
