Black Legion

Frank Taylor works in a factory and does not get the promotion he expected; it goes to another worker of immigrant background. Angry and looking for an explanation, he is taken by a friend to a secret organisation. It is called the Black Legion; the members wear robes, swear an oath and talk about driving foreigners out of the country. Frank pays dues at first, then starts carrying a gun. Archie Mayo directs. Humphrey Bogart plays Frank. The source is real. The Black Legion operated in Michigan and around it in the thirties; the trial that followed the killing of a worker became national news, and Warner Bros. made the film immediately afterwards. What is striking is that it does not present Frank as a monster. He is ordinary, loves his family, and his anger is comprehensible; the organisation recruits him not with ideology but with shared grievance. Warner Bros. was known at the time for films on social subjects, and this is among the harder examples of that line. Bogart was not yet a lead; the performance drew attention and is counted among the roles that moved him out of playing villains. The structure, which ends in a courtroom, is over explanatory from here; the film delivers a lesson in its last scene. Who it is for: viewers who follow thirties Warner Bros. social drama and early Bogart. Who it is not for: the narrative sermonises, everyone outside the central characters is thinly drawn, and the ending is too tidy.