Legion of Terror

"Legion of Terror" reminds me of two films...."Appointment with Danger" and "Black Legion". Of the two, "Legion of Terror" is most like "Black Legion". Both films are about a KKK-like organization which uses terror to enforce its will. Bizarrely, the organizations are NOT racist...which means that Hollywood was too afraid to offend Klan supporters in the USA. In other words, it's an exposee with its guts removed. I also found it like "Appointment with Danger" because both films are about postal inspectors who investigate crime.

The story begins with a Senator being sent a bomb. Postal Inspector Frank Marshall (Bruce Cabot) disarms the device and then heads to a small town where a terrorist organization, The Hooded Legion, is headquartered. He and a fellow Inspector pose as normal guys looking for work and they soon discover that the Legion is so powerful there that no one can get a job unless they are a member. So, the pair join and work there way into this evil organization.

This is a very entertaining B-movie from Columbia Pictures. As I mentioned above, however, the racist elements have all been removed...which really makes no sense...especially since the members all wear KKK-style outfits! Additionally, Ward Bond REALLY overacts in the movie. The bottom line is that while it's a bad film in some ways, it's never dull and does keep your interest.

Legion of Terror has all the trademarks of the "B" film it was, although with an unusual plot. The film was produced at the cost-conscious Columbia studio, and shot in three weeks. The 63 minute Legion of Terror employed talent of considerable lesser quality than benefited Outcast, individuals who were assigned more for the fact that they were under contract (such as director C.C. Coleman) than for the particular talent for the task at hand. Legion of Terror portrays a town where a "Hooded Legion" has taken full control, including the local newspaper. Government investigators, led by Bruce Cabot, go undercover as factory workers and are able to join the group to discover the men who run it. After one man who tried to protest is killed, the National Guard is brought in to arrest the legion members, and the group's leaders are burned to death when their car overturns. The movie includes a warning that Americans are such "joiners" that they are easily liable to be exploited by such organizations as the legion--or the KKK. Legion of Terror (scripted by Bert Granet) was based on the same incident, the unmasking of the Detroit Black Legion, that formed the basis for Warner's better-remembered Black Legion –although Columbia's Legion of Terror was actually made a year earlier.

Newly appointed Postal Inspectors Bruce Cabot and Crawford Weaver are assigned to some threatening letters sent to prominent people. This sends them to a small city, where Cabot becomes friends with Ward Bond, whose angry with the Ku Klux Klan-like organization that is organizing for a campaign of national domination, and Bond's sister, Marguerite Churchill. Bond decides to go to newspaper editor Charles Brown with the story, but it turns out Brown is actually in charge of the organization; he gets Bond smeared as a dangerous drunk driver, and then taken for a ride. Meanwhile, Cabot and Weaver join the organization to figure out what is going on.

There's little mystery here, given we know Brown is in charge, but a certain amount of suspense while the audience wonders if the investigators are going to figure out who the bad guys are before the bad guys figure out who they are. Charles Coleman directs for speed, but despite being an Oscar-winning Second Unit director himself,t he second-unit work here is not impressive. With John Hamilton (whose character is named Robert Cummings!), Harry Davenport, and Ralph Dunn.

That may sound like a harsh judgment, especially since I thought the film was likable and had some appeal. It's just that the theme has been done thousands of times in thousands of movies; good guys vs bad guys, forces of evil working against a naive subject, government to the rescue, etc.. But I think when you're watching the situation for the first time the movie goes down easier. Now it's 80 years later and you can almost write the script for yourself, complete with odd coincidences and facilitated circumstances that are harder in real life.

That said, there are good acting turns here for Bruce Cabot and Ward Bond, who may have had his only starring role, and a host of movie supporting actors, including John Hamilton, who gets to preachify against subversive groups "wherever they may be found". The KKK threat may have subsided but it was more of a current topic to audiences in 1936. And it's only 65 minutes long, just enough for easy viewing. Shown at Capitolfest, Rome, NY, 8/19.

****** 6/10 - Website no longer prints my star rating.