La légion noire

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--and things take an immediate turn for the worse after that. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this turned out to be a pretty good movie with Humphrey Bogart beginning to establish himself as the superstar he eventually became. One interesting aspect of this film is that he 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, this was a very good movie for its time, and I think anyone who gives it a chance will be glad they did.

Most of the previous reviews get it right about Black Legion; it's not Bogart's best by a long shot. But here's the catch: it's not a "thinly veiled" swipe at the KKK. It's about the actual, real-life Black Legion. I know; you've never heard of it. Neither did I, until I was cleaning out the stack of magazines in our Indiana farmhouse. Let's hear it for hoarding, because there it was, as large as one of those Life Magazines - a profile on ...the Black Legion.

I was horrified, but it did exist:

"The Black Legion was a secret vigilante terrorist group and a white supremacist organization in the Midwestern United States that splintered from the Ku Klux Klan and operated during the Great Depression of the 1930s. According to historian Rick Perlstein, the FBI estimated its membership "at 135,000, including a large number of public officials, possibly including Detroit's police chief." In 1936 the group was suspected of assassinating as many as 50 people according to the Associated Press.[1]

The white paramilitary group was founded in the 1920s by William Shepard in east central Ohio in the Appalachian region, as a security force named the Black Guard in order to protect Ku Klux Klan officers.[2][3] The Legion became active in chapters throughout Ohio. One of its self-described leaders, Virgil "Bert" Effinger, lived and worked in Lima, Ohio."

So why is there so little in our history books about it? It was a relatively short lived hate group, but it showed up in other places: "Hollywood, radio and the press responded to the lurid nature of the Legion with works that referred to it. Legion of Terror (1936) starred Ward Bond and Bruce Cabot, and was based on this group. Black Legion (1937), a feature film, starred Humphrey Bogart. True Detective Mysteries, a radio show based on the magazine of the same title, broadcast an episode on April 1, 1937 that referred directly to the Black Legion and Poole's murder. The radio show The Shadow, with Orson Welles in the title role, broadcast an episode on March 20, 1938, entitled "The White Legion"; it was based loosely on the Black Legion. Malcolm X and Alex Haley collaborated on the leader's The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965); he noted the Legion as being active in Lansing, Michigan where his family lived. Malcolm X was six when his father died in 1931; he believed the father was killed by the Black Legion. The TV series History's Mysteries presented an episode about the group entitled "Terror in the Heartland: The Black Legion" (1998).

I realize I haven't written much about the movie; others have done that well. But we need to accept that this... is based on real life.

A frustrated Humphrey Bogart joins the "Black Legion," a 1937 film directed by Archie Mayo. The film also stars Dick Foran and Ann Sheridan.

Bogart plays Frank Taylor, a husband and father who expects to get a promotion at the auto plant where he works. It goes instead to a young, hard-working man named Dombrowski. When Frank doesn't get the job, he's furious. That night on the radio he hears the head of the Black Legion railing against foreigners taking American jobs, and he decides to join them.

The Black Legion, of course, is the Ku Klux Klan, with the sheets and the whole deal. Their methods are brutal - fires, flogging, beatings, etc.

It appears all you needed was a foreign last name to qualify as a victim of this group. Back in the '20s and '30s, Italians, Irish, and other immigrant groups could only get menial jobs like sweeping floors, the prejudice against them was so great.

It was quite a forward step to make a film about this back in 1937, and it's a good one. Bogart at the time was about 37, and we're so used to seeing him older that he looks like a baby here. He's terrific as a loving father and husband who becomes a new, violent person under the influence of the Legion. He loses more than he gains. It's a great example of how easily people can find a scapegoat for their troubles.

Ann Sheridan has a supporting role -- she's very young but recognizable from her voice! Good movie.

While Hitler in Germany was doing away with the Jews,there were in other countries small groups whose leaders (the scene when Bogart attends the first meeting is revealing) yell " America just for the Americans!" Bogart portrays Frank ,a working man, a good husband, a tender father,a jolly good fellow,a nice guy.He's waiting for his promotion : to become a foreman will be the crowning a hard-working life .But there's just one problem: the job is given to a Hungarian,a self-made man who spends his days and nights in the books ,for he believes in the American dream.Frank's hatred will know no bounds.It will not be long till he falls into the hands of a KKK -like secret society,whose scapegoats are those aliens who take the bread out of our mouth,who steal our jobs ,our women and our land...

Archie Mayo's film is absorbing and Bogart is extraordinary: little by little,a good guy turning into a monster;but that's not all.Mayo also puts the blame on the wealthy educated people who work behind the scenes :the scene when they do their books (well how much for the revolvers?)makes your hair stand on end.

But what's fascinating in Mayo's movie is that it's still relevant today,and not only in America.In France ,in 2002,there was a man like THAT in the second ballot of the presidential election:a man who yelled "France only for the French!" and who is still yelling at my time of writing.

Very unusual movie for Humphrey Bogart, made a few years before he would become a headline star for WB. He plays a machine shop worker who takes for granted that he will become his shop's new foreman because of his seniority. But when they give it to an educated young Polish-American instead, Bogie becomes resentful and angry. This leads him to joining up with a hate group known as the Black Legion, which is basically the KKK. The Black Legion has a pledge that has to be heard to be believed, so make sure you pay attention to it.

Strong performance from Bogie, as well as a great supporting cast that includes Ann Sheridan, Dick Foran, Joe Sawyer, John Litel, Samuel S. Hinds, and more. A lot of people seem to pick on the movie for not being strong enough in its message, despite the fact that they can't point to any other movies from the period that were even brave enough to try this much. They did what they could do. It's a powerful movie, even if it seems watered down by today's standards. But today we aren't exactly living in the age of subtlety, are we?