Legione nera

1937's "Black Legion" tells a story of a man's involvement with what amounts to the Klan without coming out and calling it that. Humphrey Bogart stars as Frank Taylor, a working man who loses a bid to become foreman when a foreign-born man gets the job instead. The Legion is right up Taylor's alley, reinforcing his belief that his woes are all the fault of the foreign-born. He gradually gets more immune to the violence as he gets in deeper and deeper with the Black Legion. It really is a very good vehicle for Bogart's acting talent as his morality gradually unwinds. The sermon at the end seems a little tacked on, much like a similar scene in 1933's "Wild Boys of the Road", but it doesn't detract too much from the overall film.

The Black Legion is significant in the career of Humphrey Bogart. This film is the first time he played the lead in an "A" feature. The film is also a great showcase for his acting talents.

In this film Bogey's character, Frank Taylor, moves from a happily married family man, to a man filled with hate and finally to a man remorseful for the trouble he has brought upon himself and others.

When Frank Taylor loses an expected promotion to a "foreigner", he becomes disillusioned and is coerced by a co-worker (Joseph Sawyer) into joining a secretive hate and Klu Klux Klan like organization called The Black Legion. Despite pleas from his wife (Erin O'Brien-Moore) and best friend (Dick Foran), Taylor continues his terrorist activities leading to the inevitable tragic consequences.

The subject of prejudice and hate organizations in a major studio production was quite daring for the 30s, given the introduction of the Production Code only a few years earlier. It still delivers a powerful message today.

The Black Legion remains one of the best of Bogey's early films.

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.

"Black Legion" was a very unusual role for Humphrey Bogart, but I think he got it because he was not yet an established star and Warner Brothers put him in many different sorts of parts. So, if you are looking for the tough and assertive sort of Bogart, this is NOT the film for you! No, Bogie plays a despicable sort of jerk--and a cowardly one at that.

The film begins at a machine shop. It seems that someone is going to be promoted to foreman and Bogart is sure it will be him. However, a Polish-American worker gets the job instead. While this man DID deserve it, Bogie is sullen and angry--and soon jumps at an opportunity to join a local hate club. The Black Legion is sort of like the KKK with its trappings but is more anti-foreigner in focus. So, to get back at the foreman, Bogart sicks his new 'friends' on them and he soon gets the job promotion. Where does all this new power lead him? See this powerful film and find out for yourself.

While I wish the film had taken a stronger and clearer stand against the Klan, it is a very powerful film for 1937, as many folks would have supported groups like the Legion. Groups like the American Bund and the popularity of antisemitic celebrities like Charles Lindburgh and Henry Ford (who wrote books espousing hatred of Jews, foreigners and the like) during this time could not be denied. In other words, this film might have alienated many potential viewers and the studio chose to take a deliberate stand for what is right. And, it's a strong film with a very good performance by Bogart in a VERY different sort of role. Well worth seeing--and probably a bit stronger in its message than the studio's "Storm Warning"--another anti-hate group film that was made a dozen years later.

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.