Black Legion (film)
| Black Legion | |
|---|---|
theatrical poster
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| Directed by |
Archie Mayo Michael Curtiz (uncredited) |
| Produced by | Robert Lord |
| Written by |
Story: Robert Lord Screenplay: Abem Finkel William Wister Haines |
| Starring |
Humphrey Bogart Dick Foran Erin O'Brien-Moore Ann Sheridan |
| Music by |
W. Franke Harling Howard Jackson Bernhard Kaun (all uncredited) |
| Cinematography | George Barnes |
| Edited by | Owen Marks |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
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Release date
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January 17, 1937 (NYC) January 30, 1937 (US) |
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Running time
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83 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $235,000 |
Black Legion is a 1937 American crime drama film, directed by Archie Mayo, with a script by Abem Finkel and William Wister Haines based on an original story by producer Robert Lord. The film stars Humphrey Bogart, Dick Foran, Erin O'Brien-Moore and Ann Sheridan. It is a fictionalized treatment of the historic Black Legion of the 1930s in Michigan, a white vigilante group. A third of its members lived in Detroit, which had also been a center of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.
The plot is based on the May 1935 kidnapping and murder in Detroit of Charles A. Poole, a Works Progress Administration organizer. Twelve men were tried and 11 convicted of his murder; all were sentenced to life. Authorities prosecuted another 37 men for related crimes; they were also convicted and sentenced to prison, breaking up the Legion. Columbia Pictures had made Legion of Terror (1936) based on the same case.
Black Legion was praised by critics for its dramatization of a dark social phenomenon. It was one of several films of this period relating anti-fascism to opposition to fascist and racist organizations. A number of reviewers commented that Bogart's performance should lead to his becoming a major star. Warners did not give the film any special treatment, promoting it and Bogart in their standard fashion. Bogart's breakthrough would come in High Sierra in 1941.
When passed over for promotion at work in favor of a foreign-born friend, Frank Taylor (Humphrey Bogart), a midwestern factory worker, joins the anti-immigrant Black Legion, a secret white vigilante organization portrayed as related to the Ku Klux Klan. Dressed in black robes and hoods, Taylor and the Legion mount a torchlight raid and burn down the friend's chicken farm, driving him out of town, so that Taylor can gain the job he believed was his. Soon, however, Taylor's recruiting activities with the Legion get in the way of his work, and he is demoted in favor of neighbor Mike Grogan (Clifford Soubier). The Legion takes action again, attacking Grogan.
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