REVIEWED BY DAN STUMPF:


BLACK LEGION. Warner Brothers, 1937. Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, Dick Foran, Erin O’Brien-Moore, Joe Sawyer and Henry Brandon. Screenplay by Abem Finkel and William Wister Haines, from a story by Robert Lord. Directed by Archie Mayo and Michael Curtiz.

   I hate it when a film like this becomes relevant again.

   In its day, Black Legion was merely topical, based on the true story of a splinter group spun off of the KKK. Topical yes, but sometimes News becomes History, and you know what they say about those who don’t remember the past—they fail History Exams.

   Humphrey Bogart was still an also-ran in 1937, with The Petrified Forest behind him, and Dead End coming up, but also plenty of things like Swing Your Lady and The Return of Dr X in his future. He seems to have realized early on that this was an important part and he gives it the most self-effacing performance of his career.

   When Bogie plays Frank Taylor, the gullible working stiff, there’s no glimmer of intelligence behind his eyes, no imagination beyond the American Dream of a nice house with a white picket fence and a wife and child waiting there. And when an émigré (Henry Brandon) gets the promotion Frank was expecting and the dream is snatched from him, his expression of hurt and bewilderment is more than convincing: It’s scary.

   Even more so when Taylor starts listening to radio commentators warning of the tide of foreigners flooding into our country, here to take our jobs and pollute our heritage. So when a co-worker (Joe Sawyer, masterfully cast here) tells him of a “group of guys” that aren’t going to stand for this anymore, we pretty much know where he’s headed—though I suspect few viewers will foresee the outcome.

   This is because the writers do a fine job of keeping the Black Legion at the edge of silliness, with their preposterously grim oath (Bogie nearly chokes on it.) passwords and fake piety. But when the silliness turns grim and deadly, the laughter dies quickly.

   It would be easy at this point to start drawing parallels. Damn night irresistible in fact. But I ain’t gonna do it. Nossir, not me. Over the years, Black Legion has drawn some criticism for not being explicit about the KKK and racism, but I find that lack of specificity brings us to universality.

   Thus Black Legion is about bigotry, xenophobia and mob mentality, but it’s also about the ignorance in which they grow and the venality that feeds on them. And to me the parallels are just too plain to point out.