Review of Black Legion (1937) by David F — 26 May 2011

Pretty strong cautionary tale for its day finds Humphrey Bogart as a loving husband and father who joins a secretive terror organizationvvery similar to the KKK after the promotion he is expecting is given to a clever and hard-working young man named 'Dombrowski'.

Convinced that 'foreigners' and 'anarchists' are poised to take over the country, he finds himself duped and trapped by the hatemongers and from there descends into a nightmarish downward spiral that costs him his friends, his family and eventually, his freedom.

Quite a different role for Bogie - his character of Frank Taylor is weak-willed, gullible and easily intimidated - but at least he gets wise at the end. The terrors perpetrated by the 'Black Legion' are also quite tame, and are directed at very vague 'non-American' targets.

Quite astonishingly, there is no violence depicted against African-Americans, but instead their watered-down wrath is directed at - wait for it - the Irish!