Black Legion

Black Legion is a 1937 movie, starring Humphrey Bogart and Erin O'Brien-Moore in a fictionalized story about the real-life Black Legion of the 1930s. Bogart plays Frank Taylor, a Detroit factory worker who joins the "pro-American" (i.e. anti-immigrants and "foreigners") Black Legion, portrayed as a northern chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, when he is passed over for promotion in favor of a foreign-born friend. Taylor feels pressured by the Legion, by... more

Black Legion is a 1937 movie, starring Humphrey Bogart and Erin O'Brien-Moore in a fictionalized story about the real-life Black Legion of the 1930s. Bogart plays Frank Taylor, a Detroit factory worker who joins the "pro-American" (i.e. anti-immigrants and "foreigners") Black Legion, portrayed as a northern chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, when he is passed over for promotion in favor of a foreign-born friend. Taylor feels pressured by the Legion, by his family's growing needs, and by his increasingly marginal status at his job, to turn against his new boss. When Taylor is ultimately (but regretfully) fired during a cutback, the Legion insists he get revenge, with their help – in return for his silence about them. The movie, while still presenting Bogart in a negative role, allowed him a sympathetic one, and his performance drew praise, as did the movie itself for its dramatization of a social phenomenon. Black Legion still holds up well, years after its first release. less