Plot
Frank Taylor works in a Midwestern factory and expects to receive a job promotion that has become available. When he is passed over in favor of hard-working Polish immigrant Joe Dombrowski, Taylor joins the Black Legion, a secret organization that drives away immigrants and racial minorities through violent means. Dressed in black robes, Taylor and the Black Legion go on a torchlight raid, driving Dombrowski and his family from their home. [3]
With Dombrowski gone, Taylor receives the promotion, but when the Black Legion leadership forces him to spend time recruiting new members, Taylor is demoted in favor of his Irish neighbor, Mike Grogan. That night, the Black Legion attacks Grogan. [4]
Taylor's co-worker and friend, Ed Jackson, who is married to Grogan's daughter, suspects Taylor is connected to the attacks on immigrants. Jackson mentions his concerns to Taylor's wife, Ruth, who confronts Taylor. When he responds to her with violence, Ruth leaves him. As his Black Legion activities and drinking increases, Taylor loses his job and begins a relationship with Pearl Danvers, a woman of ill repute. [4]
Seeing his friend's life unraveling, Jackson goes to see Taylor to express concern. A drunken Taylor tells Jackson about his secret life with the violent Black Legion. Afraid that his slip-of-the-tongue might prompt Jackson to go to the police, Taylor tells the Black Legion leadership what happened. The leadership orders Taylor to capture and execute Jackson. [3]
Unlike the Black Legion's other victims, Jackson is unafraid and threatens to go to the police. When Jackson tries to escape, Taylor panics and shoots him. Taylor is arrested for Jackson's murder. Ruth returns for Taylor's trial to support him. The lawyer for the Black Legion threatens Taylor's wife and son to stop him from implicating the hate organization, but filled with self-loathing, Taylor tells the truth in court. All of the members of the Black Legion are sentenced to life in prison for Jackson's murder. [4]
Fury is a 1936 American crime film directed by Fritz Lang that tells the story of an innocent man who narrowly escapes being burned to death by a lynch mob and the revenge he then seeks. The film was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and stars Sylvia Sidney and Tracy, with a supporting cast featuring Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot, Edward Ellis and Walter Brennan. Loosely based on the events surrounding the Brooke Hart murder in San Jose, California, the film was adapted by Bartlett Cormack and Lang from the story Mob Rule by Norman Krasna. Fury was Lang's first American film.
Marked Woman is a 1937 American dramatic crime film directed by Lloyd Bacon and starring Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart, with featured performances by Lola Lane, Isabel Jewell, Rosalind Marquis, Mayo Methot, Jane Bryan, Eduardo Ciannelli and Allen Jenkins. Set in the underworld of Manhattan, Marked Woman tells the story of a woman who dares to stand up to one of the city's most powerful gangsters.
The Black Legion was a white supremacist terrorist organization and hate group which was active in the Midwestern United States in the 1920s and the 1930s. It split off from the Ku Klux Klan and grew to prominence during the Great Depression. According to historian Rick Perlstein, the FBI estimated that its membership numbered "at 135,000, including a large number of public officials, including Detroit's police chief." Historian Peter H. Amann put the number at between 60,000 and 100,000, while John Earl Haynes said that it had at most only a few hundred members.
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Humphrey Bogart (1899–1957) was an American actor and producer whose 36-year career began with live stage productions in New York in 1920. He had been born into an affluent family in New York's Upper West Side, the first-born child and only son of illustrator Maud Humphrey and physician Belmont DeForest Bogart. The family eventually came to include his sisters Patricia and Catherine. His parents believed he would excel academically, possibly matriculate at Yale University and become a surgeon. They enrolled him in the private schools of Delancey, Trinity, and Phillips Academy, but Bogart was not inclined as a scholar and never completed his studies at Phillips, joining the United States Navy in 1918.
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The Maltese Falcon is a 1931 American pre-Code crime film based on the 1930 novel The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett and directed by Roy Del Ruth. The film stars Ricardo Cortez as private detective Sam Spade and Bebe Daniels as femme fatale Ruth Wonderly. The supporting cast features Dudley Digges, Thelma Todd, Walter Long, Una Merkel, and Dwight Frye. Maude Fulton and Brown Holmes wrote the screenplay; one contemporaneous report said that Lucien Hubbard was assisting them.
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Doctor X is a 1932 American pre-Code mystery horror film produced jointly by First National and Warner Bros. Based on the 1931 play originally titled The Terror by Howard W. Comstock and Allen C. Miller, it was directed by Michael Curtiz and stars Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray and Lee Tracy.
Thank Your Lucky Stars is a 1943 American musical comedy film made by Warner Brothers as a World War II fundraiser, with a slim plot involving theater producers. The stars donated their salaries to the Hollywood Canteen, which was founded by John Garfield and Bette Davis, who appear in this film. It was directed by David Butler and stars Eddie Cantor, Dennis Morgan, Joan Leslie, Edward Everett Horton and S.Z. Sakall.
The Last Flight is a 1931 American pre-Code ensemble cast film, starring Richard Barthelmess, David Manners, John Mack Brown and Helen Chandler. It was directed by German filmmaker William Dieterle in his debut as an English-language film director.
Invisible Stripes is a 1939 Warner Bros. crime film starring George Raft as a gangster unable to go straight after returning home from prison. The movie was directed by Lloyd Bacon and also features William Holden, Jane Bryan and Humphrey Bogart. The screenplay by Warren Duff was based on the novel of the same title by Warden Lewis E. Lawes, a fervent crusader for prison reform, as adapted by Jonathan Finn.
Storm Warning is a 1950 American thriller film noir starring Ginger Rogers, Ronald Reagan, Doris Day, and Steve Cochran. Directed by Stuart Heisler, it follows a fashion model (Rogers) traveling to a small Southern town to visit her sister (Day), who witnesses the brutal murder of an investigative journalist by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). The original screenplay was written by Richard Brooks and Daniel Fuchs.
They Drive by Night is a 1938 British black-and-white crime thriller film directed by Arthur B. Woods and starring Emlyn Williams as Shorty, an ex-con, and Ernest Thesiger as Walter Hoover, an ex-schoolmaster. It was produced by Warner Bros. - First National Productions and based on the 1938 novel They Drive by Night by James Curtis.
Night Must Fall is a 1937 American film adaptation of the 1935 play by Emlyn Williams, adapted by John Van Druten and directed by Richard Thorpe. It stars Robert Montgomery, Rosalind Russell and Dame May Whitty in her Hollywood film debut at age 72, who earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She reprised her role in the stage drama in London and New York City. A critical success, Night Must Fall was named the best film of the year by the National Board of Review. Robert Montgomery also received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role. A 1964 remake starred Albert Finney, although the remake did not do as well as the original.
All Through the Night is a 1942 American comedy-crime-spy thriller film directed by Vincent Sherman and starring Humphrey Bogart, Conrad Veidt and Kaaren Verne, and featuring many of the Warner Bros. company of character actors. It was released by Warner Brothers. The supporting cast features Peter Lorre, Frank McHugh, Jackie Gleason, Phil Silvers, Barton MacLane, and William Demarest.
The Time, the Place and the Girl is a 1946 American Technicolor musical comedy film directed by David Butler and starring Dennis Morgan, Jack Carson, Janis Paige and Martha Vickers. The film was produced and distributed by Warner Brothers. It is unrelated to the 1929 film The Time, the Place and the Girl.
Legion of Terror is a 1936 American drama/action film, directed by Charles C. Coleman. The film, which stars Bruce Cabot, Marguerite Churchill, Ward Bond, and Crawford Weaver, is a fictionalized story about the real-life Ku Klux Klan splinter group called the Black Legion of the 1930s. It was inspired by the May 1935 murder in Michigan of Charles Poole, a Works Progress Administration worker.
