Particularly considering the year -- 1937 -- this is a remarkably powerful film. Powerful enough that the original story received an Academy Award nomination, and Humphrey Bogart was named best actor by the National Board Of Review. And although this is a year after "The Petrified Forest", I have to rate this film and Bogart's performance here as far superior.
Humphrey Bogart's acting as a simple factory worker who gets wrapped up in the Black Legion (a sort of KKK organization) is remarkable. First, the common man with a nice wife and wonderful kid. Then he loses out on a promotion to a "foreigner", and he becomes a bitter man. Then he joins the Black Legion and becomes a cruel thug. And then, when he murders his own friend (Dick Foran) he becomes a humbled and scared man who -- in the end -- stands up in court and names names, exposing the secret society, but also results in putting himself in prison for life.
Dick Foran is good here, as in Bogart's wife Erin O'Brien-Moore. You almost won't recognize Ann Sheridan as the neighbor, but you will recognize many of the character actors in this film...although you probably won't know their names.
This film is based on a real-life story that occurred in 1935. The Ku Klux Klan actually sued Warner Brothers for patent infringement for the film's use of a patented Klan insignia, but a judge threw out the case. Interestingly, first choice for the lead character was Edward G. Robinson -- a much bigger star at the time. Fortunately, he was too busy, because as an ethic looking actor, he would have been badly miscast in a story about resentment about foreigners! An "8"!
Humphrey Bogart's acting as a simple factory worker who gets wrapped up in the Black Legion (a sort of KKK organization) is remarkable. First, the common man with a nice wife and wonderful kid. Then he loses out on a promotion to a "foreigner", and he becomes a bitter man. Then he joins the Black Legion and becomes a cruel thug. And then, when he murders his own friend (Dick Foran) he becomes a humbled and scared man who -- in the end -- stands up in court and names names, exposing the secret society, but also results in putting himself in prison for life.
Dick Foran is good here, as in Bogart's wife Erin O'Brien-Moore. You almost won't recognize Ann Sheridan as the neighbor, but you will recognize many of the character actors in this film...although you probably won't know their names.
This film is based on a real-life story that occurred in 1935. The Ku Klux Klan actually sued Warner Brothers for patent infringement for the film's use of a patented Klan insignia, but a judge threw out the case. Interestingly, first choice for the lead character was Edward G. Robinson -- a much bigger star at the time. Fortunately, he was too busy, because as an ethic looking actor, he would have been badly miscast in a story about resentment about foreigners! An "8"!