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Frank (Humphrey Bogart) has always enjoyed his job at the steel welding
company he's working at, and he's always been a hard worker and anything
but a troublemaker. So he thinks when promotion to foreman is up, he
deserves it - but then, Polish-born Dombrowski (Henry Brandon), a relative
rookie compared to Frank, is promoted in his place, mainly because he
spent his lunchbrearks and the evening hours to educate himself on the
steel welding process ... something for which Frank has actually defended
Dombrowski against his colleagues who liked to tease the
"bookworm". Still, Frank thinks Dombrowski's promotion should
have been his. This makes him easy prey for Cliff (Joe Sawyer), a
recruting officer for the Black Legion, a secretive racist organisation
comparable to the Ku Klux Klan (even down to their ridiculous outfits).
Frank has his reservations at first, especially when he hears their
ridiculous (but hateful) vow of allegiance, and he doesn't like to be
forced to carry a gun, either - but he does like when they (rather
violently) drive the Dombrowskis out of town, and he likes to get
Dombrowski's job as foreman ... as a bloody reward. However, when he tries
to recrute new members for the Black Legion during working hours and has a
worker leave his post unattended to talk him into joining, this causes
minor disaster in the company and has Frank demoted. Frank feels so
unfairly treated that he has his successor as foreman (Clifford Soubier)
beaten up by the Legion, even if the man is the father-in-law of his
colleague and best friend Ed (Dick Foran). From here on, Frank's life is
on a downward spiral: His wife (Erin O'Brien-Moore) leaves him, he starts
drinking, starts running around with a local slut, Pearl (Helen Flint), he
loses his job, and he gets into more and more fights with Ed - during one
of which he confesses he's a member of the Legion in a drunken state of
mind. He lets Cliff know what he has done immediately afterwards, and even
though betraying the League means death, Cliff finds a way to get Frank
out of the predicament ... but that leads to Frank having to shoot Ed
dead. Frank does so but breaks under the pressure and is arrested almost
immediately afterwards. The League finds a way to get him out of the
predicament, has Pearl testify in his favour and turn his murder into an
act of self defense - but when he's as good as off the hook, Frank's
conscience kicks in and in courtroom, he confesses everything he knows
about the League. Of course, that means he will be jailed for life, but at
least he has done the right thing in the end. A film that walks
the fine line between crime drama and message movie - and for the most
part successfully so, as it tells its story in a compelling and
comprehensible way, is well-paced and doesn't bore or annoy the viewer by
hammering home its point to violently and forgetting its story. Add to
this a great cast and an elegant directorial effort, and you're almost
there - but only almost, as the script at times seems a tad too blunt, at
times oversimplifies things, and at times falls into old clichées to push
its message along. But still, while it's no masterpiece, it's at least
an ok and totally watchable movie - that's actually also rather shocking
considering how little has changed in the 75 years since it was made.
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