2. Black Legion (1937)
Frank Taylor (Humphrey Bogart) is passed over for promotion in favour of an immigrant friend of his. Bitter at the world, he joins the Black Legion, a white supremacist organisation that is the Northern equivalent of the KKK. In black ceremonial garb, Frank and the legion burn down his friend's chicken farm and force him out of town thus enabling Frank to get the job he wants. However, too busy bothering to recruit new members, Frank's work performance suffers and he is demoted. Mike Grogan is given his job. Again, Frank and the Legion burn Grogan out of town. Frank becomes a vicious racist and alienates his wife. He takes up with a floozy. His friend Ed Jackson tries to counsel him and Frank confesses his Legion activity. He then confesses this to Cliff, a co-worker and fellow legion member. Cliff, in turn, spreads a rumour Jackson is a wife beater. On the pretence of lynching Jackson as a wife beater, the Legion catch him with the intent of flogging him. He breaks free and Frank shoots him. The Legion threaten his wife and son to prevent him from squealing on them but Frank breaks down and confesses and the members of the Black Legion are arrested and convicted of murder. This Warner Brothers melodrama was quite brave in its intention - to rip the lid off secret corners of bigoted, disaffected American society who feel the need to set up secret societies and indulge in acts of terrorism against scapegoated minorities. The film has a verisimilitude that a film like Storm Warning perhaps does not have. It is open in its bitterness and hatred against ethnic minorities and the costumes use the KKK insignia (the KKK tried unsuccessfully to sue the film makers). The initiation oath and court scenes are based on fact. The sad thing is - the film is still relevant today: people being bitter over the level of immigration and migrants taking up employment. Altogether now, in your best South Park voice: "They took our jobs!"