what I thought was silliest part
When Bogart is voluntarily joining the Black Legion he reads and takes his oath with an actual pistol held to his head.
I found that to be ludicrous.
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MovieChat Forums > Black Legion (1937) Discussion > what I thought was silliest part
Hey folks,
I had to agree with Dr4sight about the initiation scene being ridiculous. It was not, however, much different than the initiation rites long practiced by some organizations to this day. When initiated into a Masonic lodge, a candidate is certainly subjected to a number of similarly ludicrous indignities as depicted in this film. The Masonic candidate is hooded so he cannot see as he is stuck in the chest on the points of a tool and is also required to recite a blood oath much the same as the one recited by Bogart in the film.
While fraternal organizations such as the Masons can not be compared to the vile Black Legion depicted in the film, the whole idea of grown men submitting to silly initation rituals and blood oaths is beyond my understanding.
How someone gets sucked into a nefarious organization as depicted by the Black Legion is beyond my comprehension, but all we have to do is look to the rise of the National Socialist party in 1930s Germany. I don't unerstand how the German people could go along with the Nazi party, but they obviously did. It seems at times there is no explaining human behavior. Our own practice of moving Americans of Japanese decent to internment camps during World War II seems beyond comprehension to me, but it was obviously the policy of our government and accepted by its citizens at that time.
If I had been an adult during that war, perhaps I might have also gone along with the Japanese internment hysteria of those times, but somehow I hold out the hope that I would have rejected those ideas then as I and most others would do today.
Yes, the initiation scene was quite ludicrous as Dr4sight noted, but it did remind me of some very frightening aspects that man actually does practice.
Best wishes,
Dave Wile
where is the anti commie movie
shareThe internment of Japanese Americans in WWII was a mistake; however it bears no comparison to what was done to Jews and other minorities in Europe by the Nazis. The Japanese in the U.S. were not enslaved, experimented on, tortured, starved, or executed. As wrong as the situation was, they were still treated humanely and eventually restored to freedom and full citizenship.
shareI don't think it's ridiculous at all. I've been in a fraternity and I'm a former Marine. Initiations like this are far from inconceivable today. The gun to the head really drives home the gravity of the initiation. It's like a blood-in blood-out type deal.
Moreover, the film is based on the actual Black Legion murder case. Supposedly the details of the initiation were taken from the actual case...
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It does look sort of ridiculous on film but it was a way to impose/impress the idea of getting killed if one tried to leave the secret organization later.
"Did you make coffee? Make it!"--Cheyenne.
I found a very good blog with an artists first-hand account of the source incident for this movie. It describes the initiation in full detail, including the gun-to-the-head part. It's at:
http://art-for-a-change.com/blog/2013/01/maurice-merlin-the-black-legion.html
The Few, But Proud, Then And Now
Very interesting read. Thank you for taking the time to share it with us.