Legion of Terror (1936)
Two newly-appointed postal inspectors, Frank Marshall and 'Slim" Hewitt, set out to track down the sender of a time-bomb to a U. S. Senator and, during their investigation, run across a hooded organization that is terrorizing an American city. They also meet Don Foster, who is loud in his condemnation of the terrorists, and his sister, Nancy, who fears for her brother's life.
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This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.
The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.
It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
Legion of Terror has all the trademarks of the "B" film it was, although with an unusual plot. The film was produced at the cost-conscious Columbia studio, and shot in three weeks. The 63 minute Legion of Terror employed talent of considerable lesser quality than benefited Outcast, individuals who were assigned more for the fact that they were under contract (such as director C.C. Coleman) than for the particular talent for the task at hand. Legion of Terror portrays a town where a "Hooded Legion" has taken full control, including the local newspaper. Government investigators, led by Bruce Cabot, go undercover as factory workers and are able to join the group to discover the men who run it. After one man who tried to protest is killed, the National Guard is brought in to arrest the legion members, and the group's leaders are burned to death when their car overturns. The movie includes a warning that Americans are such "joiners" that they are easily liable to be exploited by such organizations as the legion--or the KKK. Legion of Terror (scripted by Bert Granet) was based on the same incident, the unmasking of the Detroit Black Legion, that formed the basis for Warner's better-remembered Black Legion although Columbia's Legion of Terror was actually made a year earlier.