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Candidates for the National Film Registry:
Outcast & The Legion of Terror

Introduction by Brian Taves

The two films we're showing this evening, OUTCAST and LEGION OF TERROR, reveal a frequent flaw in conventional Hollywood historiography. Studies of social problems films of the 1930s have discussed in detail the so-called "anti-lynching" cycle including such well-known movies as BLACK LEGION, THEY WON'T FORGET, and FURY. However, tonight's films, while just as significant a part of that cycle, have been overlooked almost completely by historians.

This is because OUTCAST and LEGION OF TERROR are not part of the "canon," the accepted, legitimated group of works, in any art, that have been exalted as worthy of study. In film history, this is typically confined to so-called "A" films or specials, big budget pictures with major stars on which the studios lavished time and expense, and which in turn played in the most elegant downtown theaters--and typically, can still be seen today on television. However, while most Hollywood chronicles concentrate almost exclusively on "As," such monied films represent barely a third of the total feature film output of the American movie industry in the 1930s. The other two thirds included programmers--pictures that could play either the top or bottom of a double bill--and "Bs," films aimed at filling the lower half of a double bill. They range from the comparatively elaborate "Bs"of the major studios to pictures turned out by independent companies operating on the fringes of Hollywood's poverty row. Today such films are almost impossible to see on television, and tonight's program demonstrates what a loss that can mean.

Programmers and "Bs" encompassed an array of diverse approaches to movie making, and low-budgets did not mean poor quality; often demanding an improvisation and inventiveness that varied Hollywood's generic formulas and the classical style of "A" films . With the emphasis on finishing the picture on time and within the budget, and without the reputations of major stars and expense at risk, there was less pressure to aim for the widest possible audience. For example, one scene in OUTCAST retains its shock value today, showing the grueling operation on a child, and his sudden, accidental murder by his mother. With regard to tonight's theme, attitudes toward the Klan and lynching in the 1930s, programmers and "Bs" are at least as relevatory of historical trends as their "A" counterparts, if not more so--constituting in many ways a more accurate reflection of their times than the opulence that characterized the "As."

Tonight's films offer two divergent examples of how programmers and "Bs" do not deserve to be forgotten. The first film, OUTCAST, is an example of a programmer, almost a full-fledged "A." Producer Emmanuel Cohen had achieved success at Paramount, and became an independent, forming Major Productions on his own with release through Paramount. For OUTCAST, he gathered a sterling group on both sides of the camera, from star Warren William, a popular romantic lead in a variety of genres, and supporting players Karen Morley, a prominent Hollywood leftist, and Lewis Stone, in one of his last roles before donning the mantle of "Judge Hardy." Cinematography was by the distinguished European and future director Rudolph Maté, who had only been working a couple of years in the United States. The script was by Doris Malloy and Dore Schary, future MGM studio chief famed for producing social problem films. Director of OUTCAST was Robert Florey, who had gained fame in the avant-garde and in the early 1930s helped to shape the Universal horror cycle, writing and directing such films as FRANKENSTEIN and MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. In OUTCAST, Florey reveals an increasing stylistic sophistication, blending the German Expressionist visuals which had marked his earlier work with an increased naturalist influence, that would eventually coalesce in the 1940s when Florey became one of the leaders in Hollywood's shift to a realistic style. The interiors of OUTCAST were not actually shot at the Paramount lot, but at the General Service Studios, as well as a location trip to Nevada for the wintry outdoor scenes. With its intelligent acting, careful pacing, emphasis on character, and elaborate settings and photography, OUTCAST was clearly a quality film in every aspect of its production. It demonstrates how a seemingly cozy small town can ignite into mob violence, and only a last-minute determination to abruptly shift the mood, to leave the audience with a smile on their face, undercuts its impact today.

LEGION OF TERROR is no less interesting, but has all the trademarks of the "B" film it was. It was produced at one of the budget-conscious studios, Columbia, that emphasized "B" product, and was shot in three weeks, less than half the six week shooting schedule of OUTCAST. LEGION OF TERROR employed talent of considerable lesser quality than benefitted OUTCAST, individuals who were assigned more for the fact that they were under contract than for the particular talent for the task at hand. Yet LEGION OF TERROR comes perhaps closest of all these films in the anti-lynching cycle, both big and small budget, to addressing the racial dimension at the core of the problem. In fact, it 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.

To fully understand the range of Hollywood's product in writing its history, we must examine not only the canonized work that has received attention already, but seek out those forgotten films which, in their own time, were no less the product, and manifestation, of the very same forces in the film industry and society at large. Tonight's program may be regarded as a completion of the portrait of a segment of Hollywood history, filling the gap of programmers and "Bs" that has too often been an accepted missing chapter. The Library is pleased to present these two films tonight, in the first screening of prints newly restored from the original nitrate negatives by our Motion Picture Conservation Center, so that these relatively forgotten films in this cycle may have the opportunity to be examined again over sixty years after they were produced.

M/B/RS staff member Brian Taves (Ph.D., University of Southern California) is author of Robert Florey, The French Expressionist (Scarecrow Press, 1987).