August 2018

Hey! We’re back! And another Saturday means another Saturday Double Feature!

Okay, let’s start with a quick recap of the “rules”, shall we? The basic idea here is to take a movie that is out in theaters now, and pair it up with another movie from the 1980s or before. Sometimes the connection will be obvious, and sometimes it’ll be a little less so, but that’s part of the fun.

It looks like there will be two movies vying for the top spot this weekend, but the one that interests me most is Spoke Lee’s latest project, BlacKkKlansman,

Set in 1979, the movie, “based on a true story” (sorry, but I always put that in quotes, because quite often it means “I heard about this once from a friend of mine”) is the story of an African-American detective who tries to infiltrate and expose the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

The movie stars John David Washington (the son of Denzel as Detective Ron Stallworth and Adam Driver as Detective Flip Zimmerman who is the white officer who provides a face for Stallworth when he is unable to avoid showing his.

Spike Lee can always be counted on to make interesting and provocative movies, and the fact that among the names of the producers are Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions and Jordan Peele, fresh off last year’s Get Out just serves to fuel my interest even more.

Here’s your trailer:

Of course, this is far from the first time the Klan has been depicted on screen, perhaps most famously in D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation. Instead of going with that one, though, I thought we’d take a look at a slightly different hate group Michigan’s Black Legion.

The 1937 film Black Legion stars Humphrey Bogart as Frank Taylor, a midwestern factory worker who is passed over for a promotion in favor of an immigrant friend. Taylor soon joins the ranks of the Black Legion (a pseudo KKK anti-immigrant group) who drive the immigrant from town, allowing Taylor to get the job he “deserves”.

From there, however, things actually start to go downhill for Taylor, who increasingly finds the Legion an outlet for his frustrations and hatred and an excuse to indulge his most vile impulses.

So what do you think? What would you choose for a double feature with BlacKkKlansman? Leave your thoughts in the comments, along with ideas of any other upcoming movies you’d like to see “double featured”. Consider it, if you will, your chance to challenge me to come up with an interesting pair.

Until next time, Happy Viewing!