One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Joe Radek (Paul Muni) is a simple-minded, hardworking immigrant coal miner who dreams of buying a farm and settling down with his girl, Anna (Karen Morley). But when Anna leaves him for another man, Joe falls apart and takes to drinking. In Joe's current state of mind, he's manipulated by a union buster (J. Carrol Naish) into revolting against the mining company. This has disastrous results for the laborers but Joe determines to set things right by any means necessary.Paul Muni's only film with director Michael Curtiz. As was often the case with Muni, his performance can be seen either as brilliant or 100% ham. Whichever it is, I enjoyed it a lot. The cast is full of reliable Warner Bros contract players that are always fun to watch, especially great character actor J. Carrol Naish. It's not surprising this is from WB, the 1930s home of movies about the working class. Certainly interesting from a historical and sociological perspective as a view of labor issues in Depression-era America. It's also fine dramatic entertainment. Based in part on a true story of a 1929 incident at a mine in Imperial Pennsylvania.

"Black Fury" was the second film Paul Muni made after signing a lucrative and very unusual contract with Warner Brothers that essentially allowed him script approval and a great amount of creative control. Muni had been fascinated by the true story of a miner's strike in Philadelphia, and did extensive research, including meeting with a judge who had presided over the case.I've seen all of Muni's films repeatedly and this is unquestionably one of his most accomplished and most unusual roles. For an actor who wast trained on the Yiddish stage and often played old men (even as a juvenile), it's remarkable that during the height of his film career, Muni never played a Jewish character. Joe Radek, a Hungarian immigrant, is probably the closest Muni ever came to playing a character that he "could have been" in real life -- he, too, was an Eastern European immigrant, of working-class stock, and had his parents been laborers instead of itinerant performers, he could easily have wound up like Radek. Radek is a child-like, life-of-the-party type who speaks in broken English, often in the third person ("Everybody love Joe Radek!") For students of acting history, it's the type of performance that you might expect from a "method" actor of a generation later; indeed, those who cite Brando's Stanley Kowalski as "breaking the rules" by speaking with a mouth full of food in a realistic fashion would do well to note Muni's performance here, as his speech is sometimes imprecise and in an early scene he breaks up a fight and makes a speech while gnawing his lunch.The script is fairly decent -- although politically problematic, as it seems to go a bit far to get Joe elected as president of the new union, and presents unions as ineffective or corrupt (and management as greedy and uncaring, of course). At the time of its release, the film was well-reviewed, but the "controversy" over unionization meant that it was censored or banned in some areas, so it was not a box-office success. Still, Muni's performance was powerful enough that he received a "write-in" nomination for Best Actor -- a practice that has since been discontinued by the Oscars (Muni and Bette Davis, for "Of Human Bondage," were the only actors to receive write-in nominations).It's also worth seeing for the excellent, uncompromising direction of Michael Curtiz; supporting performances (and they are ALL supporting in a Muni film -- he is unquestionably the star) are all well-played. Karen Morley is understated as Joe's would-be girl; John Qualen, who has one of the saddest faces in movie history, is excellent as Joe's best friend. The film's ending is a bit hackneyed from today's perspective, but quite effective."Black Fury" is one of about four dozen films from before 1936 that "should" be available on DVD, but isn't, and it's a shame. It is occasionally aired on cable and well worth a look if you are a fan of Muni or socially conscious films of the depression era (in the vein of "I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang," "The Grapes of Wrath," etc.)

The fabulous Paul Muni gives another wonderful performance in this 1935 film.With a genuine Slavic accent, Muni is superb as a coal miner who loses his girl (Karen Morley) to a company Policeman and goes on a drinking binge as a result. It is at this point that a gangster organization tries to create chaos within the union and Muni becomes their perfect foil.J. Carrol Naish is excellent as the worker who works for this unholy organization.Naturally, Muni's best friend is killed in a clash with company police and Muni, now sober, vows revenge.Morley returns to Muni just in time as he goes down into the mine and starts blowing the place up. It's at this point that the film starts to go down, but with Muni's performance and the problems shown of what the coal miners had to endure plus the dishonesty in trying to break the union, all make for a very good film.

BLACK FURY could have been a straightforward story of miners being exploited by greedy bosses and directed by Michael Curtiz, that's what it ought to be. But at its centerpiece is the character of PAUL MUNI as a cheerful "honkie" coal miner with an accent thick enough to cut with a knife and chewing all the scenery in sight. Performances around him are uniformly good under Curtiz' strong direction, but he lets Muni get away with the some of the wildest bits of overacting he's ever done.If you can sit through this one without cringing at Muni's overbaked job of acting, you may be able to watch the film more objectively than I did. Did I mention that the story is strictly on the depressing side? For starters, Muni's sweetheart (KAREN MORLEY) runs off to Pittsburgh with another man, police officer WILLIAM GARGAN, turning Muni's world upside down when he planned on marriage.Disgruntled miners are upset by union bosses and the plot thickens as one of the miners (J. CARROLL NAISH) sets up Muni and his friends for trouble as he collaborates with the union leaders. Muni doesn't know he's being used as a scapegoat for the union. He only realizes it after Croner (Naish) leaves town with Muni held responsible for the resulting mess and riots. Every plot turn from then on plunges the story into darker territory with Muni caught up in a skirmish with police that causes the death of his best friend.For the finale, Muni gets out of a hospital bed to bring about an explosive climax at the mine with girlfriend Morley returning to redeem herself in his eyes.Summing up: Melodramatic mess despite strong direction by Curtiz, hampered by Muni's overwrought performance which some commentators have mistaken for good acting.