Michael Curtiz directed and Paul Muni stars in this provocative story of labor struggles in a Pennsylvania mining town (the New York Times reported it was “regarded by the State Censor Board as an inflammatory social document and it has been banned in several sectors....”). Muni plays a Polish-American miner caught in his naiveté between the conservative and radical factions of his union during a strike. When his best friend is murdered by the company police, he begins to understand the situation. One of many socially concerned dramas produced by Warner Bros. in the Thirties, Black Fury is stunning in its depiction of the realities of a coal town. But the film's bad guys are the racketeering strike-breakers, independent agents bent on inciting and splitting the union in order to offer its services - police and scabs - to the company. This led Variety to accuse Warners of “leaving Black Fury open to enough bally, along the lines of I'm a Fugitive From a Chain Gang, without taking sides,” and the New York Times to call it “a rousing defense of the conservative viewpoint in labor-employer relations. Emphasizing the tragic consequences of a walk-out, it strives to show that the half-a-loaf principle of orthodox unionism...prevents (this) bloody warfare....”