Moviecut—Underworld

source: Underworld

Josef Sternberg's Underworld is a compelling story of three people. Bull Weed is a crude gangster with a penchant for helping people; we see him kill, and yet we still find redeeming virtues. Rolls Royce is an attorney driven to Skid Row by his alcoholism, lifted out of his misery by Bull. Finally, Feathers McCoy winces when Bull introduces her to Rolls Royce as his girl, a small moment that tells us all we need to know; and she doesn't answer when Rolls Royce asks her what she was doing when Bull rescued her. There are also three central scenes in the film: the early scene in the speakeasy, when Buck Mulligan (another gangster) tries to humiliate Rolls Royce; the hypnotic scene of the gangsters' ball, a surreal and sinister gathering of the underworld elite; and the exciting final shootout. The Alloy Orchestra track that comes with the Criterion DVD fits the dark mood of the film perfectly.

UNDERWORLD (1927) tells the story of love, betrayal and murder among gangsters in 1920's Chicago. Rolls Royce (Clive Brook), an alcoholic former lawyer, gets back on his feet when gangster Bull Weed (George Bancroft) takes him in off of the street. Complications arise when Weed's girlfriend Feathers (Evelyn Brent) and Royce start to become attracted to each other, and when a rival gangster, Buck Mulligan (Fred Kohler) becomes increasingly antagonistic towards Weed. Directed by Josef von Sternberg. UNDERWORLD was von Sternberg's debut feature, and it's quite impressive. This is basically the granddaddy of gangster movies, and you can see its influence in later classics such as LITTLE CAESAR and SCARFACE (the original 1932 version). Ben Hecht was the main screenwriter, so the movie emerges as a starkly realistic portrait of organized crime during the Prohibition. The film moves fast and doesn't waste time, clocking in at an hour and 20 minutes. It keeps you in suspense until the end. The film also boasts fine performances. Clive Brook was very effective as Rolls Royce, a stoic, down-and-out former lawyer who strives to maintain what little dignity he has left and tries to fight his attraction to Feathers. He is quite expressive and believable. George Bancroft is also fine as Weed, alternating convincingly between boisterous charm and raw aggression. Evelyn Brent is adequate in her role as Feathers, though I felt she could have been a bit more expressive at times, but she does have good chemistry with Clive Brook. Fred Kohler is appropriately menacing and brutish as Mulligan, and Larry Semon offers a bit of comic relief as well. The cinematography of UNDERWORLD shows considerable skill and accomplishment. Editing is smooth and fluid, and there are a variety of tracking shots, especially during a car chase sequence, as well as interesting camera angles and lighting. It's an impressive debut and one of the foundations of an entire genre. SCORE: 9/10

It may have its place in film history as a proto-gangster film and I'm always interested in seeing von Sternberg's work, but this one just never grabbed me. The pace is slow, the story and its love triangles are uninteresting, and the morality elements are heavy-handed. The only point I perked up was when one character says he isn't interested in women, which I thought might be a nice early example of openness about homosexuality before Joseph Breen started enforcing the Production Code ... but then shortly afterwards, he was indeed interested in women. The film needed some kind of spark - more star power, a better story, more grit, more atmosphere, I don't know - but without those things, I just felt it was kind of blah. Not horrible, just mundane. Maybe I just wasn't in the right mood when I saw it and am being harsh, but I was glad when it ended, even at just 80 minutes.

Bull Weed is a boisterous gangster bank robber. His girlfriend is the flashy Feathers McCoy. His rival is Buck Mulligan. Wensel is a vagrant but he's no snitch. He's a Rolls Royce of silence. Bull gives Rolls Royce a thousand bucks and makes him a partner in crime. Using Rolls Royce's brains, Bull becomes even more successful. At a wild party, Buck attacks Feathers and an angry drunken Bull kills him. Bull is sent to prison. Feathers convinces Rolls Royce to run away with her but she changes her mind to break him out of prison. This is a great pre-Depression era gangster movie. It has the classic gangster style and characters. It's a silent movie that lays out the genre that would explode a few years later. This is one in a line of developments in the gangster genre.

'Underworld' is the second film of Josef von Sternberg recently seen. The other being 'The Docks of New York'. Although 'Underworld' is the more historically significant of the two films, being the first gangster film and one of the earliest film noir-like films, there is a preference for 'The Docks of New York'. Both are very, very good films though. Sternberg was a fine director, evident in his collaborations with Marlene Dietrich, and George Bancroft deserves a lot more credit as an actor. As said, 'Underworld' is a very good film. It is not one of Sternberg's best, do prefer the likes of 'Shanghai Empress', 'The Blue Angel', 'The Scarlet Empress' and 'The Devil is a Woman'. It is incredible though that this is only his third solo film, well technically the fifth but two are lost, and his distinctive style seemed not only obvious throughout but fully established, one does not usually that with directors at this early a stage, so 'Underworld' was something of an achievement. Is 'Underworld' perfect? No as two scenes didn't quite work for me. One was the prison break sequence, which lacked the necessary tension and felt choppily staged. The other was the ending, after the exciting shoot out it then ends on a tacked on note that is too at odds with what came before and came over as a little heavy-handed as well. Sternberg's direction though is truly impressive, one does not expect to see direction this polished, visually beautiful or taut at such an early career stage suggestive of a director who had actually been in the profession for years beforehand (that's a compliment by the way). What immediately stands out is the production values, the settings are evocatively seedy yet made oddly attractive at the same time and the cinematography has great audacious style and gritty atmosphere. Sternberg's films always had great use of light and shadow and 'Underworld' is no exception. The music is suitably haunting. Other than two scenes, the story was riveting with a suitably pull no punches atmosphere, some exciting moments (especially the climactic shoot-out, which is why it's a shame that how it's resolved disappoints) and some nice turns that stopped it from becoming predictable without it becoming confusing. The central relationship to me was handled fine. The performances likewise, with Bancroft showing again with his intensity that he is deserving of more credit. Clive Brook shows here how his acting grew significantly from when he first started and Evelyn Brent is charming. Concluding, very good. 8/10

A stylish late silent from Josef von Sternberg about a crime lord (George Bancroft) who makes over an alcoholic bum (Clive Brook) only to succumb to murderous jealousy when he suspects his girlfriend (Evelyn Brent) of falling for the reformed and refined gentleman. Von Sternberg makes active and imaginative use of his camera, and the film is crisp and dynamic. You can tell watching it that it influenced a thousand gangster pictures that came after it, and Warner Bros. pretty much adopted its gritty look wholesale for the slew of cheap crime fills it would go on to make throughout the 1930s. "Underworld" brought Ben Hecht the very first Oscar for Original Story, which at the time was the closest thing to an award for Best Original Screenplay that the Academy doled out. Grade: A

Not being much of a fan of silent dramas I wasn't looking forward to this film. I was watching the movie merely for it's historical significance as the first gangster film and as a proto-noir. But I quickly was sucked into the love triangle with Bull, Rolls and Feathers, with names like those how could you not be? The great dialogue of later gangster films was already here, even if I could have done with a bit of a harder edge. Early on there were times when I thought the film felt a bit too light-hearted but it was punctuated by enough grit to force me to take the simple story seriously. Not the greatest gangster film, but perhaps the greatest surprise, which after-all, is why I watch movies.

I had read elsewhere that Underworld was the first film noir, but I didn't have high expectations before I saw the Criterion release. The action flows quickly and compellingly, while the noir scenes are beautifully done. A lot of it resembles Metropolis - the dance-hall scenes, the factory whistle, etc. A lot of what I thought was original in Scarface (1932) is anticipated here - Ben Hecht wrote both of them. The love triangle, the flower shop, the apocalyptic shoot-out are much the same. Hecht complained about the (few) sentimental bits in Underworld, obviously Scarface was his come- back to Sternberg - but he owes a big debt to Sternberg for inventing so much new visual language. Film noir seems to have developed gradually out of the chiaroscuro used by painters, as and when cameras became capable of it. The last third of Pandora's Box is noir, as is much of The Wind and most of The Lodger. The Lodger is probably the first all noir, but it is inferior to Underworld - Hitchcock was undermined by matinée-idol Ivor Novello's demand for a safe and innovative ending. Definitely a must-see - too many people overlook silent cinema.