Director:
Emily Ting
Year: 1927
Rating: 8.0
This 1927 silent film directed by Josef von Sternberg was his first classic
film for Paramount. Others were soon to come - An American Tragedy, The Last
Command and his series of films with Marlene Dietrich - Morocco, The Blue
Angel, Dishonored, Shanghai Express, The Blonde Venus, The Scarlet Empress
and The Devil is a Woman. During these years in the late 20's to the early
30's Paramount was the biggest film studio in Hollywood with a huge distribution
chain of theaters and some topnotch talent.
The big three directors who handled the prestige films were von Sternberg,
Lubitsch and Mamoulian and they had a stable of terrific writers - Charles
MacArthur, Nunnally Johnson, Joe Mankiewicz, George Cukor, John Cromwell,
Dashiell Hammett and Ben Hecht who wrote Underworld. Hecht had been a writer
back east but was brought to Hollywood after receiving a telegram from Herman
Mankiewicz that stated "Millions to be grabbed out here and your only competition
is idiots". Which was probably true. During the silent period writers were
not held in high esteem - you basically wanted people that had good ideas
for scenarios - then you brought in another writer to flesh it out, another
to write up the title cards and so on.
Underworld is beautifully photographed with loads of close-ups for dramatic
purpose, lovely use of shadow and light and camera movement - and the print
from Criterion is crystal clear. It is not a complicated story really - two
men in love with the same woman but it all plays out in the gangster world
of violence, gunplay, robberies and comradeship. The girl is Evelyn Brent
who is stunning in her close-ups of which there are many. George Bancroft
is the lug who goes emotionally from a happy go guy to death in your face
while the man he saved and who betrays him is played by Clive Brook. The
comedy sidekick is Larry Semon who was one of the top comedians of the silent
period - both as a director and actor - but he was to die broke a year after
the film at 39 years old. He had given both Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy
starts in the business - but not at the same time.
