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Underworld (1927 film)
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Wikipedia article
'Underworld' (also released as 'Paying the Penalty') is a 1927 American silent crime film directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Clive Brook, Evelyn Brent and George Bancroft. The film launched Sternberg's eight-year collaboration with Paramount Pictures, with whom he would produce his seven films with actress Marlene Dietrich. Journalist and screenwriter Ben Hecht won an Academy Award for Best Original Story.
Plot
Boisterous gangster kingpin 'Bull' Weed rehabilitates the down-and-out 'Rolls Royce' Wensel, a former lawyer who has fallen into alcoholism. The two become confidants, with Rolls Royce's intelligence aiding Weed's schemes, but complications arise when Rolls Royce falls for Weed's girlfriend 'Feathers' McCoy.
Adding to Weed's troubles are attempts by a rival gangster, 'Buck' Mulligan, to muscle in on his territory. Their antagonism climaxes with Weed killing Mulligan and he is imprisoned. Awaiting a death sentence, Rolls Royce devises an escape plan, but he and Feathers face a dilemma, wondering if they should elope together and leave Bull Weed to his fate.
Cast
* Clive Brook as "Rolls Royce" Wensel
* Evelyn Brent as "Feathers" McCoy
* George Bancroft as "Bull" Weed
* Fred Kohler as "Buck" Mulligan
* Helen Lynch as Meg, Mulligan's girl
* Larry Semon as "Slippy" Lewis
* Jerry Mandy as Paloma
* Alfred Allen as Judge (uncredited)
* Shep Houghton as Street Kid (uncredited)
* Andy MacLennan as One of Laughing Faces at the Ball (uncredited)
* Ida May as Laughing Woman at the Ball (uncredited)
* Karl Morse as 'High Collar' Sam (uncredited)
* Julian Rivero as One of Buck's Henchmen (uncredited)
Background
Josef von Sternberg's brief tenure as director at M-G-M was terminated by mutual consent in 1925 shortly after he walked off the set of a Mae Murray vehicle 'The Masked Bride'. The film was completed by director Christy CabanneSarris, 1966. p. 12Baxter, 1971. p. 34Weinberg, 1967. p. 24-25
Sternberg's next project was an assignment by Charlie Chaplin (United Artists) to write and direct 'A Woman of the Sea' starring Edna Purviance. This episode also ended badly: the film was never released and Chaplin felt compelled to destroy all film negatives. As Sternberg sardonically quipped in his 1965 memoir 'Fun in a Chinese Laundry', "It was [Edna Purviance]'s last film and nearly my own."Rodriguez-Ortega, 2005
Sarris, 1966. p. 13Weinberg, 1967. p. 27, p. 30
Sternberg accepted a contract offer from Paramount Pictures in 1926, with the humbling condition that he was demoted to the role of assistant director. He was quickly assigned to reshoot portions of director Frank Lloyd's 'Children of Divorce'. His work was so outstanding that the studio awarded him with a project of his own. The result was his most famous film to date of his career -'Underworld'. The film would "establish Sternberg in the Hollywood system."Barson, 2014
Sarris, 1966. P. 13Baxter, 1971. p. 36-37Weinberg, 1967. p. 30-31, p. 96: ..."catapulted him into overnight fame as a director."
Production
'Underworld' is based on a story by Ben Hecht, a former Chicago crime reporter, and adapted for screenplay by Robert N. Lee with titles by George Marion Jr. It was produced by B. P. Schulberg and Hector Turnbull with cinematography by Bert Glennon and edited by E. Lloyd Sheldon.Sarris, 1966. p. 13 Sternberg completed 'Underworld' in a record-setting five weeks.Baxter, 1971. p. 37, 43
The gangster role played by George Bancroft was modeled on "Terrible" Tommy O'Connor, an Irish-American mobster who gunned down Chicago Police Chief Padraig O'Neil in 1923 but escaped three days before execution and was never apprehended.
Paramount Pictures, initially cool towards the production, predicted the film would fail. Initial release was limited to only one theater, the New York Paramount. The studio did not provide advance publicity. Writer Ben Hecht requested (unsuccessfully) to have his name taken off the credits, due to the dismal prospects for the film.
Reception
Contrary to studio expectations, the public response to the New York screening was so positive that Paramount arranged for round-the-clock showings at the Paramount Theatre to "accommodate the unexpected crowds that flocked to the attraction."Rodriguez-Ortega, 2005.
Sarris, 1966. p. 13
'Time' felt the film was realistic in some parts, but disliked the Hollywood clich of turning an evil character's heart to gold at the end.'Time',
[https://web.archive.org/web/20101125033642/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,723270,00.html "New Pictures: Sep. 5, 1927"]
'Underworld' was well-received overseas, especially in France, where directors Julien Duvivier and Marcel Carn were deeply impressed with Sternberg's "clinical and spartan" film technique. Filmmaker and surrealist Luis Buuel named 'Underworld' as his all time favorite film.
Paramount, overjoyed at the film's "critical and commercial success" bestowed a gold medal and a $10,000 bonus on Sternberg.Baxter, 1971. p. 43-44Weinberg, 1967. p. 34
Ben Hecht won the Academy Award for Writing in the 1st Academy Awards ceremony in 1929 for his work on this film.Baxter, 1971. p. 43
In 2008, the American Film Institute nominated this film for its Top 10 Gangster Films list.
Theme
Sternberg has been credited with "launching the gangster film genre."Axmater, 2010.
Film Sufi, 2013.
Rodriguez-Ortega, 2005 Critic Andrew Sarris cautions that 'Underworld' is "less a proto-gangster film than a pre-gangster film" in which the criminal world of the Prohibition Era provides a backdrop for a tragic tale of a "Byronic hero" destroyed, not by "the avenging forces of law and order" but by the eternal vicissitudes of "love, faith and falsehood."Axmaker, 2010: "A tale of loyalty and love in a violent world."
Sarris, 1966. p. 15-16
Journalist Ben Hecht's influence appears in the phony flower shop operation and killing of "Bull" Weed's archenemy, "florist" Buck Mulligan, evoking the 1922 real-life murder of kingpin Dion O'Bannon by the Tony Torrios mob.Baxter, 1971. P. 38 Funeral hearses also abound in the film, notorious as capacious conveyances used to conceal criminal activities and personnel in Chicago. Despite these contemporary references, 'Underworld' does not qualify as "the first gangster film" as Sternberg "showed little interest in the purely gangsterish aspects of the genre" nor the "mechanics of [mob] power."Sarris, 1966. P. 15Baxter, 1971. P. 43 Rather than invoking contemporary social forces and inequities, Sternberg's "Bull" Weed is subject to "implacable Fate", much as the heroes of classical antiquity.Sarris, 1966. p. 15-16: "... steers clear of sociological implications of his material. ... " and "law and order ... never related to society but rather to an implacable Fate ..."Jeanne and Ford, 1965. in Weinberg, 1967. p. 211: Characters "moved ... by extreme violence" as one finds in "the heroes of antiquity [where] fate destines them to the worst catastrophes." The female companions to the outlaws are less gangster molls, addicted to violent men, but protagonists in their own right, who induce "revenge and redemption." The genre would only be properly established in such film classics as 'Little Caesar' (1930), 'The Public Enemy' (1931), 'Scarface' (1932), 'High Sierra' (1941), 'White Heat' (1949), 'The Asphalt Jungle' (1950) and 'The Killing' (1956).Sarris, 1966. P. 15Baxter, 1971. p. 39: "... it was not until 'Little Caesar' and 'The Big House' (1931) that any real attempt was made by Hollywood to describe the brutal reality of the criminal world."
Film critic Dave Kehr, writing for the Chicago Reader in 2014, rates 'Underworld' as one of the great gangster films of the silent era.Kehr, Dave. "[http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/underworld/Film?oid=1049074 Underworld]," 'Chicago Reader', accessed October 11, 2010. "The film established the fundamental elements of the gangster movie: a hoodlum hero; ominous, night-shrouded city streets; floozies; and a blazing finale in which the cops cut down the protagonist."Siegel, Scott, & Siegel, Barbara (2004). 'The Encyclopedia of Hollywood'. 2nd edition. Checkmark Books. p. 178. Weinberg, 1967. p. 34: "... the [gangster] genre ... so eloquently established."
See also
*'The House That Shadows Built' (1931 promotional film by Paramount)
*Pre-Code crime films
References
Sources
*Axmaker, Sean. 2010. 'Silents Please: Shadows, Silence and Sternberg'. Parallax View. Retrieved May 10, 2018. http://parallax-view.org/2010/08/26/shadows-and-silence-and-josef-von-sternberg-john-cassavetes-and-citizen-mccain-dvds-of-the-week/
*Barson, Michael. 2005. 'Josef von Sternberg: Austrian-American director'. ENCYCLOPDIA BRITANNICA Online. Retrieved May 10, 2018. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Josef-von-Sternberg
*Film Sufi. 2013. '"Underworld": Josef von Sternberg (1927).' The Film Sufi. February 12, 2013. Retrieved May 10, 2018. http://www.filmsufi.com/2013/02/underworld-josef-von-sternberg-1927.html
*Rodriguez-Ortega, Vicente. 2005. 'Underworld'. Senses of Cinema. Retrieved May 10, 2018. http://sensesofcinema.com/2005/cteq/underworld/
*Sarris, Andrew. 1966. 'The Films of Josef von Sternberg'. Museum of Modern Art/Doubleday. New York, New York.
*Weinberg, Herman G., 1967. 'Josef von Sternberg. A Critical Study'. New York: Dutton.
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