Underworld ***** (1927, Clive Brook, Evelyn Brent, George Bancroft) – Classic Movie Review 12,099

Director Josef von Sternberg’s influential 1927 American silent crime thriller film Underworld [Paying the Penalty] is an impressively fast and furious tale of mobsters during Prohibition. It is one of the earliest gangster movies, and Von Sternberg has been credited with launching the gangster film genre. Ben Hecht won the Oscar for Writing in the first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929.

The players are on fine form: George Bancroft as the gangster godfather ‘Bull’ Weed, Evelyn Brent as his moll ‘Feathers’ McCoy and Clive Brook as the obligatory bent (and alcoholic) lawyer, ‘Rolls Royce’ Wensel, battling it out with each other and a rival gangster, ‘Buck’ Mulligan (Fred Kohler), trying to muscle in.

Von Sternberg’s direction is slick, smooth and glossy, turning the unusually vivid, distinctive and characterful movie into a big hit.

Writer Ben Hecht’s first original story for the screenplay carried off that year’s Academy Award (1927-28) for Best Original Story, the first ever, in the first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929.

It started von Sternberg’s triumphant eight-year period of work at Paramount Pictures, making seven films with Marlene Dietrich. He has been down after walking off an MGM film, working on a failed unreleased film with Charlie Chaplin, and having to accept a contract with Paramount as assistant director.

It is based on a story by former Chicago crime reporter Ben Hecht, adapted as the screenplay by Robert N Lee, with titles by George Marion Jr.

It is produced by B P Schulberg and Hector Turnbull, shot by Bert Glennon and edited by E Lloyd Sheldon.

Sternberg completed Underworld in only five weeks, which must have appealed to Paramount.

Bancroft’s role 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.

It runs 80 minutes.

It was released on 20 August 1927.

The studio had no idea what it had on its hands. Paramount were expecting a flop and they limited the release to one cinema, the New York Paramount, and provided no advance publicity. Instead, they immediately had to arrange round-the-clock showings at the cinema to accommodate the unexpected crowds that flocked to the attraction. Paramount, thrilled about the film’s critical and commercial success, gave Sternberg a gold medal and a $10,000 bonus.

Luis Buñuel named it his all time favourite film.

The cast are Clive Brook as ‘Rolls Royce’ Wensel, Evelyn Brent as ‘Feathers’ McCoy, George Bancroft as ‘Bull’ Weed, Fred Kohler as ‘Buck’ Mulligan, Helen Lynch as Mulligan’s girl Meg,  Larry Semon as “Slippy” Lewis, Jerry Mandy as Paloma, Alfred Allen as Judge, Shep Houghton as Street Kid, Andy MacLennan as laughing man at the Ball, Ida May as Laughing Woman at the Ball, Karl Morse as ‘High Collar’ Sam, and Julian Rivero as Buck’s Henchman.

It is followed by gangster classics such as Little Caesar (1930), The Public Enemy (1931), Scarface (1932), High Sierra (1941), White Heat (1949), The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and The Killing (1956).

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,099

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Josef von Sternberg’s eight-year work at Paramount Pictures included seven films with Marlene Dietrich.