Underworld is
one of the great films with three searing performances from Evelyn Brent,
George Bancroft and Clive Brook – a testament to their skills as well as the
ability of their rookie director to overcome his nerves and deliver. Feathers,
Bull and Rolls Royce are the beating heart of this story and whilst it is
nominally a gangster movie it is really all about love, loyalty and compassion.
What does Bancroft’s Bull sense in Brook’s Wendel, a drunken
bum of a fallen lawyer, that makes him trust his promise to be the “Rolls Royce”
of silence… Why does he stick his neck out to protect Rolls Royce from "Buck"
Mulligan’s bullying? He senses integrity and a steadfast character despite all
Rolls’ faults, he may waver – everyone does – but there’s redemption in faith.
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| No, here's looking at you George! |
Feathers also puts loyalty to Bull above love, she’s
drawn to Rolls Royce, especially once he’s re-acquainted himself with the
routines of personal hygiene… and the two wage a struggle with themselves. Bull
too is tested by hate and the red heat of jealousy but once he understands it’s
a lesson worth his life…
Von Sternberg stated later that the film was “an experiment
in photographic violence and montage…” and was matter of fact about its
crowd-pleasing elements. Kevin Brownlow in his introduction, shared his
experience of meeting the former Joey Sternberg (the “von” was adopted from von
Stroheim, a director who influenced Josef in terms of his on-set authority) and
telling him how much he liked the scene with Bull feeding a cat milk as the
cops gather outside; that’s the worst moment in the film replied the director.
We disagree.
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| Rolls Royce spots Feathers for the first time... |
Writer Ben Hecht, a street-wise journalist, was also
dismissive of von Sternberg’s end product until he won an academy award for his
script… The film was a smash hit and helped kick off the gangster film craze of
the era with the director’s vision and those three leads creating an alchemy
that was far from accidental.
Von Sternberg cuts to the chase and seems little bothered
in conventional pacing. The film begins in the middle of a robbery as Bull Weed
runs from a bank only to find Wensel identifying him and blocking his path…
within minutes the two men are established in relation to each other. Feather’s
first appearance is a tour de force of Peeping Tom visuals as Evelyn Brent
stands atop the stairs of the Dreamland bar, casually adjusting her stockings
and with those feathers wrapped around her, magnifying and obscuring her allure:
she’s soft but hard and impossible to ignore. A single feather falls, and Rolls
Royce watches it drift to the ground… one of the great entrances and as
portends go, a real doozy.
Evelyn is a prototypical Marlene, lit with great care
throughout and with dozens of killer close ups of eagle eyes and that
distinctive profile. Brent became typecast as a gangster but there was so much
going on behind those eyes… a few years younger and she could have been a real
force in the thirties… but so it goes.
Also pinning down a future on the dark side is the
magnificent George who is outrageously hearty throughout - a lion heart who
rules his patch through force of will, guts and being quickest on the draw. He’s
ferocious and smart too, smart enough to know what an asset Rolls Royce can be,
no wonder he calls him the Professor. And the Professor is probably the most like us and indeed
Josef, someone to contextualise the villains and a fellow traveller in this
onscreen trip to the underworld.
Meg Morley played along with some crashing noir-ish minor
chords and jazz-tinged lines that were so
Chicago 1927… her playing got right to the heart of the film and was as bold as
Bancroft and as deceptively fearsome as Feathers.
There was also very impressive undercard tonight with
three powerful shorts…
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| Segundo's Spectre in 1907... |
James Finlayson featured as an easily-distracted husband in
Chasing the Chaser (1925) directed by
a Mister Stanley Laurel. James’ character just can’t keep himself from chasing
women and his long-suffering wife sets a honey-trap using a cross-dressing
detective – now there’s an idea for a TV 'tec series… John Sweeney was on hand to
add subtle flavours to Finlayson’s flirting.
Segundo de Chomón’s spellbinding The Red Spectre (1907) is a stencil-coloured mini-masterpiece
showing the battle between the red devil of the title and a female foe… needless
to say he loses. It features some startling trick shots and close-ups. Lillian
Henley cast some music spells of her own with her accompaniment.
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| Elmer Booth in 1912 |
The Musketeers of
Pig Alley (1912) featured the magnetic Cagney-esque presence of Elmer Booth
and that famous close-up as he creeps up on his rivals… A Griffith innovation according
to some but clearly not so a Segundo’s Spectre had just demonstrated. Still,
all the same, the guy has some class and you wonder at what he could have done
had his life not been cut short by an auto accident in 1915. John Sweeney
guided us through the streets of downtown New York as the gangs hunt each other
in a tense finale… If Underworld kick-started the gangster vogue this is one of
the earliest examples of what was to come and it even featured real gangsters...
These nights at the Kennington Bioscope are a privilege
and the Cinema Museum is such a warm venue; we’re surrounded by friends and the
physical evidence of social history… there can be nowhere else like this place.
The Chaplin family lived here when it was a workhouse, it helped keep our
greatest silent comedian alive to become the man he was and now it helps
sustain his memory and that of so many others.
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| The Cinema Museum |
If the best modern Britain can offer is to sell it on and
close it down to earn a few thousand for the failing government and rather more
for the developers who are blighting London with soulless modernity then the
gangster mentality will have won after all.
But we’re not going to go down easily and there’s plenty
of love, loyalty and passion left for the museum.
You can sign a petition here to keep the Cinema Museum alive and there is a public meeting on Monday 30th October at the museum to
discuss the ways forward.
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| A night in the museum |
I can also recommend Lynn Kear’s book on Feathers: Evelyn Brent: The Life and Films ofHollywood’s Lady Crook which celebrates its subject’s career and the moxie
which led her to make such a success of being the bad girl!
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