Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Glimmerubro It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

MissSimonetta Contrary to popular belief, the gangster picture only grew more popular with the coming of sound and did not originate there. Underworld (1927) is not the first gangster movie made in Hollywood but it is one of the most seminal. It brings all the images and tropes we associate with the Jazz Age/Great Depression impression of the genre to the forefront: gunfights in the dark, brassy molls, and speakeasies flowing with booze and jazz music.The story is simple, a love triangle with rather flat characterizations, but it's forgivable because everything is played with such grand style and flair. The performances are strong, with Evelyn Brent, Clive Brook, and the shamefully underrated George Bancroft bringing much to their one-note characters. Von Sternberg's direction and Bert Glennon's cinematography are just gorgeous, elevating the gritty urban setting to almost Gothic levels in the moody black and white lighting.A great gangster flick, one I actually prefer to the Oscar-nominated The Racket from the same year. It has Thomas Meighan, yes, but not nearly as much atmosphere.

CJBx7 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

Edgar Soberon Torchia Of the three silent classics made by Josef von Sternberg in the 1920s, "The Last Command" and "The Docks of New York" were declared part of the US National Film Registry, but according to my personal taste and appreciation of film art, the obvious choice for this distinction should have been "Underworld". Sternberg would later meet Marlene Dietrich for the classic early sound film "The Blue Angel" and become the creator of the "Marlene myth"; but in "Underworld" there are already hints of mastery of composition and framing, without the tendency to exotica through the eyes of Hollywood displayed in the Dietrich films ("Morocco", "Blonde Venus", "Shanghai Express", for example), although a couple of them are good. "Underworld" is the fascinating story of the rise, decadence and fall of a criminal (George Bancroft) in luscious black & white: for those who have seen Howard Hawks' "Scarface" (1932), the plot may seem familiar, because both films are based on a story by Ben Hecht, who won one of the first Oscars when there was an Academy Award for "Best Story", for his tale of "Underworld". Closer to Expressionism than Hawks' film, and away from the strident first experimentations with sound, "Underworld" is an elegant motion picture, with seductive silhouettes and aural suggestions, to evoke the climate of violence that determines the story. A must-see film.

plaidpotato One of the great joys of prohibition-era gangster films is the colorful dialogue spat out by the likes of James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson. As that element would, obviously, be missing from a silent film, I wasn't sure how I would react to Underworld.Not to worry. This is a great film, one of the best prohibition-era gangster films I've seen, ranking slightly ahead of Little Caesar and the Public Enemy, and maybe only slightly below Scarface (1932). Tough, tense, tightly written--interestingly, Howard Hawks is credited for the scenario--and with gorgeous DARK cinematography and Josef von Sternberg's usual excellence in direction. I barely missed the lack of gangster-speak.I suppose this film was a template upon which a lot of gangster films were based. It struck me while watching it how much it had in common with the Coen brothers' Miller's Crossing (1990)--a love triangle between a mob boss, his moll, and his right hand man. And it's all about the gangsters' peculiar code of ethics.I'd rate it a perfect 10, but for a muddled and badly-handled prison break sequence, which I watched three times and still couldn't figure out. Maybe I'm just dense; maybe it was actually a genius bit of filmmaking and it just flew over my head, but for now, 9/10.