Load of rubbish!!

Fantastic!

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Not being much of a fan of silent dramas I wasn't looking forward to this film. I was watching the movie merely for it's historical significance as the first gangster film and as a proto-noir. But I quickly was sucked into the love triangle with Bull, Rolls and Feathers, with names like those how could you not be? The great dialogue of later gangster films was already here, even if I could have done with a bit of a harder edge. Early on there were times when I thought the film felt a bit too light-hearted but it was punctuated by enough grit to force me to take the simple story seriously. Not the greatest gangster film, but perhaps the greatest surprise, which after-all, is why I watch movies.

I am not a big fan of the gangster film; when I am in the vicinity of the crime drama I always gravitate towards noir, where the moral lesson reserved for our protagonist in crime is not simply a present awareness that this life was only paid back with suffering but a deeper glimpse of the entire karmic process that produces a life of suffering.In a gangster film this lesson is expressed in one of two ways; the protagonist is either left a broken, doomed being whose tragic fate is envied by no one, or is purged in the fire and brimstone of a final violence. So although we have watched secretly fascinated at the social fabric in ruins, it is important, in both respects, that we leave the theater restored in ethical order. We thus assume the role of the despised public enemy; his fate is ours for having indulged the antisocial fantasy. The final taste is always gingerly bitter, and works when it does because we invested so much of ourselves in the wrong side of the fence.So you may hear of this as a milestone in the evolution of this type of film, and it's all because of the finale. It is this cathartic vision of some urban mid-station on the road to limbo where, amid a pall of gunsmoke and broken shards of brick wall, our protagonist comes to realize folly and is purged from life almost as a hero. It is important to note that he doesn't go out all guns blazing, but rather surrenders to the cops. He will face death, but will not be even momentarily martyred on screen; what is heroic about him, so properly old fashioned, is that he honorably extricates from his bloody fate the innocent.You can't miss any of this if you're a fan of the gangster genre. Scarface - the original - was built on this.There are a few other instances that exert some cinematic intrigue; the fast-cutting of faces, superimpositions, shadows across walls. But it does not match the more interesting experiments going on in silent cinema of the time, or what this man would be doing the following year.What is so apt about all of this is the smoky, drowsily anxious mood, the sense of excited weariness at the prospect of danger. There is a brawl in what only 30 years before would have been called a saloon. It's called the 'Dreamland Cafe', and just outside a neon sign reading 'The City is Yours' flashes the grinning mobster and his moll.

Monday, October 18, 7pm, The Paramount, Seattle"Attila, the Hun, at the gates of Rome." A drunk (Clive Brook) stumbles onto a bank robbery "...in the dead of night" and the gangster committing the crime snatches him from the street. Impressed by his resolute character when humiliated and threatened with violence, Bull Weed (George Bancroft) nicknames the derelict "Rolls Royce" and offers to put him "on his feet." The gangster's moll Feathers (Evelyn Brent) and his new man fall in love and engage in a struggle over happiness, or loyalty to their friend, as the coming battle envelops them.Film critic Andrew Sarris described the setting of Underworld, directed by master realist Josef von Sternberg, as "festive criminality." Brook delivers a career performance as the sage with nothing to lose, opposite Bancroft's archetypal thug. Comedian Larry Semon is also featured in a rare dramatic role. Based on an original story by Hollywood legend Ben Hecht Underworld won the first Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Underworld (1927)A lot of people avoid silent films at all costs, and I understand that totally. Many of these films are stiff, and the plots are either sentimental or obvious. But there are many reasons to watch a good, or great, silent film. Sometimes the acting, whatever its expressive style, is really wonderful. Often the photography and editing is really terrific and sophisticated. And the stories can be fast, fresh, and even pertinent.And finally, the silent films easiest for the uninitiated to approach are at the very end of the silent era. That would be 1927. See Joan Crawford in The Unknown for the bizarre, or Murnau's Sunrise for eloquence, or consider this film, the first major film by the soon to be legendary Josef von Sternberg. The only thing that might put off some people is the exaggerated expressions in one of the three main characters, Bull Weed. But go with that flow and you'll see not only some more subtle acting, but a sweet, violent, complex plot interweave in just an hour or so (81 minutes, though there is an 87 minute version out there if you can find it, Netflix doesn't have it). The Criterion disc version is really clean (another reason to consider this as an intro silent films, since it isn't broken up or scratched to death)."Underworld" is filmed with visual complexity even though it lacks some of the virtuosic moving camera of Murnau. The sets are simple but convincing, and the shift in attention to the gangster side of the story, complete with guns and molls and the precursors (or pre-precursors) of film noir, is gripping. It's not as intense as the heyday of gangster films just four or five years later, but it has if anything more emotional sophistication. The story was written by the legendary Ben Hecht, which might explain some of its success.Von Sternberg you say? Well, he was a master at creating aura, and between him and Dietrich a whole new level of starmaking savvy was born. This, as a first film, and as a last minute replacement, was expected to flop, and was released in a single New York theater. Word spread, however, and it became a hit. You can see why. Great stuff.