Underworld
1927 · 87 min · US
Directed by Josef von Sternberg
Sternberg, 1927: the gangster picture before the Code, before sound, before Cagney. George Bancroft is Bull Weed; Evelyn Brent is Feathers; Clive Brook is the drunk lawyer they pick up. Paramount, from a Ben Hecht story. Sternberg lights a Chicago that is all rain and interiors. It invented the Hollywood gangster as a man who is already dead and hasn't sat down yet. Won the first writing Oscar for Hecht. Bancroft's laugh is the gun.
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Wikimedia Commons · FM-54; File:Underworld (1927).webm; 1440x1080
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