Underground (1928) User Reviews

Wonderful little movie

[paultreloar75 · 8/10 · 12 January 2013]

We went to see the newly restored version of Underground tonight, at the British Film Institute. The BFi restoration people have done a magnificent job in making the movie look fresh and vibrant, but the direction by Anthony Asquith is the thing that has really stood the test of time. The plot flows in a simple but effective way, and the actors do a great job in bringing life and soul to a lively London town.

Bill is impossibly clear-eyed and the shining light, Nell is similarly bright and cheerful, but Bert is much more mixed-up, with a mild malevolence that rebounds on him badly, and Kate has some wonderfully dramatic madness late on. The various set pieces are done well and progress things in am undemanding manner.

The new score by Neil Brand and recorded by the BBC Symphony Orchestra is heavenly, it suits the action on the screen to an absolute tee. I really can't think of much I didn't enjoy, the energy of the last denouement of the love dispute is thrilling, and there's a lot of gentle laughter to be hand beforehand.

The fact that the film closed to a round of applause from the audience says a great deal to me. A little peep of a bygone age, when men gave their seat up for women on public transport (when the woman in question actually wanted to sit down of course). Go see and prepare to fill your eyes with a cinematic feast.

Fascinating to see those old picture postcard streets go by

[christopher-underwood · 7/10 · 16 December 2020]

A rather simple tale of two girls and two guys, both of whom are after the same girl. Although the tale itself is rather melodramatic and not very interesting, the local colour, streets, traffic and particularly the bus ride are marvellous. There is not as much action in the underground system as i had expected but there are glorious shots (and sequences within) the Lots Road power station - the very one that provided the power for the system. All participants are more or less working class, with one guy working on the underground railway and the other at the power station whilst one of the girls is a shop assistant (Selfridges?) and the other seemingly a seamstress working in her room. Fascinating to see those old picture postcard streets go by and even more on the extras provided on the BFI Blu-ray disc. Great watch.

UNDERGROUND is an excellent genre-crossing silent picture, stylishly in the vanguard and entertaining as well

[lasttimeisaw · 8/10 · 30 March 2015]

A silent film of British director Anthony Asquith, recently has been restored by BFI, it is his second feature made at the age of 26, and he would later bring us many important play- adaptation classics like PYGMALION (1938), THE BROWNING VERSION (1951) and THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST (1952), although UNDERGROUND is a creation out of his own wit, this incipient piece cogently concretises his astonishing cinematic aesthetics, particularly Stanley Rodwell's majestically composed cinematography and the slick final action stunts.

UNDERGROUND is about a working-class love story in the metropolitan London, Nell (Landi) is a shopgirl and Bert (McLaglen) is a power station worker, they both take the newly-inaugurated London metro to work and get off at the same station, where Bill (Aherne) works as an escalator operator (an obsolete job to the eyes of later generations), then the story evolves into a two-suitors-one-girl situation, although Bert is a well-groomed lady-killer, Nell chooses Bill eventually, the handsome and gentlemanly chap, their love story burgeons from a lost glove, here Asquith showcases his innovate camera movements of the two walking in the opposite directions in two reversely moving escalators, the comic timing is purely golden, which has already been effectively justified from its beguiling opening vignettes with a potpourri of interactions between passengers, including Bert and Nell. But Bert is far from a well-bred loser, he is brash, revengeful and manipulative, he coaxes Kate (Baring), a seamstress lives in the same lodge and his former lover whom he has gotten tired of, to set up a scene in public and defame Bill's reputation. On condition that he will treat her well, Kate complies and Bill is going to lose his job, hence undermines the marriage. But, Nell is no wide-eyed flapper, she doesn't give up easily, instead, by a sheer coincidence, she noses out the lead back to Burt and finds Kate, lays bare the truth. In the third act, an impending tragedy ensues and a white-knuckle chasing set piece brings Bill and Burt into an elevator in the underground station, and the good heroically defeats the evil.

The most significant feature of the film is its sterling utilisation of silhouettes and shades, glistening under the finely-restored monochromic texture and its futuristic layout of (almost) every and each shots, all promisingly denotes what a young talent Asquith is, and I must move his other works onto the top-tier of my watch-list now!

The four main cast thrive in their expressive performances, our heroine Elissa Landi is so unbridled in her facial expressions, the transition from kindness to sheer sneer can be impeccably accomplished in a jiffy, as a young woman inculcated by independence, she also functions as the antithetical specimen to the old-world Kate, a woman blinded and entrapped by her own fantasy of a man who only uses her as a disposable pawn. However a feline-like Norah Baring triumphantly brings out the ascending pathos in her lingering comportment which will lead to her fatal destruction. Aherne is squarely handsome, a leading man material indeed and McLaglen competently brandishes with his sinister edge whenever the plot requires.

In short, UNDERGROUND is an excellent genre-crossing silent picture, stylishly in the vanguard and entertaining as well, another bonus is the symphonic accompany score from Neil Brand, from lilting to gripping, hones up the atmosphere up to the hilt. It certainly deserves a wider audience in addition to the usual coterie who is fond of silent goodies.

Asquith's second film falls a little short

[Igenlode Wordsmith · 7/10 · 15 July 2004]

** SPOILERS for entire plot**

I was recommended this film after enthusing about SHOOTING STARS (1928 - see my review). It shares both a lead actor, Brian Aherne, and young director, Anthony Asquith, with its predecessor, but I was warned at the time that it doesn't rank quite as high.

Having now seen them both, I think I'd concur. The character-work at the beginning is good, but the ending is less successful - the melodramatic chase and fight are too long; the bar brawl is handled better - and the eventual outcome is too clearly telegraphed all along. It feels more morally simplistic.

The two films are recognisably by the same hand, but oddly it's the later production that feels more old-fashioned, and comes across as being from a less-practised director. (Perhaps the absence of Bramble's restraining influence? :-)

There's a lot more sub-titled dialogue in this one, or at least it felt that way; a lot more shots of people's lips moving when you can't see what they're saying, I mean. That works, as before, for the distance shots, for example where the station master is trying to clear the platform and Bill is simultaneously trying to clear himself from this accusation out of the blue. The body language says it all, and a modern film might well take the same long shot with just an indistinct hubbub on the soundtrack. But when we're dealing with close-ups on conversations, the effect is more consciously 'silent' and less simply 'film'.

Added to this, the dialogue we actually see on the title cards is on the whole less cuttingly effective. "Shooting Stars" verged on black comedy; "Underground" was, unfortunately and inadvertently, more reminiscent of a contemporary farce I'd seen the previous week about an inventor pursued up and down the escalators and the lift by a party of foreign spies. "Shooting Stars" ended in complete silence from the audience - I suspect the general laugh in "Underground" at the moment when Nell rushes into the lift and embraces a victorious Bill was not the intended reaction...

I think "Shooting Stars" benefits from the artificiality of its setting, making the melodrama more plausible in a scenario where, for example, it's normal for people to fire guns at each other. "Underground" brings melodrama into real life, where it doesn't fit so comfortably; it also suffers from an implausibly (and, so far as I can see, unnecessarily) short timespan. In "Shooting Stars" we are privy to the climactic days of a clandestine affair that has been going on for some time, but in "Underground" we are given to believe that an entire love-affair, from first sight to engagement to rift to reconciliation, takes place over the course of two or three meetings. It's hard to take these emotions so seriously, and that's perhaps why Kate's tragedy was the only one that really attained grand status - she had clearly loved Bert a long time (and, given his reputation as a lady-killer, been deceived before).

But the chief flaw in the film, I would say, is the long and overly-milked chase scene after the murder. It doesn't even make particular sense, under the circumstances, for Bill, who has no authority in the power station (Lot's Road? - it powers the Underground and is located down by the river) and who barely knew Kate, to be the lone avenger hunting the murderer down. Aherne's fair and rather delicate good looks don't make him a particularly plausible hard type (although I don't know - again, the fight in the pub works a lot better).

Above all, however, there are far too many last-minute escapes. From the roof. From the rope. Bill falling into the water (he doesn't seem very wet when he climbs out...) From the re-electrified rails. From the edge of the platform with the oncoming train. And the concept of the two rivals pummelling each other to the finish in a lift full of passengers is frankly faintly ludicrous...

It would have worked a lot better, in my view, if Asquith had taken a leaf out of Dickens' book and had Bert slip and fall to his death (or get hung up in the rope...) while trying to flee from the power station. Bill doesn't need to be personally involved at all. Let it be the irony of Fate. Then cut directly to the final scene, depicting the virtuous getting their reward (at least, I assume that was the intended message!)

There are fine and characteristic scenes in this film, and it's fascinating to see how the London Underground has changed quite remarkably little in the last eighty years. But compared to its predecessor I feel it falls short. It feels dated. The other didn't.

It's not so much that the subject material this time is too lurid, for it was before. It's more that it is here presented completely straight, expecting us to take it at face-value, without that saving satirical edge. "Underground" needs to laugh at itself more. In those scenes when it does, it's good.

A lost masterpiece of silent cinema beautifully restored and scored

[robert-temple-1 · 10/10 · 30 December 2013]

This is a magnificent film, the first credited film directed by Anthony Asquith, who was then only 26 years of age. His youthful energy, verve, and daring innovation show! Probably Asquith never directed such a brilliant film again in his long career. From a film as wonderful as this one, it was impossible to climb higher. The title refers to the London Underground, and much of the film was shot in Waterloo Underground Station, where one of the main characters works as a member of staff, what was known as a 'guard', whose duty it is to be helpful to passengers (alas, if we only still had them!). The performances of the four lead players are positively electrifying. Norah Baring's portrayal of a highly-strung young woman who goes over the edge is one of the most finely-judged portrayals of madness precipitated by desperate emotional trauma which I have ever seen on the screen. It is a perfect marvel. Cyril McLaglen gives an equally well-judged performance as a 'cad' who uses and discards women, and who when thwarted turns to deadly violence. This is a very passionate film, showing great extremes of human emotion in an entirely convincing manner. The most charming and delightful presence on screen is Elissa Landi, a gamine working class enchantress whose lively and original expressions, captivating eyes, and intensity are truly overwhelming. She is every bit as captivating as Clara Bow in IT (1927). Landi should have risen to be one of the major stars of British cinema, but it never happened. Here she is 24 years old, but she had only 19 years to live, as she died of cancer at the age of only 43. She never appeared in genuinely major films, and most film-lovers will only have seen her in AFTER THE THIN MAN (1936). She must have been a most interesting person, as she wrote six novels in her short life, as well as poetry. The 'good guy' in the film who comes into conflict with McLaglen as the 'bad 'un' is sympathetically and charmingly played by the very gentle Brian Aherne, who loves Landi but has to fight for her. The shots of London in 1928 are amazing. A great deal of the action in the latter part of the film takes place at Lots Road Power Station in Chelsea, which generated the electric power for the Underground, and where McLaglen works. Some fantastic fight and chase scenes take place there, including some hair-raising ones on the roof, which were clearly inspirational to Alfred Hitchcock, who later emulated them. I was sad to see the scene in the park, which had such beautiful old elm trees. When I saw the young couple sitting with their backs up against the familiar corrugated bark of a large elm, I nearly cried. How long it has been since we had those elms, and they will never come again in our lifetimes! Dutch Elm Disease killed every one in Britain. The elms were the stately trees which once defined the English countryside and parks. The cinematography for this film by Stanley Rodwell, his very first screen credit, is outstanding, and there are many shots strikingly influenced by German expressionism. We get such wonderful shots of the Underground, including evocative moving shots going along the tunnels both towards and away from a point of light in the distance. The waiting crowds of 1928 on the platforms seem as real as yesterday in this crisp and brilliant frame by frame restoration by the British Film Institute of this great silent classic. There is a fascinating booklet with the DVD-Blu Ray box, and the extras are not to be missed. No one watching this classic can possibly be disappointed, as it is moving as a drama and spectacular as a vision of a lost era. I was amused to see a scene shot in the quaint little pedestrian street known as Thistle Grove, in Fulham, where a friend of mine once lived. It is a little-known charming secret of London, which has changed little in the past century. This film really sweeps one away, and ranks amongst the very best silent films ever made. It has been issued with a marvellous score composed by Neil Brand, which suits the film perfectly and greatly enhances its power and its sheer magic. Don't hesitate for one moment, but get this remarkable film without delay!

Charmer

[oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx · 9/10 · 24 October 2009]

My viewing of this film was at the world premiere of the restoration on the 23rd October 2009 at a Gala in the Queen Elizabeth Hall as part of the London Film Festival.

This is the first time that the BFI have done a Gala for a film restoration at the film festival, and I think they were quite pleased with themselves, and so they should be. This follows on from their recent revival of Anthony Asquith's great movie The Cottage on Dartmoor which has found it's way into the hearts of quite a few British film lovers. Before this, to even many film buffs, British silent cinema meant nothing except maybe they know of Alfred Hitchcock's The Lodger. Well British quality cinema did not start with Powell & Pressburger folks!

Approximately 80% of British silent output is destroyed as it was a fairly normal practise back in the days to recycle film stock for the silver content after the theatrical run had gone quiet. One of the great British film archives was liquidated for silver content after the owner went bankrupt. Apparently the celluloid content was taken to line aircraft wings!

To the movie, which concerns a love story that takes place for a large part on the then new phenomenon of the London underground. The movie takes some pleasure in exploiting the comedy value that arises from folks of all different social classes and walks of life sharing carriages in close proximity. Things have changed as I think it's really rather unlikely that you will run into a toff on the London underground. But perhaps they enjoyed the thrill of the novel back then.

Underground is mostly a love story, concerning two men vying for the same woman, Nell, whom they both meet on the Underground. Bert is a bit of a caddish upstart (if pushed a nasty upstart) who grinningly thinks to himself he's God's gift to women, which, however handsome he is, he is not, whilst Bill is a porter on the underground who is rather more genteel and respectful. In the real world it's probably a nice guy comes last situation, but on the silver screen it's pretty clear it's going to be Bill's who is favoured, right from frame one. That's not going to spoil the pathos though, really right the way through there's a significant amount of emotional sustenance. We want to know what Bert is going to have to say about it! The scene that worked the best for me was in the park where Bill and Nell have a picnic. It can be described with no other word than magical, it makes the heart swell with gladness. There's a combination of warmth, humour and nature that is transcendent.

Technically the film is quite advanced there's a pub brawl that works particularly effectively where a punch is thrown at the camera before light's out, so you get a POV knock out. The perpetually disinterested landlady had the audience in hysterics. It's a film really that if announced as an Alfred Hitchcock movie would not raise many eyebrows. There's enough sauce, humour and action to qualify.

The event took place in the Queen Elizabeth Hall and was accompanied by the Prima Vista Social Club who did a very good job. Particularly speaking, whenever there were instruments being played in the movie by extras, a member of the band switched over to said instrument.

The only slight issue I had with the film was that the characters (as in The Cottage on Dartmoor), are overmakeupped.

Dazzling British Silent

[vwild · 10/10 · 22 February 2017]

Anthony Asquith, a rather dull stalwart of British cinema, kicks off his career with a dazzling tale of "work-a-day" folk in and around London's Underground. Asquith seems to have absorbed everything going in the cinema of the late 1920s and throws it all at this film. Here is a film maker determined to make his mark and every scene is crammed with visual ideas. These ideas may have been borrowed from Lang, Ganz, Murnau, Eisenstein and the rest, but Asquith brilliantly puts them to work telling his story of working class Londoners.

Underground uses real London locations and authentic looking sets as a back drop for the melodramatic goings on (love, jealousy, murder) of the story, and the supporting cast are given ample screen time and bits of business to portray "real" Londoners. This makes for surprising and refreshing viewing. Perhaps this is more Ealing Comedy than social realism, but the action does seem to have broken free from the studio and taken to the streets. The film opens on the Underground of course, with trains, tunnels and escalators, and engaging scenes of the social behaviour of people crammed into too small a space. Our hero and heroine (Bill and Nell) meet cute on an escalator. Later on we get a London pub complete with a grumpy barmaid observing a punch-up with the detachment of bored familiarity; imagine Clara Bow's It Girl if she'd ended up serving bar for thirty years. Bill and Nell's first date starts on the top of a real omnibus with streets swooping past in the background. They picnic in a park. Their relationship is touchingly wholesome and their scenes take place in the outdoors and the fresh air in a real live London.

Bert and Kate, the other couple in this story, are far more dysfunctional. They live in the same boarding house, which has an expressionist, claustrophobic horror about it. Kate, a seamstress, live and works in her shadowy room, and expresses her unrequited love for Bert in contorted, bird-like gestures. All her actions are laced with desperation and fragility, culminating in a frantic dash draped in a huge black coat in the shadow of a monolithic power station. Norah Baring is particularly unnerving in this role. Bert, Cyril McLaglen in a vigorous performance worthy of Lon Chaney, works at the power station in a futurist room of dials and levers, and the final confrontation takes place in this surreal space before we chase across the gantries and up the ladders of apparently real locations. At the height of this pursuit a door is pushed open, and the streets of London are arrayed heart-stoppingly below us. The film thrillingly takes to the roofs and cranes of Lots Road Power Station.

Underground is a hugely entertaining film with excellent performances, but Asquith is the star here. He gives us the avant garde cinematic styles of the day and mashes them up with a consummate grasp of silent film language into one of the very best British films of the silent period.

Strong, entertaining silent comedy/melodrama. Well worth seeing.

[runamokprods · 8/10 · 3 November 2016]

It's ironic that Anthony Asquith spent the lion's share of his long career thought of as an excellent director of wordy, sometimes outright theatrical pieces like "Pygmalion", "The Browning Version" or "The Importance of Being Ernest". A look at his early silent work like "A Cottage on Dartmoor" and "Underground" show a director deft with visual storytelling, using expressionistic lighting, muscular camera movements and inventive editing to combine with mostly impressively restrained and naturalistic performances to create films quite different than one might associate with him. Indeed, in "Underground" - which starts as a light, comic romance, and gradually grows into dark melodrama – there's a limited use even of title cards. The images and the actors faces and body language often tell us everything we need to know, even when watching a fairly lengthy conversation.

"Underground" is delightfully well made, and very effective – funny without trying too hard in its lighter moments, thrilling and tense in its later scenes, which include a sophisticated chase/fight/stunt sequence. If there's a flaw, it's that this story of two lovers ripped away from each other by a conniving, jealous suitor and the besotted young woman who will do whatever the bad guy asks, is far to reliant on corny coincidences and obvious plot turns to quite escalate to great movie status for me. But it's still highly enjoyable and effective.

I wasn't crazy about either of the two score choices on this visually excellent Master's of Cinema recent blu-ray restoration. One 'score' is really a bed of mostly naturalistic sound effects for each location and situation, which was interesting, but didn't add much emotionally. The other - the 'main score' - went too far the other way. The orchestral score felt a bit too florid, dramatic and insistent, often overstating the emotions of a moment, and occasionally becoming distracting. Asquith did a great job of getting some psychological complexity into his silent characters, and having music that can sometimes swamp that subtlety isn't a help. The score also felt annoyingly 'modern' to my ears, in that it often sounded like nothing so much as the score to a Hollywood melodrama from the 1950s or 60s. That too felt distracting at times, as the image and music seemed forced together from different eras.

But those were minor complaints. Overall I was wonderfully surprised – now for the second time – at just how strong Asquith's silent films were.

Love at First Sight

[kidboots · 10/10 · 11 November 2017]

When Anthony Asquith directed his first film "Shooting Stars", a topical murder mystery set amid the trappings of a film studio his co-director was the experienced A.V. Bramble but for his next one he was on his own. "Underground and "A Cottage on Dartmoor" were dazzling movies, the latter almost topping Hitchcock in it's moody and evocative images of a disturbed loner. "Underground" was a stylish thriller and it was clear that Asquith had an awareness of the art of cinema that seemed to elude his more established contemporaries.

With this movie, as well as "Cottage" Asquith attempted to delve into the personalities and psychological problems of everyday people. The first title tells us that the story is set in the "Underground" where ordinary workaday people with names such as Nell, Bill, Bert and Kate meet. The establishing scenes with the mighty escalators taking centre stage hurtle the cinema audience into the hustle and bustle of the busy London metropolis. Bert has a lot in common with Asquith's moody barber from "Cottage" - he meets Nell on the train and for him it is love at first sight. For Nell though, she isn't impressed by his aggressive tactics but he becomes fixated on her. He finds the store where she works behind the scarf counter and finds her friendly but it is only for show - the store manager has his eye on her and she wants to show she is charming to all customers!!

By the time of this incident Nell has met Bill, a station attendant who has returned a glove that she dropped on the escalator - the attraction is mutual and they are now planning their future. Meanwhile there is Kate, a seamstress who was Bert's old girlfriend and can't get over him. Norah Baring makes the most of her part - playing Kate walking a tight line between happiness and hysteria, she is tremendous. After a bar room brawl, the realism has to be seen to be believed, you feel you are a front seat onlooker - Bert finds out about Bill and Nell and returns home furious, to find Kate begging to be taken back. He promises marriage if she will promise something in return......

So many magnificent scenes - the wondrous Underground where, amazingly with the sheer volume of people carried on the escalators every day, a little human drama of boy meets girl is carried out. Scenes on the train and also when Nell re-enacts her unwanted meeting with Bert and the novel way she gets rid of him. The walk of Bill and Nell through the park with the stately elms making the two lovers look insignificant in the scheme of things. Norah Baring's scene where she is pushed over the edge, Bill has done a runner and she is alone making sure everything is just so,(moving flower pots to the centre of the saucers etc). Then there is the power station where Bert works. He is planning to throw the whole Underground into chaos. The shots and location shooting of the mighty Power Station are very reminiscent of the German Expressionism still very much in vogue - cranes in silhouette, stark shots of buildings, the roof chase between Bert and Bill, Kate, stumbling over the debris to her fate...

Elissa Landi was so stunning as Nell but her British career didn't go anywhere and she eventually went to Hollywood. Cyril McLauglin (Bert) was the younger brother of Victor and while Bert dominated the scenes he was a part of, he also went to Hollywood where he found himself mostly in uncredited bits. Brian Aherne (Bill) was the acting success story of the group. Persevering in British movies until 1934, he then moved to Hollywood where he starred with some of the top actresses of the day. Norah Baring (Kate) gave magnetic performances in both this movie and "A Cottage on Dartmoor" but unfortunately her career never really got off the ground and was over by 1934.

Highly, Highly Recommended.

Riveting love triangle

[HotToastyRag · 8/10 · 10 September 2020]

If anyone's seen The Best of Everything and wondered if Mr. Shalimar could have ever been young, go out and rent the silent movie thirty years earlier: Underground. In my opinion, Brian Aherne looks exactly the same. He's still tall, handsome, charming, dashing, and adorable. In this movie, he plays a worker on the underground (London's version of the subway system). He falls for Elissa Landi at first sight, and they enjoy a very sweet meet-cute where she drops her glove and he rides up the escalator in the wrong direction just to hand it back to her. Wouldn't you fall for Brian Aherne if he smiled at you while standing on the wrong escalator and holding out your glove? Elissa agrees, and she floats on the same cloud the rest of the day as she dreams of her true love.

Where's the fly in the ointment? Cyril McLaglen plays a pool playing, beer drinking scoundrel who hits on Elissa on the train. She's not interested, but he's just as convinced she's his true love as she is about Brian. So begins a riveting love triangle with more twists and turns than you'll be prepared for. Anthony Asquith's direction is extremely surprising, and if you didn't know any better, you'd think the movie was made twenty or thirty years later as a tribute to silent pictures. Most silent film directors stick to static shots, brightly lit close ups with only the star in the frame, and simple compositions. Asquith fills up his frame with extras who are all moving and conducting their own business, even during the leads' close ups. He's clearly ahead of his time, and it's a pleasure to watch his films. It's also great fun to watch Brian Aherne before audiences knew he had a lovely speaking voice! As a bonus, you'll hear a beautiful music score written for the remastered version-hats off to Neil Brand.