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LIVE MUSIC AND FILM

Josef von Sternberg is often credited with heralding in the gangster film as a genre in American cinema with this silent crime treasure, a searing tale of friendship and betrayal. Underworld, which would win an Academy Award for Best Story at the first Oscars ceremony in 1929, follows the ambitious gangster 'Bull' Weed (George Bancroft) who helps his lawyer friend 'Rolls Royce' Wensel (Clive Brook) ditch the drink and get back on his feet. Trouble begins to brew between them when Rolls Royce falls for 'Feathers' McCoy (Evelyn Brent), Bull's closely guarded girlfriend. Von Sternberg drew clear inspiration from the cinema of the Weimar Republic – his characters are deviously amoral and his streets are draped in shadows, only occasionally lit up by flashes of gunfire. If American noir emerged from the crime films of pre-war Hollywood, then those films began here.

This screening will be presented with a new score performed live on the Gallery's 1929 Wurlitzer organ by David Bailey.

Ages 12+