It’s expressive silent filmmaking at its best — Anthony Asquith vies with Alfred Hitchcock for direction in silent-era England. Elissa Landi and Brian Aherne meet in the Tube but become entangled in the jealous scheme of the jealous Cyril McLaglen. Restored just a few years back after being unavailable for generations, this is a beauty: the BFI gives it a full orchestral orchestra score, plus a second avant-garde ‘contextual audio’ track.
Underground
Blu-ray
Kino Classics / BFI
1928 / B&W / 1:33 silent ap. / 93 min. / Street Date April 23, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Elissa Landi, Brian Aherne, Cyril McLaglen, Norah Baring.
Cinematography: Stanley Rodwell
Art Direction: Ian Campbell-Gray
Written and Directed by Anthony Asquith
If one was asked to come up with the name of a ‘tame’ English director, the answer a while back might have been Anthony Asquith, a privileged toff whose post-grad lark was to spend a year in Hollywood, learning all...
Underground
Blu-ray
Kino Classics / BFI
1928 / B&W / 1:33 silent ap. / 93 min. / Street Date April 23, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Elissa Landi, Brian Aherne, Cyril McLaglen, Norah Baring.
Cinematography: Stanley Rodwell
Art Direction: Ian Campbell-Gray
Written and Directed by Anthony Asquith
If one was asked to come up with the name of a ‘tame’ English director, the answer a while back might have been Anthony Asquith, a privileged toff whose post-grad lark was to spend a year in Hollywood, learning all...
- 3/30/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
There are a bunch of large-scale British pictures of the late silent era, like E.A. Dupont's Moulin Rouge and Piccadilly, and they all have dazzling surfaces but don't quite captivate as melodrama. It can seem as if the popular conception that British silent cinema consisted of Hitchcock standing alone and portly in a cultural wasteland is kind of true. But Anthony Asquith's A Cottage on Dartmoor (1929), which channels German expressionist lighting, composition and intensity, is an honorable exception: it's actually more Germanic than any of Hitchcock's films (even including The Pleasure Garden, which he shot in Germany).
Underground (1928), which was Asquith's very first feature, is not quite as good as that, but I'd wanted to see it for ages and was very glad I did: it's available, beautifully restored, from the BFI.
The movie wears its Germanic aspects more lightly than Cottage, with some giddy-making angles and sharp...
Underground (1928), which was Asquith's very first feature, is not quite as good as that, but I'd wanted to see it for ages and was very glad I did: it's available, beautifully restored, from the BFI.
The movie wears its Germanic aspects more lightly than Cottage, with some giddy-making angles and sharp...
- 8/22/2013
- by David Cairns
- MUBI
★★★★☆ In 1928, at the tender age of just 28 years, British director Anthony Asquith was already a driven and passionate filmmaker - exactly what he brought to his early silent, Underground (1928). This tale, whilst saturated in its own time, carries a modern note, as underground carriages bustle with nosey travellers leaning over each others shoulders to read their neighbour's newspaper, or young men eye up the ladies. Amidst the hustle of daily commutes we find a pair of lovebirds in the form of mild-mannered Bill (Brian Aherne) who works as an underground porter and shop worker Nell (Elissa Landi).
The pair's fledgling love is thrown into disarray by the brash Burt (Cyril McLaglen), who also has eyes for the working class blonde bombshell. Power station worker Burt, with his rough manners and penchant for drink, hatches a plan with former lover Kate (Norah Baring), that climaxes in a tremendous, Bond-style chase sequence.
The pair's fledgling love is thrown into disarray by the brash Burt (Cyril McLaglen), who also has eyes for the working class blonde bombshell. Power station worker Burt, with his rough manners and penchant for drink, hatches a plan with former lover Kate (Norah Baring), that climaxes in a tremendous, Bond-style chase sequence.
- 6/17/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
This restored silent from 1928 is terrific – and the exotic and futurist London locations are a treat
Anthony Asquith's 1928 black-and-white silent, Underground, restored three years ago with a great new score by Neil Brand, is now on general release, and it's terrific: an elegantly crafted melodrama with exotic and futurist London locations, and echoes of Lang and Hitchcock. Norah Baring is fascinating as the wronged woman, Kate, given to strange Ocd mannerisms and sightless staring: a performance to compare with Kathleen Byron in Powell's Black Narcissus. Two men fall in love with the same woman – demure shopworker Nell (Elissa Landi) – whom they see on the London Underground. Bill (Brian Aherne) is a decent chap who works on the Tube, but Bert (Cyril McLaglen) is a rougher, moodier sort, who is prepared to exploit his ex-girlfriend Kate in a plot to destroy Bill's chances. This love triangle evolves into a quadrangle,...
Anthony Asquith's 1928 black-and-white silent, Underground, restored three years ago with a great new score by Neil Brand, is now on general release, and it's terrific: an elegantly crafted melodrama with exotic and futurist London locations, and echoes of Lang and Hitchcock. Norah Baring is fascinating as the wronged woman, Kate, given to strange Ocd mannerisms and sightless staring: a performance to compare with Kathleen Byron in Powell's Black Narcissus. Two men fall in love with the same woman – demure shopworker Nell (Elissa Landi) – whom they see on the London Underground. Bill (Brian Aherne) is a decent chap who works on the Tube, but Bert (Cyril McLaglen) is a rougher, moodier sort, who is prepared to exploit his ex-girlfriend Kate in a plot to destroy Bill's chances. This love triangle evolves into a quadrangle,...
- 1/11/2013
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Anthony Asquith's 1928 classic is a time capsule depiction of London's tube network, as well as a brilliant expressionist-influenced thriller
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Anthony Asquith's Underground (1928) is part thriller, part time capsule: a riveting film from one of the silent era's most ambitious British directors, and an intriguing portrait of 1920s London. In particular, the manners and motifs of the capital's tube system are seen just as they were 85 years ago. Re-released in cinemas this month to tie in with the 150th anniversary of the tube, Underground speaks not just to silent movie buffs but to the quiet public transport geek inside every commuting Londoner.
The underground in Underground is more than a metaphor for the repressed passions of four "ordinary workaday people", it is integral to the plot, and its shadowy locations set the film's tone. From their arrival in 1895, films about...
Reading this on mobile? Click here to watch video
Anthony Asquith's Underground (1928) is part thriller, part time capsule: a riveting film from one of the silent era's most ambitious British directors, and an intriguing portrait of 1920s London. In particular, the manners and motifs of the capital's tube system are seen just as they were 85 years ago. Re-released in cinemas this month to tie in with the 150th anniversary of the tube, Underground speaks not just to silent movie buffs but to the quiet public transport geek inside every commuting Londoner.
The underground in Underground is more than a metaphor for the repressed passions of four "ordinary workaday people", it is integral to the plot, and its shadowy locations set the film's tone. From their arrival in 1895, films about...
- 1/8/2013
- by Pamela Hutchinson
- The Guardian - Film News
A Cottage on Dartmoor (1929) Direction: Anthony Asquith Screenplay: Anthony Asquith; from a story by Herbert Price Cast: Norah Baring, Uno Henning, Hans Schlettow Uno Henning in A Cottage on Dartmoor Very little in a career overview of filmmaker Anthony Asquith prepares a viewer for the brilliant thriller A Cottage on Dartmoor, released by Kino, which he both wrote (from a story by Herbert Price) and directed. Asquith’s wonderful but straightforward adaptations of Pygmalion (1938) and The Browning Version (1951) — and, to a lesser extent, The Importance of Being Earnest (1952) and Libel (1959) — do not really speak to the dynamics of this 1929 film. The director fully embraces the tale of obsessive love in terms of silent [...]...
- 10/30/2009
- by Doug Johnson
- Alt Film Guide
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