Underground (1928)
Underground (1928)
DVD9 | VIDEO_TS | PAL | 4:3 | 720x576 | 7000 kbps | 8.0Gb
Audio: #1 English AC3 5.1 @ 448 Kbps, #2 English AC3 2.0 @ 320 Kbps | English Intertitles
01:33:00 | UK | Drama
DVD9 | VIDEO_TS | PAL | 4:3 | 720x576 | 7000 kbps | 8.0Gb
Audio: #1 English AC3 5.1 @ 448 Kbps, #2 English AC3 2.0 @ 320 Kbps | English Intertitles
01:33:00 | UK | Drama
A working-class love story set in and around the London Underground of the 1920s. Two men - gentle Bill and brash Bert - meet and are attracted to the same woman on the same day at the same Underground station. But the lady chooses Bill, and Bert isn't the type to take rejection lightly…
Director: Anthony Asquith
Cast: Brian Aherne, Elissa Landi, Cyril McLaglen, Norah Baring
The BFI Archive's acclaimed restoration of Anthony Asquith's subterranean tale of love, jealousy and murder is finally made available in this stunning Dual Format Edition. This classic British film from the silent era features Neil Brand's new orchestral score, recorded live in 2012, which perfectly complements the film's richly detailed evocation of 1920s London.
From his own screenplay Anthony Asquith balances the light and dark sides of London life, aided by a superb cast of Brian Aherne and Elissa Landi as the nice young lovers, and Norah Baring and Cyril McLaglen as their unhappy counterparts.
More than any other film from Britain's silent canon, Underground evokes the life of the ordinary Londoner with its scenes of the bustling underground and the capital's parks, double-decker buses, pubs and shabby bedsits.
The BFI National Archive has restored the film using the latest photochemical and digital techniques and present it here with a newly commissioned score by Neil Brand.
Underground (1928)
Underground (1928)
Extras:
- Newly commissioned score by Neil Brand presented in 5.1 and 2.0
- Alternative score by Chris Watson
- Restoring Underground (2009,9 mins): featurette on the restoration
- The Premier and His Little Son (1909-12, 1 min): previously unseen footage of Anthony Asquith as a child
- Under Night Streets (1958, 20 mins): a documentary about the tube's nightshift workers
- A trip on the Metropolitan Railway (1910, 13 min - DVD only)
- Scenes at Piccadilly Circus and Hyde Park Corner (1930-32, 6 min - DVD only)
- Seven More Stations (1948, 12 mins, DVD only): a film about the expansion of the Central Line beyond Stratford
IMDb
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.
~ paultreloar75
Underground (1928)
Underground (1928)
