Underground

Anthony Asquith: Underground (1928): photos from the souvenir programme. Photos from the article by Samuel Wigley on the website of the BFI.

UNDERGROUND (British Instructional Films, GB 1928)
    Dir/sc: Anthony Asquith; prod: H. Bruce Woolfe; ph: Stanley Rodwell; lighting: Karl Fischer; des: Ian Campbell-Gray; cast: Brian Aherne, Elissa Landi, Cyril McLaglen, Norah Baring; trade show: 7.1928; 35 mm, 7339 ft, 89’ (22 fps), BFI / National Film and Television Archive.
    Unreleased in Finland.
    Didascalie in inglese / English intertitles.
    Grand piano: Gabriel Thibaudeau.
    Viewed at Teatro Zancanaro, Sacile, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM): Asquith e gli altri, 10 Oct 2004

Bryony Dixon (GCM): "Anthony Asquith’s second feature angered contemporaries by setting a working-class love story in a thoroughly modern London landscape. The critics misunderstood the realistic nature of Asquith’s story. They preferred their working-class protagonists to be salt-of-the-earth Cockneys like Betty Balfour’s Squibs, not independent young ladies with jobs in department stores who travel by Tube. They even criticized the German-influenced lighting schemes from imported expert Karl Fischer. The film was ahead of its time, and now we praise those very elements for which it was criticized."

"Asquith’s original screenplay is a simple tale of light and dark. Two men compete for the affections of beautiful Elissa Landi. One (Brian Aherne) is a pleasant, uncomplicated, upwardly mobile young man, the other (Cyril McLaglen) a dangerous and resentful philanderer in an abusive relationship with a seamstress (Norah Baring), a poverty-stricken victim. The argument between the two men culminates in tragedy atop the Lots Road power station, and finishes in a classic rooftop chase. Watch also for a trademark Asquith shot in the pub sequence, where we see the two fighting men in a smashed mirror. The contemporary detail is fascinating for modern audiences. And for anyone who has observed the strange behavioural etiquette of the London Underground, they will notice that little has changed." – Bryony Dixon (GCM)

AA: The second of Anthony Asquith's three great silent films, representatives of the "high silent" years just when the breakthrough of the sound film began. The print screened was gray, in low contrast, before restoration.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DATA FROM BFI SCREENONLINE:
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DATA FROM BFI SCREENONLINE:

BFI SCREENONLINE: SYNOPSIS

Bert, a power station electrician, accosts Nell, a shop worker, on a busy London Underground train. She spiritedly fends off his attentions but he tells her they are meant to be together. After leaving the carriage, Nell drops one of her gloves and Bill, a young Underground attendant, returns it to her. Like Bert, Bill is clearly entranced by Nell.

Later that day, Bill searches the rush-hour crowds for Nell. When she appears, he asks her to go on a date with him at the weekend. She agrees and they say goodbye, watched by a jealous Bert. As Bert returns home he is greeted by Kate, a dressmaker who lives in the same building. She is devotedly in love with him, but Bert callously tells Kate that their relationship is over.

That weekend Bert bumps into Nell, who is on her way to meet Bill. Bert forces himself upon her and she angrily pushes him away. Despite this he tells Nell he will marry her one day. She and Bill share an enjoyable day, and Bill asks Nell to marry him. This time she says yes. As Bill drops Nell off at home, she mentions that Bert also proposed to her that day.

In the pub, Bert boasts about his 'relationship' with Nell. Some men decide to stir up trouble by telling Bert that Nell is in love with Bill, not him. When Bill enters, Bert picks a fight with him, but loses. Replaying the fight over and over in his mind, an angry Bert returns home and asks Kate to do him a favour.

The next day, Kate prowls the busy Underground. She approaches Bill and pretends to feel faint. When he takes her to a secluded corner to recover, Kate pretends that Bill has attempted to assault her. A large crowd gathers, including Nell, and Bill is taken away to be questioned.

Bert sends Nell a letter, renewing his proposal of marriage. However, Nell sees Bill in the street and tells him she has decided to believe his version of events. They discuss the fact that if Kate does not tell the truth Bill will lose his job and he and Nell will not be able to get married. When Kate comes to Nell's haberdashery to buy some material, Nell contrives to find out her address. She compares it to her letter from Bert and realises that Kate lives in the same house. Nell goes to confront Kate, narrowly avoiding Bert, who has packed his bags intending to leave Kate and start a new life. Kate refuses to confess that she lied about Bill until Nell shows her the letter from Bert.

After Nell leaves, Bill turns up to confront a tearful Kate. He accompanies her to the power station where Bert works. While Bill talks to Bert's employers, Kate rushes to find Bert, whom she still loves. In anger he strikes her, causing an electrical failure in the process. Bert runs away and a chase ensues, with Bill finally trapping Bert in an Underground lift.

Time passes and daily life on the Underground continues as before. Nell gazes lovingly at Bill, now her husband, as he goes about his work on the train.
       
NATHALIE MORRIS: UNDERGROUND
   
The social spaces of 1920s London (parks, pubs and shops) play an important role in Anthony Asquith's working-class love story. Most central to the narrative of the film, as the title suggests, is the London Underground itself, its bustling public corridors and carriages providing an arena in which people from all walks of life intermingle.

The atmosphere of the Underground is immediately conveyed in the documentary-style opening shot of the film, as the camera, mounted on the front of a train, approaches a crowded platform. Once inside the carriage the tone shifts to comedy as the passengers, a cross-section of metropolitan society, are surveyed. The rakish Bert (Cyril McLaglen) pokes fun at a well-dressed businessman; shop girls gossip excitedly, to the dismay of the prim lady sandwiched between them; and Nell (Elissa Landi) scores a minor victory over Bert by tossing his hat into the midst of a group of mischievous schoolboys.

Although Underground was only Asquith's second film (and the first for which he would receive a full directing credit – Shooting Stars (1926) was officially credited to veteran director A. V. Bramble), he handles the melodramatic story with sophistication. As in Alfred Hitchcock's The Lodger (1926) and Blackmail (1929), the psychological aspects of the narrative are illustrated with imaginative touches that draw upon a variety of European cinematic influences such as German Expressionism and Soviet Montage. The sharp angles and dramatic interplay between light and shadow outside Kate's (Nora Baring) room are indebted to expressionist techniques, and create a visually striking scene while conveying something of the young woman's confused mental state.

Asquith also admired E. A. Dupont's use of the camera to create a subjective viewpoint, in films such as Varieté (1925). Asquith utilises this approach during the pub fight between Bert and Bill (Brian Aherne), with Bill launching his fist directly at the camera as he strikes his final blow. As Bert retreats home the punch is replayed over and over in his mind, the editing of the sequence building to an emotional crescendo as he resolves to take revenge.

Asquith continued to explore the potential of film to create mood and to convey emotional states, which arguably reached a high point in the experimental shot juxtapositions and rapid editing of his final silent film, the celebrated A Cottage on Dartmoor (1929).

Nathalie Morris