Screening & Live Event
Underworld
Saturday, March 2, 2019, 2:00 p.m.
Museum of the Moving Image - Redstone Theater
Introduced by Adina Hoffman, author of Ben Hecht: Fighting Words, Moving Pictures, followed by a book signing
Dir. Josef von Sternberg. 1927, 80 mins. 35mm. With George Bancroft, Clive Brook, Evelyn Brent. Having lived in and reported on Chicago during its bullet-ridden heyday as a mob battleground, Ben Hecht had the bona fides to help invent the modern gangster film. Before Hecht turned in a script for Howard Hawks’s Scarface (1932), he wrote this hard, tough, and dirty picture, which has George Bancroft’s gangster heavy taking dissipated lawyer Clive Brook under his wing, recruiting him into his turf war with rival Fred Kohler. Working from Hecht’s taut scenario, which took the very first Academy Award to be awarded for best original story, von Sternberg is in full control of the rich, expressionistic style he would refine through his films with Marlene Dietrich.
Tickets: $15 ($11 seniors and students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / free for children under 3 and Museum members at the Film Lover and Kids Premium levels and above). Order tickets online. (Members may contact [email protected] with questions regarding online reservations.)
Ticket purchase includes same-day admission to the Museum (see gallery hours). View the Museum’s ticketing policy here. For more information on membership and to join online, visit our membership page
