Underground review

A chance encounter on the Tube sparks a violent love feud between an electrician, a porter and a shop girl in Anthony Asquith’s 1928 restored classic of silent British cinema.

Stylistically, it’s a melting pot of influences, Asquith stirring together Hollywood-style melodrama with a Soviet-esque hymn to London life and a dash of German expressionist shadow.

The result still works as a study of submerged passions bubbling into madness, especially in an action-filled climax enlivened further in this version by Neil Brand’s dramatic new score.

Then there’s the film’s value as historical curio, the superb location filming providing an evocative portrait of pre-war London.