The Informer, Shooting Stars, Underground

Director– Anthony Asquith (Underground and Shooting Stars) /A.V. Bramble (Shooting Stars) / Arthur Robison (The Informer)

Cast- Brian Aherne, Elissa Landi (Underground) Lya De Putti, Lars Hanson (The Informer) Annette Benson, Brian Aherne (Shooting Stars)

Country of Origin – UK
 

Distributor - Kino Lorber

Number of discs –  1/1/1

Reviewed by - David Steigman

Date- 05/08/2019

Kino Lorber Studio Classics is one of a few labels that you can count on for consistently licensing some silent movies, whether the films are from a major studio or a smaller entity that they deal with. Courtesy of three HD masters created by BFI, Kino Lorber has debuted three British silent classics on Blu-ray for domestic audiences, Underground, Shooting Stars and The Informer. All three films have the underlining theme of romance and adultery.

Based on the novel The Informer by Liam O'Flaherty, The Informer is the tragic tale of betrayal. Taking place in Ireland, this is the story of two working class Irishmen who are the best of friends and also are part of an anti-establishment political group of revolutionaries. During a meeting between all the group members, the police attacks. During the shootout, Francis McPhillip (Carl Harbord) shoots and kills the chief of police. McPhillip goes underground on the run, leaving his girlfriend and essentially his life behind. Gypo Noland (Lars Hanson) betrays his best friend McPhillip, who is on the run, by informing the police of his whereabouts. What occurred was McPhillip, while on the run, quickly and quietly returns to his home in Dublin to say farewell to his mother and former lover Katie Fox (Lya De Putti). McPhillip and Fox were lovers but, once he fled, she was set free, and Noland swooped in and took her. Noland, who sees McPhillip and his ex-lover together, gets the wrong idea and feeling jealous and threatened, becomes an ‘informer’, reporting his friend McPhillip to the police headed by Dan Gallagher (Warwick Ward). The police go full force after McPhillip to bring him to justice, or death, or both. Noland eventually realizes the error of his ways and is filled with remorse after what he did to his friend.

The Informer is a powerful silent thriller, considered to be one of the best ones ever made, (the sound version is also available on this disc) with a great storyline and cast, along with the newly commissioned musical score by Garth Knox. The key to being a great silent picture is the effectiveness of the actors’ facial expressions, and they are done so well here, you can feel their pain, their guilt without any words spoken. Of course during the sound version the dialog spoken is also effective. Either way you watch The Informer, it will be an enjoyable experience despite the tragedies that occurred during the film.  

Underground is a love story set in the early 1920s in and around the London Underground. Two men, an underground porter Bill (Brian Aherne) and an electrician, Bert (Cyril McLaglen) meet the same woman, Nell (Elissa Landi) on the exact same day and both find themselves attracted to each her. This causes animosity between the two friends, especially when Nell has chosen to marry Bill, and poor Bert can’t handle the rejection.  After a fistfight between Bill and Bert, with Bill getting the upper hand, Bert looks to get even by pulling a scheme involving his girlfriend Kate (Nora Baring) that will lure Nell to him instead. Yes, Bert already has a girlfriend. His plan to set up his friend Bill, keeping him away from Nell and while he takes her and dumps his girlfriend nearly works. When Nell learns the tragic truth about all of this, and confronts Kate, this leads to heartache, chaotic violence a great chase scene at and under the subway station with Bill, seeking revenge and Bert, who has lost his mind.

Not having seen this movie until Kino Lorber released it on Blu-ray, I can say with extreme confidence that Underground is an outstanding over the top film (for its time) with a superb story and brilliant direction. The cast does a great, top-notch job with their performances with incredible effective facial expressions. The climax is just incredible. The musical score captures the film perfectly.

Shooting Stars is a tragic, sad tale of betrayal; a husband and wife team of movie stars, Mae Feather (Annette Benson) and Julian Gordon (Brian Aherne, also in Underground) is torn apart when he discovers she is having an affair with comedian Andy Wilks (Donald Calthrop).  When Julian catches them together, he plans to divorce her. In what must be have been incredible for 1928, Mae, who doesn’t want to face the embarrassment of being divorced plots to kill her husband using a real bullet used in a prop gun that will be fired at him in their new film called “Prairie Love”.

Shooting Stars is another outstanding silent film, with great direction and acting by the cast. Just as was the case with Underground, the facial expressions of the characters are incredibly effective. While the musical score sounds uppity at times, the picture ultimately is anything but cheerful. The directing credit for Shooting Stars went to filmmaker A V Bramble, but it’s universally acknowledged that the film was actually the directorial debut of Anthony Asquith who had just begun to rise to stardom.

Kino Lorber presents Underground, Shooting Stars and The Informer under Kino Classics umbrella. All three films were restored by the BFI National Archive in 2009 and are about as good as they are going to look.

Starting with the movie Underground, the 1080p presentation looks smooth, rich and polished with a great deal of depth and deep textures to the indoor and outdoor scenery. The close-ups show great detail to the characters’ faces. The grey scale is balanced with rich black levels. There are some print damages here and there but as a whole the video looks superb and is nothing short of a visual revelation. 

We are given three audio track options for this presentation, with either an English DTS-HD master audio 5.1 surround or 2.0 audio tracks from composer Neil Brand. The score is conducted and orchestrated by Timothy Brock and performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The third option is a score by Chris Watson, also presented in DTS-HD Master audio which gives the film an entirely different feel and mood while watching. All three options sound fantastic, with the scores coming in rich, clear and aggressive. No audio drop-outs or other defective sounds were noticed.

The sole extra for Underground is entitled “Restoring Underground”, which shows how much effort BFI went to in this restoration of the film.

Moving on to The Informer; I can also say that the video also looks excellent in HD, thanks again to the BFI restoration. This is another smooth, lush, polished image which is on par with Underground. English DTS-HD master audio 5.1 and 2.0 are the two options for the silent version and composer Garth Knox’s musical score is perfectly fine, sounding strongest during the film’s more suspenseful moments.

Extras for The Informer include the sound version of the film and a 5 minute restoration demonstration. The sound version is not quite as sparkling as the silent version, with a little less restoration work done, but overall the image quality is well above average. I did notice a few more speckles and lines that appear during the film but nothing that deters from the viewing experience all that much. English LPCM 2.0 mono is the audio used here and the sound quality was terrific with dialog coming in clear. The silent version does include English Intertitles for the film; however the sound version does not have subtitles. For those wondering, the spoken dialog “sound” portion of the film starts around the 45 minute mark until the film’s conclusion.

Shooting Stars has been given a 2K scan from BFI resulting in the image quality being the best of the three, although the other two films are nothing to sneeze at visually speaking. Overall the video quality is superb, with rich black levels, and a balanced greyscale. Both the indoor and outdoor scenery is exceptionally detailed with deep textures and great depth. There are some print damages that occur at different intervals, but despite that, this is a superior presentation. English DTS-HD master audio 5.1 surround or 2.0 audio tracks are the two audio options with the new score for this release by John Atman score sounding nice and robust. English intertitles are included for this release.

Extras for this release are minimal; all we get are a stills and a special collections gallery, and that’s it.

Underground, Shooting Stars and The Informer are three essential silent classics that were all given beautiful restorations about 10 years ago. Even though these were restored by BFI who also released the films on home video and do have a few more extras on them, those who are not extras junkies and just enjoy watching films in the best audio and video presentation without importing should look no further than to the Kino Lorber releases. If you have never seen any of these pictures, I highly recommend them all.