Underworld

Fedora’s, machine guns and jazz: the Metropole Orkest Big Band brings you back to the criminal underworld of Chicago in the 20s with a brand new soundtrack to Josef von Sternberg’s movie Underworld (1927).
It tells the story about a love triangle between a gangster, his sweetheart and a befriended lawyer. Initially Underworld was only released in one theater in New York, but much to everyone’s surprise, it became a huge hit.

The movie contains many elements that later on became stereotypical for the gangster-genre: the criminal hero, the gangster’s sweetheart, wild parties, chases and a final shoot-out.

As a tribute to the founders of modern jazz in the Netherlands, Rob Pronk and Jerry van Rooyen, the Metropole Orkest created a brand new soundtrack to accompany this (silent) gangster movie. Producers Henk Heijink and Gert-Jan Blom found their way into the archives to carefully select some of the many fantastic compositions and arrangements by Pronk and van Rooyen.