journalist ben hecht's influence appears in the phony flower shop operation and killing of "bull" weed's archenemy, "florist" buck mulligan, evoking the 1922 real-life murder of kingpin dion o'bannon by the tony torrios mob. funeral hearses also abound in the film, notorious as capacious conveyances used to conceal criminal activities and personnel in chicago. despite these contemporary references, "underworld" does not qualify as "the first gangster film" as sternberg "showed little interest in the purely gangsterish aspects of the genre" nor the "mechanics of [mob] power." rather than invoking contemporary social forces and inequities, sternberg's "bull" weed is subject to "implacable fate", much as the heroes of classical antiquity. the female companions to the outlaws are less gangster molls, addicted to violent men, but protagonists in their own right, who induce "revenge and redemption." the genre would only be properly established in such film classics as little caesar (1930), the public enemy (1931), scarface (1932), high sierra (1941), white heat (1949), the asphalt jungle (1950) and the killing (1956).