The new MGM/United Artists' movie "Hoodlum" represents Chicago in more than just the scenes shot here for the film. Background music for the movie, which opens Aug. 29, was produced in Chicago and features the talents of several professors and former students at DePaul University's School of Music.

DePaul Symphony Orchestra conductor Cliff Colnot adapted and arranged classic 1930s jazz compositions for the movie. Colnot, a conductor, composer, commercial musician and CEO of Cliff Colnot Music, Inc., has taught jazz composition and arranging at DePaul since 1981. He is a resident of the Near North Side.

Former DePaul student and recording artist Brian Culbertson worked with Colnot to arrange the film's music, which includes a traditional Duke Ellington rhythm section and a small ensemble of brass and woodwinds.

Another DePaul jazz studies professor, Mark Colby of Wheaton, played tenor sax on the soundtrack, and recent graduates Jim Gailloreto and Linda Van Dyke performed, respectively, on the alto sax and clarinet.

The movie tells the story of the Mafia takeover of Harlem jazz clubs and gambling operations in the 1930s. Laurence Fishburne stars as Harlem godfather Bumpy Johnson, Cicely Tyson plays his mentor Madame Stephanie St. Clair, Andy Garcia plays mobster Lucky Luciano and Tim Roth appears as brutal bootlegger Dutch Schultz.

Appointed conductor of the DePaul Symphony Orchestra in April, Colnot will direct nearly 100 School of Music students in several free public performances this year at the DePaul Concert Hall in Lincoln Park and an annual spring concert in Chicago's Orchestra Hall. Colby will teach saxophone when school opens in September.