SCARFACE

1932 99m

Not only is SCARFACE a Howard Hawks masterpiece and a landmark in the screen depiction of gangsters, but it influenced many of the great contemporary mob films such as Martin Scorsese's GOODFELLAS, Coppola's GODFATHER films and Brian De Palma's 1983 remake. Never before had audiences seen such a fully developed mobster who thrived on murder and power. The film was an immediate hit when it was released, but it wasn't so easy bringing the film to the screen.

Hawks had a hard time getting the big studios to back his picture, so he produced it himself (with help from Multi-millionaire businessman Howard Hughes). This meant he would not have access to the big stars of the day. The picture was finished in 1930, but it would take another two years before the movie would be seen. In Hawks' original cut the monster didn't pay enough for his crimes, this according to the censors. A scene was made were Scarface (Paul Muni) ends up dead in the gutter in a pile of horse manure, but still this wasn't enough. Hawks fought the censors for a year, but finally gave them what they wanted.

Paul Muni (Tony aka Scarface) was found acting at a Jewish theater in New York. When asked if he'd play the lead in a film loosely based on the notorious Al Capone, Muni replied "I'm not that kind of a guy". Muni claimed he was a completely sedentary man, so a former middleweight champion was brought in to teach Muni how to punch and look fierce.

The first scene in the movie shows Tony Camonte only in shadow, whistling a few bars of an Italian aria before shooting a victim and walking calmly away. Tony is honestly portrayed as the typical gangster of the era; he is brutal, arrogant, and stupid (Francois Truffaut said its likely Hawks directed Muni to look and move like an ape), a homicidal maniac who revels in his gaudy clothes, fast cars, and machine guns, because their rapid fire allows him to kill more people in a single outing.

Sponsored by

dUCKfACE

SCARFACE was the most violent film the genre had seen. Hawks outdid himself, running the cameras with the action in vivid truck and dolly shots often missing from the static early talkies of the period. Another visual stunner was the use of the symbol "X" to indicate immanent death (the rafters of a ceiling, Karloff's bowling score, Raft's apartment number, etc.) The screenplay was written by Ben Hecht, a long time collaborator of Hawks. Among the cast was Boris Karloff who, before Frankenstein, played another monster opposite Paul Muni's SCARFACE.

PRINT INFO!!!

1932

World Events

Franklin D. Roosevelt elected US President

Summer Olympic Games held in Los Angeles

Winter Olympic Games held in Lake Placid

Births

1/3 Dabney Coleman

1/22 Piper Laurie

2/6 Francois Truffaut

2/8 John Williams

2/18 Milos Forman