Scarface (1932 film)

Scarface (1932 film)
This film has been preserved in the National Film Registry in 1994.
Genre: Gangster Directed by: Howard Hawks Produced by: Howard Hawks Howard Hughes Written by: W.R. Burnett John Lee Mahin Seton I. Miller Ben Hecht Based on: Scarface by Armitage Trail Starring: Paul Muni Ann Dvorak Osgood Perkins Karen Morley George Raft Boris Karloff Cinematography: Lee Garmes L.W. O'Connell Distributed by: United Artists Release date: April 9, 1932 Runtime: 93 min 95 min (alt.) Country: United States Language: English Italian Box office: $600,000

Scarface (also known as Scarface: The Shame of the Nation and The Shame of a Nation) is a 1932 American pre-Code gangster film directed by Howard Hawks and produced by Hawks and Howard Hughes.

The screenplay is based loosely on Armitage Trail's 1929 novel which was inspired by Al Capone.

Why It Rocks

1. Having to compete against box-office hits such as Little Caesar and the The Public Enemy, which came out at the end of the first cycle of sound gangster films, Howard Hughes desired to top them. His movie was meant to be more violent, perverse, explicit and expensive than the competition.
2. Interesting casting choices with talented roles.
   • Paul Muni becomes the lead role as Scarface in what may be his best performance. Although, he's played almost like a loveable lug, someone who finds most social niceties laughable. Muni separates himself from the role with his lumbering gait and exaggerated accent.
   • George Raft is cast as Muni's sidekick, and he would bring some street credibility to the film. Howard Hawks gave him some business flipping a coin, that would basically become a signature trademark of his. He also brings a better performance than Muni.
   • Ann Dvorak was cast as Muni's sister after Hawks saw her dance with Raft at a party, as another role from Hawks as a tough, independent woman. She also brings a better performance than Muni.
3. The film's plot is pretty much the same as The Public Enemy, but with more sex, bloodshed, and implied smoldering incest. The film's three-minute opening shot tracks from a close-up of a street sign into the dregs of a political celebration in a dancehall. Then the camera picks up the shadow of a whistling Camonte, then depicts the off-screen killing of rival gang leader Louis Costillo. This overly complicated shot (Hawks rarely attempted such complicated shots in later films) serves as a shot of fanfare for the violence to follow.
4. Audiences of the time would have been more familiar with the real-life incidents which inspired a lot of the scenes.
   • The party that Camonte throws when he takes over a gang is based on a legendary banquet where Al Capone bludgeoned an underling to death with a baseball bat.
   • The St. Valentine's Day Massacre is portrayed in the film as simply being another in a series of slayings tied to the letter X. (It should also be noted that X was incorporated into death scenes, with Boris Karloff's death in a bowling alley --with his spare Xed onto his scoreboard-- being particularly clever.
5. The film's other selling point is sex, with the camera staring at Dvoark's body as she shakes for Raft in a nightclub scene, and Muni staring openly and Karen Morley as she descends a staircase. Camonte's attraction for his sister is so obvious that no one knew quite what to do with it.
6. The film's last half hour is a stew of desire, betrayal, and bloodshed. Its makes might cite Shakespeare, but their motive were far more mercenary. Hawks reverses the usual structure of the gangster tragedy: Camonte's not driven by his ego to challenge the world so much as to embrace its natural chaos and violence.