Pauline Kael Review:
Pauline Kael Review:
The gangster classic, with Paul Muni as the dangerous hood with the
scar on his cheek, and dark, huge-eyed Ann Dvorak as his sister. The
writer, Ben Hecht, and the director, Howard Hawks, said that they
wrote the story by treating the Capone family "as if they were the
Borgias set down in Chicago." Overall, it's a terrific movie, even
though the pacing doesn't always seem quite right.
The opening sequence is a beauty: the camera moves from a street lamp
with stylized skyscrapers in the background and follows a milkman
into a speakeasy, where we see the remnants of a gangland New Year's
Eve party and finally pick up the shadow of Scarface, who kills the
gangland leader. The film's violence has the crazy, helter-skelter
feeling of actual gun battles, and Paul Muni, with a machine gun in
his arms, is brutal and grotesque, in a primal, childlike, fixating
way. Truffaut suggests that Hawks "deliberately directed Paul Muni
to make him look like a monkey, his arms hanging loosely and slightly
curved, his face caught in a perpetual grimace."
The cast includes George Raft, Osgood Perkins, Karen Morley, Boris
Karloff, Vince Barnett, Edwin Maxwell, C. Henry Gordon, Tully
Marshall, Henry Armetta, and Purnell Pratt.
Here's Truffaut again: "The most striking scene in the movie is
unquestionably Boris Karloff's death. He squats down to throw a ball
in a game of ninepins and doesn't get up; a rifle shot prostrates him.
The camera follows the ball he's thrown as it knocks down all the pins
except one that keeps spinning until it finally falls over, the exact
symbol of Karloff himself, the last survivor of a rival gang that's
been wiped out by Muni. This isn't literature. It may be dance or
poetry. It is certainly cinema."
The story, based on a novel by Armitage Trail, is credited to Hecht,
and the continuity and dialogue to Seton I. Miller, John Lee Mahin,
and W.R. Burnett. The cinematography is by Lee Garmes and L.W.
O'Connell. The film was ready for release in 1930, but was held up
for two years by censorship problems; the scene in the publisher's
office wasn't directed by Hawks—it was inserted to appease pressure
groups. The title SCARFACE bore the subtitle SHAME OF THE NATION.
Presented by Howard Hughes; United Artists.
CineBooks' Motion Picture Guide Review: 5.0 stars out of 5:
Under director Howard Hawks' iron grip, when SCARFACE was released it
was the most violent, bloody gangster film of the genre. Though
initially poorly received, the film is a brilliant depiction of the
ruthlessness of mob life, and remains a classic to this day.
Synopsis
Brutal mobster. The first scene of SCARFACE shows Tony Camonte (Paul
Muni) only in shadow, whistling a few bars of an Italian aria before
shooting a victim and then walking calmly away. Tony, it is shown, is
the typical gangster of the era; he is brutal, arrogant, and stupid,
a homicidal maniac who revels in gaudy clothes, fast cars, and machine
guns, because their rapid fire allows him to kill more people at a
single outing. Tony is also insanely jealous of his slinky sister,
Cesca (Ann Dvorak), to the point where his feelings toward her are
obliquely incestuous, though he is too stupid to know it.
Tony works for Johnny Lovo (Osgood Perkins), a more sophisticated and
clever hoodlum who, in turn, is the chief lieutenant of Big Lou
Costillo (Harry J. Vejar), the city's nominal crime boss. Tony is
arrested for the murder shown in the opening scene, but the mob lawyer
soon has him freed on a special writ. Once out, Tony manipulates the
thugs and bosses to achieve his own ends, encouraging Perkins to kill
the old-time boss Louis, since Louis will not take advantage of the
new Prohibition law and go into bootlegging liquor.
Big boss killed. After Louis has been killed in his lavish restaurant,
Johnny calls a meeting of all the mob bosses in the city and lectures
them about the wild shootouts that have drawn too much attention from
the press and heat from the police. When Johnny tells Tony to leave
North Side boss Gaffney (Boris Karloff) alone, Tony says he'll take
care of Gaffney.
Later, Johnny has the ambitious Tony come to his swanky apartment,
where Tony gets a good look at cool blonde Poppy (Karen Morley),
Johnny's sexy mistress. It's obvious that the ruthless thug covets
her, and she is ready to reciprocate. Johnny warns Tony to curb his
strong-arm methods, and Tony gives him an empty promise, continuing
to go his own way, strong-arming and killing at will.
Violence escalates. Later, Gaffney's men attack as Tony and Poppy sit
in a coffee shop with two of Tony's men, Guino (George Raft) and
Angelo (Vince Barnett). They're nearly killed as they are fired upon
from several cars moving slowly past in a phony funeral procession.
Tony and company are unharmed though, and Guino even captures one of
the enemies' weapons at the behest of the arrogant Tony. Johnny is
not impressed, however, and tension mounts between the crime boss and
his second-in-command.
Meanwhile, Gaffney remains the gang's only significant enemy, raiding
their warehouses, killing their men, and waging all-out war against
them. Tony finally corners Gaffney's gang in a garage and cuts them
down with machine guns, a slaughter that brings down the wrath of the
public and the disapproval of Johnny on Tony. Gaffney himself is
later gunned down in a bowling alley by Tony's henchmen.
Attack ordered. Johnny, finally fed up with this reckless activity,
orders a group of henchmen to kill Tony. After leaving a nightclub
without his bodyguards (to chase after Cesca, who was dancing a
little too close to her date), Tony is attacked and his car is run
off of the road. He survives, however, and upon discovering that
Johnny was behind the hit attempt, goes to Johnny's office, where he
orders Guido to kill him. With Johnny out of the way, Tony can now
claim Poppy as his own and take over the powerful underworld position
that Johnny once held.
Tony's reckless behavior and wild antics eventually take their toll.
His relationship with his mother deteriorates, and his wildly
possessive feelings for his sister increase to ridiculous proportions.
In addition to the personal problems, Tony begins to feel pressure
from the law, as they get closer to actually catching the elusive
criminal. Tony, whose world is gradually falling apart, is now hunted
by the police and stuck with a strongly depleted gang, and it's not
long before he learns that his sister is living with his best friend
Guido.
Fitting conclusion. Not knowing that Cesca and Guido are married,
Tony goes to Guido's apartment and shoots him to death. Cesca
hysterically curses Tony as he walks dumbly away in a daze.
The police then close in on Tony, surrounding his apartment, where
Cesca has gone to seek revenge for the killing of Guido. As the
police begin raking the place with machine gun fire, Tony fires back,
shouting to Cesca that they can hold out indefinitely. But when a
stray police bullet kills her, Tony goes berserk, turning into a
sniveling coward. After begging the police not to shoot him, he
makes a dash for freedom and is shot down, his body landing in the
gutter.
Critique
Violent classic. Howard Hawks pulled no punches in creating this
exciting film, running his cameras with the action in truck and dolly
shots that were mostly unheard of in the early talkie period. Aiding
Hawks greatly in his intricate construction of the picture was
cameraman Lee Garmes, whose sharp contrasts lent a sinister look to
the film and, in the glaring gangster daylight he created, images
that are stark and brutal.
Producer Howard Hughes spared no expense in presenting the greatest
gangster film of the era, but he also interfered with Hawks as he did
with other directors, insisting that Hawks present all decisions for
his approval. In fact, the Hawks-Hughes production was almost
cancelled because of the incessant squabbling between the producer
and director. Almost nothing was used of the Armitage Trail novel on
which the film is based, except the title. Profiling the gangster and
his tempestuous sister as modern-day Borgias was Hawks' idea, with
the incest relationship as the emotional weakness that destroys the
unthinking gangster. Screenwriter Ben Hecht had been offered $20,000
by Hawks to write the script, but wanted instead $1,000 a day in cash—
not a particularly advantageous deal since he finished the script in
11 days.
Superbly cast. Paul Muni is superb in his role of the maniac killer.
Karen Morley is perfect as the ice-cool blonde gun moll, a violence-
craving chippie who is turned on by power and killing, all embodied
by Muni. Karloff's performance is marred by an oddball interpretation
of how a Chicago gangster is supposed to talk. He plays a part based
on Chicago's George "Bugs" Moran and he looks his part, with his
staring deep-socketed eyes and stiff, lethargic movements, a gaunt,
almost ghoulish-looking gangster.
The dumbbell gunman, Barnett, had never acted before Hawks gave him
his role in SCARFACE. His buffoonery on the set drove the professional,
reserved Muni crazy, but Hawks thought Barnett was funny.
As the crafty sub-boss, Osgood Perkins is slick, and Raft, with his
tuxedo and pomaded hair parted in the middle, is excellent as Muni's
right-hand man, a killer who does Muni's bidding without question.
Raft had hung around several New York gangs in the 1920s, including
the Dutch Schultz mob. He had been fascinated by one of Schultz's
lieutenants, Bo Weinberg, who had a habit of flipping a coin just
before he shot someone, a trick Raft incorporated into his portrayal.
Background
Lawless heros. Gangsters in the 1930s received more press than the
President of the United States. Grim, gruesome creatures that the
gangsters were, the financially downtrodden public during the Great
Depression oddly identified with them; their twisted careers, which
the press itself promoted, were thought to be glamorous and
sophisticated. For the uneducated and the unemployed, the gangster
was sort of a folk hero.
SCARFACE changed that misconceived notion. Though the gangster genre
had begun with a tremendous explosion of films such as LITTLE CAESAR
(1930) and THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931), it was SCARFACE (originally
called SCARFACE, THE SHAME OF A NATION) that depicted the glorious
gangster as a murderous beast. In earlier films of the genre, a great
deal of attention was paid to developing the background of the
criminal and placing the blame for his antisocial activities on
environment, poverty, bad home life, and unthinking parents. But
with SCARFACE, all of that was dispensed with to give audiences for
the first time an adult, fully developed monster who thrived on death
and power.
Underworld advisors. Obvious to viewers of the time was that the
Tony Camonte's story was really that of Chicago's notorious Al Capone.
(In fact, Perkins' role is based on Johnny Torrio, the creator of
organized crime in America, and Vejar is a duplicate of Chicago's
old-time crime czar, Big Jim Colosimo.) Hawks used Fred Palsey, then
the top crime reporter for the Chicago Tribune, as a sort of long-
distance researcher (he received credit in the screenplay), checking
almost daily with Palsey by phone to verify crime personalities and
underworld techniques and procedures.
When real gangsters heard that Hawks was making SCARFACE, however,
they applied for jobs as extras or "advisers." Several of these
underworld types were used to supply additional information on how
the gangs operated. Capone himself, according to the director,
later gave Hawks a special party in Chicago, honoring him for making
SCARFACE. (Not only did Capone, according to Hawks, see SCARFACE five
or six times, but he had his own print of it. He thought it was great.)
SCARFACE remained Hawks' favorite film (as it was Hughes').
Authentic production. Authenticity was Hawks' middle name during the
filming of SCARFACE. For the scene in which the coffee shop is riddled
by the passing caravan of gangsters, the actors were called off the
set, and machine gunners, using real bullets, shot the set to pieces.
The actors were then brought back onto the set and the shot was
superimposed as if they were right in the middle of the murderous
fusillade. At another instance, Hawks saw rushes of a one-car smashup
during a gang shootout. He promptly insisted that more cars be wrecked,
until a total of 19 cars were smashed into buildings, lampposts, and
uprooted fire hydrants.
Censorship problems. Hollywood, which had practiced every conceivable
excess on the screen, had still never experienced anything like the
completed SCARFACE, an utterly ferocious film of bloodshed and
violence, not to mention the ultimate taboo—incest—even though no
sexually incestuous act is shown. The film ran into censorship
problems right from the beginning. The powerful Motion Picture
Producers and Distributors of America, Hollywood's moral custodian
at the time, insisted upon dozens of cuts and a whole new ending
where Muni's flagrant crimes are atoned for.
Hawks refused to shoot this bowdlerization, but Hughes ordered more
scenes shot, showing Muni (a stand-in, shown in silhouette, since
Muni himself had left the production and returned to the Broadway
stage at the time) being tried, sentenced, and then hanged as a mass
murderer—this in spite of the fact that the State of Illinois had
abandoned the gallows in 1922 and gone over to the electric chair.
Moreover, moralistic speeches representing Hawks' movie as a "social
lesson" instead of the stark and realistic profile the director
always intended were delivered by newspaper editor Tully Marshall and
police commissioner Edwin Maxwell.
This watered down version of SCARFACE finally received a Seal of
Approval, but when prints were shipped East for the film's premiere,
the State Board of Censors in New York refused to let the movie be
shown, demanding even more cuts and changes.
Two prints shipped. In frustration, Hughes released both the original
print as Hawks had shot it and the doctored, revised print with the
prologue and epilog tacked on (these have long since disappeared from
prints seen today), selecting which print to show depending on the
reactions in various locations throughout the country. This resulted
in confusion among film enthusiasts and endless arguing over how Muni
dies at the end of the film. Almost all prints available today show
Muni ending his bullet-laden career in the gutter.
After all the commotion had died down, Hughes, who had spent well
over $1 million to make SCARFACE, saw that returned twice over. All
the fuss with censorship had boosted the box office greatly.
Prints guarded. Interestingly, Hughes jealously guarded future
releases of SCARFACE, which he cherished as his most creative film
production, and when he removed it from distribution, he refused to
sell the rights to the story or allow exhibitors to show the classic
production. Oddly, the prints Hughes kept locked up in his vaults
were only copies. Hawks somehow got his hands on the original
negative and refused to give it up to Hughes, hiding it. Upon Hughes'
death the executors of his will were instructed to confiscate all
copies of SCARFACE, meaning they were to get their hands on Hawks'
negative.
Not until 1979 did Hughes' Summa Corporation sell all the rights to
SCARFACE to Universal Studios, thus making the film available once
more to the public, who could only see this classic in pirated
editions up to that time.
22-Jan-1998 00:37
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