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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