A lot of people are surprised when I tell them that Brian de Palma's Scarface (1983), starring Al Pacino, is a remake of an earlier film. This version of Scarface, directed by Howard Hawks and produced by Howard Hughes for United Artists, is an excellent movie from the days of Pre-Code Hollywood, and easily stands up alongside the numerous high-quality gangster films released by Warner Bros. around the same time.
(Originally posted on Channel Awesome on December 15, 2013) A lot of people are surprised when I tell them that Brian de Palma's Scarface (1983), starring Al Pacino, is a remake of an earlier film. This version of Scarface, directed by Howard Hawks and produced by Howard Hughes for United Artists, is an excellent movie from the days of Pre-Code Hollywood, and easily stands up alongside the numerous high-quality gangster films released by Warner Bros. around the same time. If you've seen de Palma's Scarface, the story and plot points are mostly the same. Based on the 1929 novel by Armitage Trail, Scarface chronicles the rise and fall of Tony Camonte (Paul Muni), a low-level crook operating in Prohibition-era Chicago. Tony begins to work his way up the ranks of a crime syndicate run by Johnny Lovo (Osgood Perkins) by knocking off one of Lovo's biggest rivals. Thanks to Tony, Lovo's influence expands across the city. However, Tony likes picking fights that Lovo would rather avoid, triggering bloody wars with rival gangs - one of them led by Gaffney (Boris Karloff). The rising bodycount, which includes innocent people caught in the crossfire, turns public sentiment against the gangsters they once glamorized. Not only is this bad for Lovo's business, but Tony's got his eye on Lovo's girl Poppy (Karen Morley). A resentful Lovo tries to double-cross Tony, which works out as well for Lovo as you'd expect. However, just as Tony makes it to the top, his moment of triumph is shattered when he finds out his top aide, Guino (George Raft), has been romancing Tony's little sister Francesca (Ann Dvorak), and Tony murders Guino before they have the chance to tell them they got married. Guino's murder gives the cops the excuse they've been looking for to take down Tony, leading to the crimelord's lonely, pitiful end at the hands of the law. Scarface ran into a lot of trouble from the censors at the Hays Office (which was formed to clamp down on "immorality" in the movies) throughout its production. They insisted on all sorts of changes to the original script and objected to the film's violence (way the hell tame by today's standards, but for 1932, this film was pretty brutal - Hughes insisted on making the film as realistic and gritty as possible). In an attempt to appease them, Hawks filmed an alternate ending where Tony, instead of being gunned down by the police, is arrested, tried, and executed for his crimes. Censors still objected, so Hawks kept the original ending (the alternate ending is a special feature on the DVD release, if you're curious). Some changes did work their way into the script - Tony's mother went from accepting her son's criminal lifestyle to hating him for it, and being terrified of his influence on Francesca. Also, a scene was added where a politician, confronted by reporters on his inability to take down Tony Camonte, rails on the media for glorifying him and other gangsters. (The film even had the subtitle The Shame of the Nation and an anti-gangster title card added to it.) So how does the original Scarface hold up? Pretty well, in my opinion. Muni gives a great performance as Tony Camonte, which is no surprise, given his acting resume. He would later win an Academy Award for Best Actor in The Story of Louis Pasteur (1935) and was nominated for an Oscar five other times. It helps that Camonte has a lot of substance to him. He's very much driven by ambition, not just to be the top gangster in town, but also wanting to come off as cultured and cultivated, and not just a thug with a gun. For instance, he goes to the theater to see "smart shows," perhaps as a means to improve his own self-perception. Geroge Raft is slick and smooth as Guino, and this film made him a big name in Hollywood. He would go on to play numerous tough guys and gangsters throughout his career - and real-life gangsters actually came to him for advice on how to walk, talk, and dress! (Raft's real-life friendships with Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky prepared him quite well for these roles.) Ann Dvorak has a lot to work with in her role as Tony's not-so-innocent sister, and she plays the role quite well. (Unlike the 1983 film, the incestuous attraction between Tony and Francesca is subtle and implied.) Some of the performances can be rough around the edges, even the ones I just mentioned - all-talking movies were only a couple of years old by this point, and film acting had yet to be perfected. While Boris Karloff doesn't have a huge role in this movie, he's still a welcome sight for the few minutes he's on-screen. Technically, the film has some clever touches, such as its clever use of lighting. Despite the considerable bodycount the film racks up, a lot of the murders take place off-screen, usually foreshadowed with an X somehow worked into the shot (mirroring the X-shaped scar on Tony's face). Sometimes you see shadows and silhouettes against a wall crumpling at the sound of a gun, or you'll just hear the shot and the sound of a falling body from off-screen. The film moves at a steady pace and is peppered throughout with a number of suspenseful action scenes. There's an amusing anecdote related to the title of this movie (although I don't know if it's 100% true, if at all). Legendary crime lord Al Capone was also known as "Scarface," and a couple of his enforcers actually accosted the screenwriters of this film about whether the movie was going to be based on Capone. The writers said that it wasn't, and the name was merely a marketing gimmick to make audiences think it was. Impressed by the "scam," Capone's goons backed off, and the writers were supposedly able to persuade them to work as consultants on Scarface. (Capone was a huge fan of the movie when it came out, and is rumored to have owned a print of it.) Although not based on Capone, Scarface does lift from real events in his career, such as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. If you're a fan of de Palma's Scarface, you might find the original interesting to watch. If you haven't seen the remake, this movie is a good one in its own right, if you like gangster movies, and is worth giving a shot.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
About the INCspotlightThe INCspotlight, formerly hosted on the website Channel Awesome, now has a new home on my own website! Categories
All
Archives
November 2022
|