In this golden age of home viewing, the Criterion Collection still provides some of the best editions of the best movies ever released, usually with a rich selection of extras and often including audio commentaries (a feature they pioneered, and perhaps the greatest gift ever to film students and cinephiles alike). This column features one Criterion release per week, based entirely on where my interests lead me.
Gangster movies have long been a staple of American cinema, and one of the best from the early sound era is Howard Hawks’ Scarface. Six writers, most notably Ben Hecht, had a hand in creating the screenplay, based on a novel by pulp writer Armitage Trail (a Nebraska boy whose birth name was Maurice R. Coons) which was somewhat based on the life of Al Capone.
Scarface begins with a conventional title sequence that doesn’t prepare you at all for what’s to come, followed by screen cards condemning “gang rule” as “a constantly increasing menance to our safety and liberty” and demanding the government do something about it. These cards were added to pacify censors (even though this is a pre-Code film) who felt the film glorified crime (to which Howard Hawks would probably say “Yes, your point being?”). The heavy hand of the censor is also evident in the alternate ending including as an extra on this disc (Hawks’ original ending is used for the main cut).
The story begins in 1920s Chicago and traces the career of Tony “Scarface” Camonte (Paul Muni), a gangster determined to work his way up the ladder to wealth and fame. His primary incentive to living on the wrong side of the law is the extraordinary profits to be made in bootlegging, thanks to the Volstead Act, a.k.a. the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, which gave us Prohibition.
Tony has joined forces with Johnny Lovo (Osgood Perkins, father of Anthony of Psycho fame) to bump off their boss, “Big” Louis Costillo (Harry J. Vejar) and taking over his territory on Chicago’s South Side. Also on the team are Guino “Little Boy” Rinaldo (George Raft in his first major role), who really thinks well of his handsome face, and Angelo (Vince Barnett); whose old-world ways contrast with the eagerness of Tony and Johnny to be part of modern America. I have no proof, but I’d be willing to bet good money that Angelo’s difficulties using a telephone is the model for Mr. Burns’ similar difficulties operating his “telephone machine” in The Simpsons.
Buoyed by his success, Tony decides he needs to control the North Side as well, which puts him in conflict with Irish gangster Tom Gaffney (Boris Karloff). Violence escalates and all I can say is that this film’s bullet budget must have been considerable. Several romances are also in motion, most notably Tony’s sister Cesca (Ann Dvorak) with Guino, and Tony with Lovo’s girlfriend Poppy (Karen Morley). Some viewers see Tony’s relationshiop with Cesca as veering toward the incestuous, while others think he’s more concerned with family honor, and to me both interpretations are supportable.
Scarface was made over 90 years ago and sometimes shows its age, particularly in the dullness of the non-gangster characters and some uncomfortably static scenes due to the unwieldiness of the early sound equipment. Overall, however, it holds up well as a viewing experience as well as an historically important film. The most notable element is Hawks’ use of sound, which is all the more notable since synchronized sound for movies had existed for movies for a few years when this film was made. While much discussion of early sound films focuses on the ability to include spoken dialogue (“Garbo talks!”), Hawks’ greatest innovation in the film is the way he uses non-verbal sounds like gunfire and breaking glass for dramatic effect. There’s no non-diegetic music included outside of the opening and closing credits, which creates a feeling of sparseness and underlines the harsh nature of the non-dialogue sounds you do hear. Cinematographers Lee Garmes and L. William O’Connell achieve some excellent film noir looks before the genre had a name, and the symbolic “X” first seen in the opening credits is well-utilized throughout. | Sarah Boslaugh
Spine #: 1239
Technical details: 95 min.; B&W; screen ratio 1.35:1; English.
Edition reviewed: Blu-ray (1 disc).
Extras: conversation between writer Megan Abbott and actor Bill Hader; interview with film scholar Lea Jacobs on Howard Hawks’ innovative sound and dialogue editing; alternate ending as required by censorship for the original release; booklet with essay by film critic Imogen Sara Smith.
Fun Fact: Scarface was the first film to show the use of tommy guns (which Tony describes as “portable machine guns”) and the effectiveness of that weapon was underscored by Hawks’ innovative use of sound. For the most part, real bullets were being fired at or near the actors, who had to hope the shooter knew his job properly.
Parting Thought: Prohibition was supposed to be for the common good, but, as was pointed out by another fictional mobster, Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson*) in Key Largo, the main beneficiary may have been organized crime, which profited handsomely by supplying something that lots of people wanted but could not obtain through legal means. This puts me in mind of the War on Drugs and the supposedly unintentional consequences of that ill-fated and ongoing farce, but surely there are other examples I’m not thinking of?
*Robinson, like Muni, was a Jewish actor who became famous for playing an Italian character. Their birth names were Frederich Meshilem Meier Weisenfreund (Muni) and Emanuel Goldenberg (Robinson).
