Film of the Week: 14

Scarface (1932)

What's the first thing that pops into your head when the name Scarface is mentioned? Is it Pacino's over the top performance? The introduction of the beautiful Michelle Pfeiffer? The yellow Cadillac with tiger seat covers? Or is it one of the film's famous quotes such as "Say hello to my little friend!"

Well, before the 1983 Scarface remake (which flopped in the box office but went on to became a cult classic phenomenon), there was the real Scarface, The Shame of the Nation and it was loosely based on the infamous Al Capone.

Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was born in Brooklyn, New York to italian immigrants from Naples and was a member of two youth gangs in a rough neighbourhood. He ended up dropping out of school at the age of 14 despite the fact that he was quite the intelligent kid. As he grew older, he ended up working in an inn for gangster Frankie Yale as a bouncer. However while working, he once insulted a patron and got his facial scars from her brother, thus earning his infamous nickname "Scarface".

In 1919 he arrived in Chicago and moved his family to 7244 South Prairie Avenue (which eventually became his business headquarters) and began working for John Torrio. However he later replaced Torrio and worked his way to the very top during the prohibition period by buying everyone from paper boys to policemen.

Alphonse "Al" Capone

During his most successful years in Chicago (1925 - 1930) he controlled speakeasies, bookie joints, gambling houses, brothels, horse and race tracks, nightclubs, distilleries and breweries and earned as mush as $100,000,000 a year. He also had spies all over town and stayed at the top by killing off all his enemies and even masterminded the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, yet was also the first to open a 'free lunch' restaurant in 1929 during the great depression.

The original Scarface film (The Shame of the Nation) was arguably the greatest gangster film of the 1930s. It was directed by legendary director Howard Hawks (His Girl Friday/Red River/The Big Sleep) in 1932 along with Richard Rosson and produced by Howard Hughes. The film even opened with a warning and was a powerful, indulging and raw experience for the audiences. Not to mention some ultra-violence for the time and shocked several sensors upon its release.

Paul Muni as Scarface

The storyline is pretty much the same as the 1983 remake, only rather being set in the roaring twenties of Chicago, it was set in cocaine world of 1980's Miami. It stared Paul Muni as Tony Camonte 'Scarface' where in the film, we witness his rise to the top along side his partner Guino Rinaldo played by George Raft (Manny Ribera in the 1983 film). The film even features classic horror star Boris Karloff from Frankenstein.

It had it all from the rise to power of a gangster, the introduction of the tommy gun into the gang, the bootlegging, the women, the corruption, the betrayal and the inevitable fall. It is one of the finest gangster films ever put on the silver screen by Warner Bros. and as much as I loved the Al Pacino version, this films seems much more real and had more meaning to it as well.

One major fan of the film was Al Capone himself who died this week on January 25th 1947. He was said to own an original print of the film. Howard Hawks also stated that it was his favourite of all his films and famous french director/critic Jean-Luc Godard named Scarface the best American sound film in Cahiers du Cinéma. It's a genuine gangster masterpiece.

Click here for the trailer