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Rating: 9.5 stars

Tags

NWI Chicago mobsters machine guns prohibition gangsters b&w Pre-Code

Seen 1 time

Seen on: 06/20/2012

View on: IMDb | TMDb

Scarface (1932)

Directed by Howard Hawks

Crime | Drama | Film Noir

Most recently watched by sensoria

Overview

In 1920s Chicago, Italian immigrant and notorious thug, Antonio “Tony” Camonte, shoots his way to the top of the mobs while trying to protect his sister from the criminal life.

Rated NR | Length 93 minutes

Actors

Boris Karloff | Douglas Walton | George Raft | Paul Fix | Gino Corrado | Howard Hawks | Paul Muni | Ann Dvorak | Karen Morley | Osgood Perkins | C. Henry Gordon | Vince Barnett | Purnell Pratt | Tully Marshall | Inez Palange | Edwin Maxwell | John Kelly | Hank Mann | Eugenie Besserer | Brandon Hurst | John Lee Mahin | Warner Richmond | Frank Mills | Jean Harlow | Dennis O'Keefe | Henry Armetta | William B. Davidson | Maurice Black | Dick Gordon | Bill Elliott | Charles Sullivan | Pedro Regas | Eddie Fetherston | Constantine Romanoff | Sydney Jarvis | Nick Thompson | Frank McClure | Sailor Vincent | Bert Starkey | Harry Tenbrook | Stanhope Wheatcroft | Jack Perry | James Durkin | William H. O'Brien | Ronald R. Rondell | Gus Arnheim | James Conaty | Ellinor Vanderveer | Virginia Dabney | Harry J. Vejar | Helen C. Thompson

Viewing Notes

I’ve been watching a lot of film noir lately. Because of that Netflix Instant has had a lot of great film noir suggestions for me lately. Scarface caught my eye because I’d never seen it but had been meaning to watch it forever and a day.

I’m glad I chose to. Scarface is easily one of the best films I’ve ever watched. Everything about it is a treat: from the over-the-top performance of Paul Muni as the titular character, to the heavy use of symbolism via use of shadow and light, to the incredibly sexual, though chaste by our standards, performances by the two female leads.

After having watched the original, it’s very obvious how much influence Muni’s performance had on Pacino’s take of Scarface in Brian DePalma’s re-envisioning that everyone is so familiar with. I always though the DePalma’s Scarface was so over the top that it was almost a parody. Now I understand where that came from and why, which leads me to give DePalma’s version a lot more respect than I had for it before.

I know I’ll be seeking out more films featuring Anne Dvorak and Karen Morley! They play their characters in Scarface with so much sexual tension and haughtiness that it’s impossible to ignore them. They exude sexiness onscreen that you’d be hard put to find in most modern films.

I was also surprised to see Boris Karloff in a minor role as a Northside gangster. He does a great job as usual and it’s nice to see him in something before he became famous for his Frankenstein’s Monster role.

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