Scarface (1932)

By Mr. Tropnevad

Summary

Ambitious gangster Tony Camonte (Paul Muni) controls Chicago’s bootlegging racket by means of violence and not letting anyone stand in his way. As he climbs his way to the top of the mob his weakness becomes his ultimate downfall.

Expectations Going In

You know that movie with Al Pacino you love so much called Scarface? Well, believe it or not, it is a remake and it is based off of a book. I have seen this movie in bits and pieces over the years when it appeared late at night on TV. This is my first time to actually sit through the entire movie. I enjoyed it every time I saw it and I know I will come out liking it again. Here is the trailer.



The Bad

For a mob boss, Johnny Lovo (Osgood Perkins) is not intimidating at all. When he is standing next to other gang members like Tony or Guino (George Raft) you can see how small Johnny is. The man is puny looking and Tony is always pushing him around and doing everything that Lovo tells him he should not be doing. Even his wife/girlfriend Poppy (Karen Morley) does not even listen to Lovo. I know this is good for the movie to show that Lovo is easily pushed around but they should have had someone of much bigger body build than Osgood Perkins.

I am nit picking here. Tony buys armored window shutters to put on his apartment that are several stories up from the ground. I get the point of this but why would you put a sliding window on them because you could look down at who is out there but for a mobster you would figure there would be another hole for him to shoot out.

The Good

Paul Muni does a great job at being Tony Camonte in this as a dangerous mobster. Even for a movie from the 30s he does an excellent job with intimidating other characters. If he wants something he goes for it and when he is questioned on why he did it flat out says, "I did it because I want it." We see how intimidating he is within the first ten minutes of the movie. He is picked up by the police and he flat out tells them that he is not going to tell them anything and there is nothing they can do to make him talk.

There are scenes throughout the movie where his boss Johnny knows Tony is hitting on his girl Poppy and doesn’t seem to care. Tony knows he is intimidating to his boss because Johnny lets him hit on Poppy even when he is in the room. Tony even steals Poppy from Johnny in one scene and dances with her to show Johnny that he gets anything he wants.

Speaking of Poppy she does a great job as a love interest in this movie. She wants to be with the man with the most power and she knows Tony is going places. She of course plays hard to get but she eventually takes a liking to Tony.  This part of the story is very interesting and will keep you entertained. Not to mention for a movie from the 30s, she is very pretty.

Paul Mauni and Ann Dvorak (Cesca Camonte) do a great job as brother and sister and you would almost think that they are siblings in real life. Tony is always telling Cesca not to be dating men even though she is eighteen. He is always jealous when he sees her with another man. At one point in the movie Tony sees Cesca with another man and we see how good Ann Dvorak is at becoming emotional when needed.

All of the actors do a great job in this movie and I forgot that Boris Karloff (Gaffney) played a mob boss in this. He does a great job, and for all of you that don’t know who he is you need to look him up and watch some of his older movies. He is the original horror movie icon and after watching this I was glad to see that he did branch out into other roles.

There is a little comedic relief in this movie and it works. One of Tony’s gang members named Angelo (Vince Barnett) is essentially Tony’s secretary. The man can’t read or write and he is exceptionally stupid. The man is loyal to Tony, though, and that is why he is by his side no matter where he goes in the movie. He has several memorable moments, but there is a scene where a restaurant is shot up while he is on the phone and he is so dumb that he stays on the phone while being shot at. By the way, this scene in the movie looks really good and I will not spoil it for you.

The film makers did a great job at filming the scenes where Tony’s gang acquires machine guns and they start shooting up Chicago. They had top down scenes of the street and we see the gang in a car shooting up buildings and blowing them up. There are scenes where we have a side view and see the gang members shoot up a truck that is being loaded up with beer and the gang shoots everyone. The director (Howard Hawks) did a great job with figuring out different angles for these shots.

For a movie from the 30s the film makers did not hold back on the violence. Men are beaten, shot and stabbed, cars crash, buildings blow up, women are beaten, the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre is shown and so much more. By today’s standards it looks tame but the movie would receive a PG-13 rating, I am sure, for all of the violence. This movie was banned in several states when it was released and was not played on TV again until the mid to late 80s and when it was on TV it was late at night. This movie wasn’t even released for home video until 1992 on VHS but it was rare to find. Then when the 80s version of Scarface came out on DVD in the early 2000s this version of Scarface was released with the special edition.

Overall Thoughts

This is now one of my favorite movies and I highly recommend it. Now I know some people dislike black and white movies, but I think you should give this one a try, especially if you like the modern version of Scarface. I was never bored in this and I was always interested in something that was going on. Everyone in this movie did a great job and I know I disliked Osgood Perkins for his looks, but he did a good job, too.

Sadly this movie is not on blu-ray, but if it does come out I would buy it. You can buy it on Amazon between $5 and $10 or you could stream it on instant Netflix. I recommend buying it because maybe with enough people buying it, Universal will release it on blu-ray.

Overall- Buy