Film review: Scarface (1932)

Of course this is famous, but I think its star, Paul Muni, is largely forgotten these days (something Criterion Channel is trying to correct with a little collection of his films) but was sort of the Marlon Brando of his day (fact: they acted together in a 1946 pro-Zionist play - Muni returned to the stage after getting disillusioned with Hollywood - and Brando later said that Muni was the greatest actor he ever saw). (Does that make James Cagney the James Dean?)  He was actually born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in what is now Ukraine, Jewish, and really called Frederich Meshilem Meier Weisenfreund, but he did grow up in Chicago, where this is set, of course, so perhaps he knew whereof he acted, even if the thick Italian schtick (think Chico Marx) was all fake.  Anyway, this film is definitely pre-code, with mucho violence and strong hints of incest between Muni's Tony Camonte and his sister Francesca ('Cesca), played by Ann Dvorak.  But to back up: the film begins with a couple of announcements.  The first is that the incidents in this film, while sensational, are all based on actual events (so blame reality, not our diseased imaginations!)  The second is that it's a national disgrace that congress hasn't done something about crime gangs running rampant!  It was a bit like a little flash of Fox News before our movie.  But, as the screenwriter Ben Hecht and director Howard Hawks were anything but reactionaries, more likely this is a gimmick to distract censors.  Then the film opens on a corpulent Italian, who is obviously a big shot, finishing a meal with some other grandees.  They are in an otherwise deserted Italian restaurant, and the others soon get up and leave, and our main man goes over into a corner to make a phone call.  The camera pans right and we see a sinister shadow fall on the wall.  It is somebody the man knows, because he greets him by name - before gunning him down.  Cut next to a barbershop where two men are in the chairs, and the police are coming, sirens blaring.  The barber, hearing this, hides the men's guns in a pile of linens.  The men are Muni's Tony 

and George Raft's Guino Rinaldo, Tony's right-hand man.  They are pulled in on suspicion of being the killers, but soon sprung by their gang's lawyer, who gets them out on a habeus corpus (which Tony later refers to as a "hocus pocus"), to Tony's delight.  They then hurry to meet Johnny Lovo, who was second in command to the murdered man (for whom, ironically, Tony was bodyguard) to see how the lay of the land is now.  Essentially the old fatso was knocked off because he wasn't ambitious enough: he preserved a peace among many rival gangs which had Lovo chafing to expand his territory, which he then proceeds to do, with Tony's gleeful help: he goes to speakeasies that were controlled by the other gangs (which appear to be of ethnic groups other than Italian, for example, Meehan is the Irish crew) and informs them that they will not only be buying booze from a new supplier, but they will be buying a lot more than they had been.  This leads to all kind of gunplay.  Eventually Meehan gets knocked off, but his replacement (played by Boris Karloff with a very poor attempt at either an Irish or American accent) brings a new weapon to the fight: machine guns!  Tony (who has all this time been pursuing Johnny's girl Poppy, since meeting her at Tony's house when he comes there straight from being sprung the first time) 

is in a a restaurant when it is riddled with bullet, but is only exhilarated at this technical innovation, and rushes off to demonstrate his new toy (that Guino managed to acquire by shooting one of the Irish attackers) to Johnny. 

Karloff is put on the run when only being accidentally delayed stops him being among those gunned down brutally by "cops" in an obvious recreation of the Valentine's Day Massacre.  Alas, he cannot hide for long, and is undone by his insatiable appetite for... bowling.

It's always been clear that Tony was just suffering Johnny temporarily, but Johnny becomes more and more distraught at Tony's reckless antics.  Johnny specifically forbids encroaching on the North Side, but Tony forges ahead.  MEANWHILE, Cesca, about whom Tony is psychotically possessive, has taken a shine to Guino and the insouciant way he tosses a coin (yes, George Raft invented that now clichéd gangster tic).  

But she is just a "kid" and he knows what Tony's like, so...

Eventually Tony's actions, including blatant moving in on Poppy, 

push Johnny to trying to have him offed.  But the hit fails (after a pretty amazing car chase and crash) and so Johnny has to go, with Tony signalling this with the same whistling we heard from the shadowy killer of the fat kingpin at the start.  

Now Tony has made it to the top, and has his office fully armored, with steel doors and steel shutters over the windows.  So... he decides to go off for a month to Florida!  (Is this what was happening in Some Like It Hot?)  This gives Cesca a chance to really work on Guino, 

and he finds his resistance crumbling.  But Tony is not happy when he comes back from Florida to find out what's been happening while he was away... Really not happy.  But Cesca and Guino are married!  Tony is guilt-ridden!  The cops move in!  He and Cesca hole up in his steel fortress - but he doesn't close the shutters in time...  You just knew he wouldn't be allowed to get out of this with his dignity or life intact, especially given the preachy introduction.

Is it a classic?  Well, yes.  The action is brutal, and while Muni initially seems over-the-top, his performance is so committed, and so alive that you can't take your eyes off him (and you forgive the "itsa Mario!" cod Italian).  You can see the inspiration for Al Pacino's equally over-the-top performance in the remake.  And now I want to watch more Paul Muni!  (And am impressed at the range of Howard Hawks's film oeuvre.)