According to a book about the films that Howard Hughes produced, while SCARFACE was being produced in Hollywood, the director Howard Hawkes got a visit from two rather unfriendly gentlemen. They had been sent by their employer, one Alphonse Capone of Chicago, to find out the truth that the movie Hawkes was directing was about him and his career. Hawkes assured them that it wasn't, as everyone knew what a smart man Mr. Capone was, while the central figure in this film ended up dead. Somehow Hawkes' reassurances worked, and the great director did not find his career ended prematurely with a "cement kimono" or a severe case of lead poisoning. How he was able to get away with this I can't figure out. Capone was known (behind his back) as "scarface" because of a knifing scar which was given to him (and which he well earned) when he insulted the knife wielder's sister in the Red Hook area of Brooklyn in the late teens of the 20th Century. The name of the anti-hero at the center of the film is "Tony Carmonte", which sounds vaguely like "Capone". He is brought to the city to bump off the old boss by Johnny Lovo (Osgood Perkins), just like Capone was brought to Chicago by his uncle Johnny Torrio to kill Torrio's friend and boss "Big Jim Colosimo" in 1920. Maybe various incidents are not precisely like those Capone did, but enough were left in to leave little doubt. SCARFACE is to Capone as ALL THE KING'S MEN is to Huey Long and CITIZEN KANE is to William Randolph Hearst.
SCARFACE has frequently been put into a select group of gangster films that popped up between 1930 and 1932 (LITTLE CAESAR and THE PUBLIC ENEMY are the other two that are grouped with it). Each has elements of real violence in it, and it is amazing that Paul Muni, Eddie Robinson, and Jimmy Cagney all became stars from these three performances. This is not to knock their performances (they are all great ones), but the acceptance of the three stars as stars for portraying such anti-social types is incredible. My guess is the growing disillusionment of the public with federal and state and local government in the depression may have affected the audience's low threshold of normal tolerance for the gangsters in society. Suddenly they were supermen who knew how to get things done and how to force their views on society.
Muni's performance has been likened to that of an "ape" or "gorilla" man, as his body movements are not very gentle bur forceful and all threatening. He is only capable of feeding his own desires at everyone else's expense. Yet Muni does manage to leaven this monster's habits. First, most of the people he deals with are little better. Lovo is not as obviously murderous as Carmonte, but he brought him to Chicago, and (until Tony starts muscling Lovo out of his center of power and his relationship with Poppy - Karen Morley) he turns very nasty. George Raft's Rinaldo is loyal to Tony (until he romances and marries Tony's sister Cesca - Ann Dvorak), but he is a merciless killer to all of Tony's enemies. Tony's habit of whistling an air from an opera before he shows his vicious streak is mirrored by Rinaldo's now celebrated coin flipping. Vince Barnett's Angelo is the type of low-live hanger-on that services these criminals. We tend to like Angelo because he is so stupid at times (and his death scene is a pathetically sad one) but he is not a good citizen. As for the opponents of Carmonte in the underworld, a typical one is Boris Karloff's Gaffney (a British criminal? - possibly based on Owney Madden, the English born, New York criminal). He is not only vicious when his gang was active, but his Gaffney mirrors Carmonte when he is in hiding, trembling about being bumped off (as Tony does at the end).
Tony does have some cultural pretensions (unlike Capone, who openly preferred sports like baseball and boxing). Not only his whistling habits, he also enjoys plays - we see him watching a production of RAIN by Somerset Maugham. He likes the character of Sadie Thompson and he even notes how the production keeps a steady stream of rain going on stage. But it is pure veneer. He leaves the theater to commit a murder.
He also shows a degree of incestuous interest towards Cesca. It leads to a growing series of confrontations with his sister over her behavior with men (he wants her to remain pure, at home). He even kills the loyal Rinaldi before he learns the latter married Cesca. Yet it is a curious relationship - Cesca is the last loyal member of his mob, and dies for him at the end.
As a study of uncontrolled brutality run amok, SCARFACE is still powerful. One might say that Muni's performance goes over the top, with lines about allowing his machine gun to "spit". But so did Al Pacino in the remake, introducing his enemies to "his little friend."
SCARFACE has frequently been put into a select group of gangster films that popped up between 1930 and 1932 (LITTLE CAESAR and THE PUBLIC ENEMY are the other two that are grouped with it). Each has elements of real violence in it, and it is amazing that Paul Muni, Eddie Robinson, and Jimmy Cagney all became stars from these three performances. This is not to knock their performances (they are all great ones), but the acceptance of the three stars as stars for portraying such anti-social types is incredible. My guess is the growing disillusionment of the public with federal and state and local government in the depression may have affected the audience's low threshold of normal tolerance for the gangsters in society. Suddenly they were supermen who knew how to get things done and how to force their views on society.
Muni's performance has been likened to that of an "ape" or "gorilla" man, as his body movements are not very gentle bur forceful and all threatening. He is only capable of feeding his own desires at everyone else's expense. Yet Muni does manage to leaven this monster's habits. First, most of the people he deals with are little better. Lovo is not as obviously murderous as Carmonte, but he brought him to Chicago, and (until Tony starts muscling Lovo out of his center of power and his relationship with Poppy - Karen Morley) he turns very nasty. George Raft's Rinaldo is loyal to Tony (until he romances and marries Tony's sister Cesca - Ann Dvorak), but he is a merciless killer to all of Tony's enemies. Tony's habit of whistling an air from an opera before he shows his vicious streak is mirrored by Rinaldo's now celebrated coin flipping. Vince Barnett's Angelo is the type of low-live hanger-on that services these criminals. We tend to like Angelo because he is so stupid at times (and his death scene is a pathetically sad one) but he is not a good citizen. As for the opponents of Carmonte in the underworld, a typical one is Boris Karloff's Gaffney (a British criminal? - possibly based on Owney Madden, the English born, New York criminal). He is not only vicious when his gang was active, but his Gaffney mirrors Carmonte when he is in hiding, trembling about being bumped off (as Tony does at the end).
Tony does have some cultural pretensions (unlike Capone, who openly preferred sports like baseball and boxing). Not only his whistling habits, he also enjoys plays - we see him watching a production of RAIN by Somerset Maugham. He likes the character of Sadie Thompson and he even notes how the production keeps a steady stream of rain going on stage. But it is pure veneer. He leaves the theater to commit a murder.
He also shows a degree of incestuous interest towards Cesca. It leads to a growing series of confrontations with his sister over her behavior with men (he wants her to remain pure, at home). He even kills the loyal Rinaldi before he learns the latter married Cesca. Yet it is a curious relationship - Cesca is the last loyal member of his mob, and dies for him at the end.
As a study of uncontrolled brutality run amok, SCARFACE is still powerful. One might say that Muni's performance goes over the top, with lines about allowing his machine gun to "spit". But so did Al Pacino in the remake, introducing his enemies to "his little friend."