The cult for the Al Pacino version grows from strength to strength, mainly among Gen X men, but this version holds up very well, partly because the script is so strong, partly because Howard Hawk’s direction keeps things fresh. It remains a very adult gangster movie - the incestuous feelings Paul Muni has for sister Anne Dvorak give this a kinky edge, and George Raft, Karen Morley and Dvorak are very sexy (Dvorak hits on Raft, eyes on fire, saying “I’m eighteen”.)
Martin Scorsese once wrote that the real acting in this film was done by George Raft – certainly Raft is incredibly effective, dark, sleek and flipping his coin (though give him too much dialogue – more than a word or two - and he falls in a heap eg when he says sweet nothings to Anne Dvorak). I think he’s a little unfair on Paul Muni, though (maybe it was a pro-Italian thing) – Muni’s cocky, swaggering gangster is a singular creation. Scarface is like a supporting gangster who’s found himself the lead and can’t stop acting like a thug. (NB I will admit that Muni does go slightly overboard on Dvorak’s death.)
Strong performances from the leads, plus Osgood Perkins as Scarface’s boss. It’s fun to see Boris Karloff as a gangster but he does come across as a little odd – I know there were English gangsters around at the time, but Karloff doesn’t seem quite right (cf Bob Hoskins in The Cotton Club). As in Little Caesar, the portrayal of policemen is utterly unsympathetic – not that they’re corrupt or anything, they just appear brutal, ugly and nasty.
There’s a scene where Perkins gets together all the leading gangsters in town and tries to tell them what to do; one of them wants to pull out and Scarface kills him. This scene has become standard in gangster movies – it even appeared in Goldfinger and fanboys-greatest-movie-ever-made The Dark Knight. I wonder if this was first time it appeared on screen?
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