Howard Hawks
Scarface (Lo sfregiato)

LA RECENSIONE

Perhaps not everyone knows that the legendary Scarface by Brian De Palma with a legendary Al Pacino is actually a remake of a 1932 film...

Scarface (The Shame of a Nation) by the great Howard Hawks is thus the original and it is a film, for those times, truly daring.

It is the first time that organized crime is portrayed on the big screen with all its violence and arrogance.

Tony Camonte - the scarface (the character is inspired by Al Capone) is a likable swashbuckler, irresistible when he does his salute with the hand starting from the forehead and moving forward like a clumsy and irreverent military salute or like someone trying to take off their hat but doesn't. However, Tony is also a bloodthirsty beast without scruples and without restraints (the world will be mine one day, he tells Poppy showing her the writing that can be seen from his window) and his rise to power is inevitable, you just need to have a gun, better if it's a machine gun, and know how to use it.

You already know the story since practically everyone has seen De Palma's remake, here the difference is that the drug is alcohol and not cocaine, but for the rest, I would say it's all there.

The film is a timeless classic. Pace (90 minutes like a soccer match but without extra time), extraordinary actors, there's also the legendary Boris Karloff in a minor role but who gets killed like a poor bastard...

There's Ann Dvorak, fantastic, as Tony's sister, and then there's Rinaldo, the cold-hearted womanizer, Tony's right hand who is always flipping a coin in the air...

And of course, there's him (Paul Muni), Tony Camonte, scarface, the absolute protagonist, with his unlikely little curl and his scar in plain sight ...don't be impressed you'll get used to it (to see my scar) Tony says to Poppy, the boss's woman (for a little while longer) of Tony.

The film, as we say today, obviously appears rather "dated" and it's not easy to compare it to its much more excessive remake in every aspect, including the running time... but considering that 50 years passed between one and the other, I'm not really sure which is really more excessive.

Give it a chance.