Scarface: The Shame of the Nation (1932) Film Review

Scarface: The Shame of the Nation  Director: Howard Hawks (1932)

“The World Is Yours”

★★★☆☆

One of the great early United Artists gangster films, Howard Hawks’s Scarface: The Shame of the Nation follows along on the trail blazed by other gangster films like Underworld, Little Caesar, and The Public Enemy. Scarface presents the rise and fall of a Chicago gangster anti-hero (modeled on the life of Al Capone) as he chases his a-moral, bloodthirsty pursuit of political power amidst the rise of poverty and lawlessness following the era of prohibition and the Great Depression. Scarface was based on Armitage Trail’s novel of the same name. It opens with a title that reads:

“This picture is an indictment of gang rule in America and of the callous indifference of the government to his constantly increasing menace to our safety and our liberty. Every incident in this picture is the reproduction of an actual occurrence, and the purpose of this picture is to demand of the government: ‘What are you going to do about it?’ The government is your government. What are YOU going to do about it?”

The plot follows Tony Camonte (played by Paul Muni) and his boss Johnny Lovo (played Osgood Perkins) as they kill one of the top crime bosses on Chicago’s Southside. Tony chases after Johnny’s girl and then also angers Johnny by conducting a number of drive-by shootings against the Irish gangs on the Northside (a version of the notorious Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago). Tony tells Johnny’s girl that he believes a message on the giant sign reading: The World Is Yours. And how shall he attain the world? Not by intelligence or grit, but by violent, murderous rampage. Eventually, Johnny arranges for Tony to be killed in a drive-by shooting, but Tony escapes and then kills Johnny as retribution, now claiming himself to be the leader of the gang. However, he pays a visit to his sister who has been recently married to a close comrade of Tony’s, unbeknownst to Tony. Johnny kills his comrade and appears to fall into a state of depression as his gang begins falling apart. The police close in on his headquarters, a stray bullet kills his sister, and Tony is shot and killed in a hail of gunfire beneath his idealized sign reading: “The World Is Yours.”

Scarface was a highly controversial film upon initial release and it had to be heavily edited in order to minimize the violence –the sub-header (“The Shame of the Nation”) was also added to tamp down accusations of glamorizing the violent mob life. Today, Scarface represents a genre-solidifying mobster film with its echoes of other early influential gangster films as well as German Expressionist motifs –Paul Muni gives a terrific performance in the film (wonderfully capturing Al Capone’s awkward mannerisms).

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Credits:

• Directed by: Howard Hawks
• Screenplay by: W.R. Burnett, John Lee Mahin, Seton I. Miller, Ben Hecht
• Based on: Scarface by Armitage Trail
• Produced by: Howard Hawks Howard Hughes
• Starring:
  • Paul Muni…..Antonio “Tony” Camonte
  • Ann Dvorak…..Francesca “Cesca” Camonte
  • Osgood Perkins…..John “Johnny” Lovo
  • Karen Morley…..Poppy
  • George Raft…..Guino “Little Boy” Rinaldo
  • Boris Karloff…..Tom Gaffney
• Cinematography: Lee Garmes, L.W. O’Connell
• Production Company: The Caddo Company