4K ULTRA HD REVIEW / SDR SCREENSHOTS
(1) The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Most of the violence in “Scarface” in the shadows or off-camera. (2) Paul Muni, a veteran of the Yiddish theater, plays the ruthless, ambitious Tony Camonte, who sets off a gang war among Chicago’s bootleggers as he blasts his way to the top.
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“SCARFACE: THE CRITERION COLLECTION”
4K UHD & Blu-ray, 1932, PG for violence, but it’s rarely shown
Best extra: “Gangster Style,” the expansive essay by author, critic and Criterion regular Imogen Sara Smith
EVERYONE WAS on the same page, and then some, when the cameras started rolling on “Scarface,” writes Imogen Sara Smith in her essay “Gangster Style”:
“The aim … was to top all previous gangster films and create the apotheosis of a cycle already defined by ‘Little Caesar’ and ‘Public Enemy’ (both 1931), which had made stars of Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney.”
To that end, Ben Hecht, who established the genre’s template with his Oscar-winning screenplay for Josef von Sternberg’s “Underworld” (1927), and who witnessed Al Capone’s reign of terror as a Chicago newspaperman, assured producer Howard Hughes that his script “would double the casualty list of any picture to date, and we’ll have twice as good a picture.” Hughes, an upstart in 1931 and not particularly liked by the established studios, was all in. After seeing the dailies of a car crashing amid a hailstorm of bullets, he told director Howard Hawks (“Red River” and “The Thing from Another World” and “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and “Rio Bravo” and … ) that he wanted more of the same.
He got it — in spades. But even in pre-Code Hollywood, it was too much. Hughes and Hawks butted heads with the Hays Office, which forced them to make changes, including a prologue demanding that the government do something about organized crime that also took the public to task for not raising its collective voice. Also added was a scene in which a citizens action committee decries the violence.
(1) “Scarface,” the first masterpiece by director Howard Hawks, premiered March 31, 1932, in New Orleans. (2&3) A gunman kills Southside boss Big Louis Costillo. (4) Camonte is taken downtown to be questioned by the police.
The most outrageous demand, though, was from the hand-wringing censors who fretted over the ending. Letting power-mad gangster Tony Camonte (Paul Muni, an Oscar winner for 1937’s “The Story of Louis Pasteur”) go down in a barrage of bullets glorified him, they said. Hughes gave in; instead, Camonte is captured, tried and hung. Hawks would have nothing to do with it: He gave the assignment to Richard Rosson, who got a co-director credit. The sanitized finale is one the extras on this bang-up Criterion release. Check it out.
So yeah, the violence in “Scarface,” most of which is implied or erupts in the shadows, upped the ante. But there’s a lot more going on. Muni, with his Chico Marx accent, near-simian bearing and childlike glee when he gets his hands on a Tommy gun, doesn’t play Camonte as a caricature, unlike Al Pacino’s Tony Montana in Brian De Palma’s 1983 overbaked remake. Muni, whose roots were in Yiddish theater, left Hollywood after two unsuccessful films and had to be convinced that he was right for the role. Good thing. His performance is nuanced, almost equal parts slapstick-ish humor and brutal violence.
The women here — Ann Dvorak (“Three on a Match”) as Tony’s headstrong sister Cesca and Karen Morley as his amoral mistress Poppy (“Pride and Prejudice”) — aren’t one-dimensional, either. Among the other standouts are George Raft (“Some Like it Hot”) as Tony’s right-hand man Rinaldo, Osgood Perkins (“Gold Diggers of 1937) as Camonte’s temporary employer Lovo, and Boris Karloff (“Frankenstein”) as his rival Gaffney.
And, of course, there’s Hawks. “Scarface” was his first masterpiece. Ninety-three years on, it’s lost none of its power.
(1) Ann Dvorak plays Camonte’s headstrong sister Cesca. (2&3) Costillo’s bootleggers get their new marching orders from Lovo (Osgood Perkins), who takes over the operation. (4) Camonte puts the make on Lovo’s mistress Poppy (Karen Morley).
VIDEO/AUDIO
First things first: “Scarface” (1.37:1 aspect ratio) was remastered in 4K from a 35mm duplicate negative, and while the new print isn’t as razor-sharp as you might expect, nothing is lost. In their review for Slant, Derek Smith and Chuck Bowen write that the dazzling, revelatory chiaroscuro imagery orchestrated by cinematographer Lee Garmes (“Shanghai Express”) “is rendered with a nimble balance of light and shadow.” Blacks, they add, “are rich and ravishing … and facial and clothing details are extraordinarily palpable.
“Healthiness and vitality have been prioritized over crispness,” they conclude,” and that’s to Criterion’s credit.”
There was no HDR grading, but everything was encoded onto a 100 GB disc. The video output averages over 90 Megabits per second.
The original monaural soundtrack, remastered from a 35mm nitrate composite fine-grain, also stands up. While the dialogue is clear, you have to listen closely because some accents are thick and the delivery is rapid-fire. The smashing cars, explosions and roaring Tommy guns put you in the middle of the action.
(1) The great Boris Karloff, fresh off “Frankenstein” and “The Mummy,” is Gaffney, who runs the rival Northside operation. (2&3) When Cesca gets cozy on the dance floor, it doesn’t sit will with her quick-tempered brother. (4) The body count piles up during a wild car chase.
EXTRAS
By Criterion’s usual standards, the numbers are slim, but the carefully chosen bonuses are all of a piece. Anything Smith writes is a must-read, and her essay gives a thorough overview. The alternate ending provides context, too. Rounding out the bonuses are an interview with film scholar Lea Jacobs and a conversation with prolific author Megan Abbott (“Bury Me Deep”) and actor Bill Nader (“SNL,” “Barry”).
Jacobs, who teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, details the challenges filmmakers faced in employing dialogue. When “Scarface” blasted into theaters, dialogue — in some circles, anyway — was still considered slow and an impediment to the action. Hawks, in just his third talkie, solved the dilemma by restricting it to “short bursts of narrative action.” She points to the sequence in which Camonte shakes down a series of bars: As the violence escalates, the dialogue diminishes. It’s a fascinating interview.
The Abbott-Hader review is a lively chatfest that touches all the bases. Abbott remembers seeing “Scarface” as a kid and thinking “that’s what adult life will be like.” She also shares a fun anecdote about how Dvorak got the role of Cesca. Hader first saw the movie his 20s after seeing De Palma’s remake. Where the rehash was operatic, he says, the original is more disturbing and real.
“I can’t imagine seeing it for the first time,” Hader says. “You head would explode.”
It may still.
— Craig Shapiro
(1-3) Cesca intends to murder Camonte after he kills her husband but soon joins him in his standoff with the cops. The nature of their relationship still raises eyebrows.