Event

Scarface (1932)

Presented by Glenn Andreiev, Film Critic (Films in Review). All films in this series will be projected on DVD in the Cinemas Sky Room Cafe.

Scarface never yells "Say hello to my little friend!" but he's based directly on Al Capone and explodes on the screen with a raw visceral energy that stunned 1932 audiences. Producer Howard Hughes and director Howard Hawks joined forces to create a fast-paced crime drama that set the template for the gangster film. Street hood Tony Camonte (not Montana) ruthlessly climbs ganglands corporate ladder in a twisted version of the American Dream of wealth and power. While the Al Pacino/Brian DePalma 1983 version soaks in the world of South Florida drug empires, the original gives us a firsthand look at the Chicago bootleggers and gangsters that dominated Prohibition. Paul Muni heads the cast as Camonte, with support from Ann Dvorak, Boris Karloff, and a coin-flipping George Raft.

USA, 1932, 93 min., b/w