Scarface (1932)

Calificación de los usuarios:

7.9/10   

Directors:

Howard Hawks
Richard Rosson (co-director)

Escritores:

Armitage Trail (novel)
Ben Hecht (screenplay)

Fecha de Lanzamiento:

9 abril 1932 (USA)

Género:

Crimen | Drama | Cine Negro

Plot:

An ambitious and near insanely violent gangster climbs the ladder of success in the mob, but his weaknesses prove to be his downfall.

Plot Keywords:

Police | Gangster | Italian American | Mob Violence | Car Chase

Premios:

1 win

Comentarios de los usuarios:

Arguably superior to De Palma's remake

Reparto

Paul Muni	...	Antonio 'Tony' Camonte
Ann Dvorak	...	Francesca 'Cesca' Camonte
Karen Morley	...	Poppy
Osgood Perkins	...	John 'Johnny' Lovo
C. Henry Gordon	...	Insp. Ben Guarino
George Raft	...	Guino Rinaldo
Vince Barnett	...	Angelo
Boris Karloff	...	Gaffney
Purnell Pratt	...	Mr. Garston, publisher
Tully Marshall	...	Managing editor
Inez Palange	...	Mrs. Camonte
Edwin Maxwell	...	Chief of detectives

También conocida como:

Scarface, the Shame of the Nation
The Shame of a Nation
Scarface, el terror del hampa (Spain) [es]

Duración:

93 min

País:

USA

Idioma:

Inglés | Italiano

Color:

Negro y Blanco

Relación de Aspecto:

1.37 : 1

Sonido:

Mono

Clasificación:

UK:15 (video rating) | UK:A (original rating) | Finland:K-15 (2005) (DVD) | Netherlands:6 (DVD rating) | Brazil:14 | Norway:16 (1984) | Spain:13 | Sweden:15 | USA:PG (re-release) | USA:Passed (original rating) | Germany:16

Compañía:

The Caddo Company

Trivialidades:

Prominent use of the figure "X". Its first appearance is under the opening credits and from then on, whenever a character dies, the figure "X" is prominent in the scene. Some examples: during the shooting in the bowling alley, a pencil fills in a strike box on a scorecard. When a recreation of the St. Valentine's Massacre is shown, the scene begins in the rafters of the garage, where the roof support beams are seven "X" shaped pieces. When Tony kills his best friend at the door of his apartment, the number on the door is "X". This was done for a reason: newspapers at the time printed photos of crime scenes. The "X" would be used to mark the spot of where the body was found.

Errores:

Errores que Revelan: Just before Tony and Guino kill Johhny Lovo, Tony can be seen standing by the door to Lovo's office; as the characters are in the office, the letters on the glass pane should appear inverted (right to left), but they don't.

Citas:

Tony Camonte: Hey, Cesca, you and me, huh? We'll show them. We'll lick them all, the North Side, the South Side! We'll lick the whole world!

Conexiones de Película:

Apareció en Crossing Criminal Cultures (2007) (V)

Banda de Sonido:

St. Louis Blues

Arguably superior to De Palma's remake

Many purists would jump at this as being the definitive "Sacrface," but so much had changed in the fifty-one years between the two movies that it is nearly impossible. Whereas the Al Pacino cult classic spanned close to three hours and included almost every imaginable cause of death, this version is a mere hour and a half, give or take a few minutes, and unlike the remake, takes place entirely in Chicago.

Made as an anti-gangster film, with a message buried under the many bodies that pile up, this is a surprisingly brutal movie for its time, and got a reputation as such. This was just before the so-called "Golden Age" of cinema, and in a time like that, chances are a movie this unapologetic wouldn't get made. But it is a masterful gangster film.

Paul Muni is Tony Camonte, a pseudo-Capone psycho who believes in doing the dirty work himself, is a sleazebag. He talks in a lisp that holds him apart from the gangsters of Cagney and Bogart as a man who, even then, seems ethnic. To boot, his "secretary" is an immigrant who is only semi-literate and can't hear people well on the phone. Boris Karloff shows up as an Irish gangster, Gaffney, who falls under Camonte's gun. Aside from an entire segment where Camonte goes seemingly from point A to point B with the same tommy gun and kills off the competition, this is a brilliant milestone in the gangster genre, and probably the best of the era. Even now, it proves what people could accomplish by mere suggestion, sparing much of the language that is in movies (and, indeed, used in real life) today.