Featured Audience Ratings

• Kristijonas F

  
  If you're planning on watching this film, I recommend viewing it well before even thinking of setting your eyes on the uncompromising and excessively brilliant Brian DePalma-helmed and Al Pacino-led 1983 version. Pacino's tour de force performance makes Paul Muni's… More
  If you're planning on watching this film, I recommend viewing it well before even thinking of setting your eyes on the uncompromising and excessively brilliant Brian DePalma-helmed and Al Pacino-led 1983 version. Pacino's tour de force performance makes Paul Muni's campy efforts seem little more than negligible, and the film's relatively tame screenplay does little in way of shocking the viewer in the same ways that DePalma's gangster epic did scene after scene.

• Albert K

  
  We find ourselves in the 21st century praising the 80's "Scarface" as if it were a masterpiece. Posters, snapshots, quotes, and scenes are plastered everywhere; in someways, the 1983 "Scarface" has become a recognizable film to the average Joe. But with a… More
  We find ourselves in the 21st century praising the 80's "Scarface" as if it were a masterpiece. Posters, snapshots, quotes, and scenes are plastered everywhere; in someways, the 1983 "Scarface" has become a recognizable film to the average Joe. But with a bloated running time and weak movie-making techniques, it fell far short from being the masterpiece many cult-followers claimed it to be. Where's the love for the original? Riveting, compelling, and pure story-driven galore, the original "Scarface" is worlds better than the remake and is definitely the movie of choice. The original "Scarface" is what the masterpiece is: It's coupled with an even more absorbing narrative with a pacing quick enough to remain fresh even nowadays. Not only this, the original's bolstered with impeccable cinematography and lighting that's absolutely beautiful to marvel over -- perhaps too beautiful for a gangster flick. This was perhaps one of the biggest issues audiences had with "Scarface" -- it glamorized the gangster lifestyle a bit too much. Yes, the action was quick, frantic, and violently and realistically in-your-face (Yes, it remains realistic even today), but it was too morally skewed. It glamorized the villains, not the true-to-life heroes, thus came the "Production Code" -- a censorship placed upon all films to put control over explicit content until the late 60's. Nevertheless, "Scarface"'s narrative is just too mesmerizing with one of the most memorable scenes I've seen in cinema since "No Country for Old Men" (which was years ago for me). "Scarface" will be etched in my mind as a masterpiece, but perhaps its biggest problem was the dialogue. Don't get me wrong -- it gets the job done, but don't expect award-winning, witty dialogue. This is nearly a small gripe in an otherwise exceptional film that nearly stands to the test of time. Stop praising the Al Pacino remake. I agree -- Pacino was flawless in his role, but if I were to pick the better film, I'd pick the 1932 "Scarface". Even if you treat older classics like leprosy, give the original a try -- it's a surprisingly up-to-date, frenetic thriller.

• Chris W

  
  Before there was Al Pacino as Tony Montana, there was Paul Muni as Tony Camonte. Directed by Howard Hawks and produced by Howard Hughes, this fictionalized gangster yarn (based somewhat on the real life exploits of Al Capone) is the godfather of gangster films. It may not have been… More
  Before there was Al Pacino as Tony Montana, there was Paul Muni as Tony Camonte. Directed by Howard Hawks and produced by Howard Hughes, this fictionalized gangster yarn (based somewhat on the real life exploits of Al Capone) is the godfather of gangster films. It may not have been the first film of its kind, but it nevertheless revolutionzed the crime film genre and set the standard for all similar films to come. To this day its influence is still evident in films as recent as The Departed among others. Although the broad story was remade and given a radical, epic, and very opera-ish makeover in 1983 by Brian De Palma, this 1932 original offers a very thrilling, tight, and straightforward tale of power, ambition, and making one's way up the organized crime ladder. Instead of drugs, we get Prohibition bootlegging, but what really matters with this movie is how it really set the tone, style, and mood of media representations of gangsters as mythic folkheroes who, despite how it might seem, aren't truly being glorified. Paul Muni leads a great cast, and he's wonderful as our ambitious mafia lieutenant who vies for the top spot to control the entire underworld empire of Chicago. George Raft is quite good as his close associate, Karen Morley is okay as a potential love interest, but it's Ann Dvorak who fares better in terms of the female roles, something that's more interesting given how this was a pre-Hays Code production, though there were still censorship boards that Hughes had to content with over the film's gritty and shocking content (Well, shocking for the day, but not so much now). Boris Karloff also has a role hear, and, while he's fine, it would have been a lot better had he been given a more substantial role with greater screentime. As to the content, yes, this film was grounbreaking not just for how it revolutioned crime cinema, but also because how, at the time of its release, it was the most violent piece of work anyone had seen. There's a body count of about 28 or so, and, while much is left to the imagination and the more controversial parts of this film seem rather quaint in this day and age, it is still a very exciting and thrilling film regardless. All in all, this is definitely one of the all-time greats. It works on it's own terms as a simple, straight forward formula story, but it's the way it's all done that really makes it special. It'd be even better with more depth, development, and some more subtext (not that the film is totally devoid of these things), but the acting is great, the cinematography and direction top notch, and the great use of symbolism and foreshadowing really elevate it from being a generic crime saga into something really special. By all means give this one a watch.

• Randy T

  
  Before there was a Tony Montana or a Tommy DeVito or a Don Corleone there was a Tony Camonte...

• Aditya G

  
  THE ORIGINAL "SCARFACE"! I must admit that I wasn't aware of there being an original Scarface from 1932 when I first saw the 1983 remake starring Pacino. Only later after I saw the special edition DVD of the 1983 film, I realized that it is, in fact, a remake! Al… More
  THE ORIGINAL "SCARFACE"! I must admit that I wasn't aware of there being an original Scarface from 1932 when I first saw the 1983 remake starring Pacino. Only later after I saw the special edition DVD of the 1983 film, I realized that it is, in fact, a remake! Al Pacino is interviewed in one of the features and he mentions about Paul Muni's performance. Some footage from the original is also shown. I've been wanting to see this original 'Scarface' ever since. It was a strange but satisfying experience seeing Paul Muni do way back then in 1932, what Pacino did in the 1983 remake! The story, loosely based on the life of real-life gangster Al Capone, is pretty much the same for all those who are familiar with the remake. Some of the key scenes, characters and even some lines of dialog in the remake are a direct lift from this film! Only the setting has been changed of course. The business is booze, not drugs. The central character is not a Cuban refugee, but an Italian gangster! The time is the 30s, not 80s..and so on! Paul Muni stars as Antonio 'Tony' Camonte who starts under Johnny Lovo (Osgood Perkins) who has taken over the South Side to carry on with his illegal booze trade, after he gets rid of the leading South Side mob boss, Costillo. But little does he know that Tony is a power-hungry, ambitious young mobster who will stop at nothing for a quick rise right up to the top. He is a man who won't take orders from a boss for very long and wants to do something of his own. So then it begins. Tony sets out on a murderous rampage and spreads his wings like wildfire across all the parts of the city, killing anyone who comes in the way. He even refuses to follow the orders of Johnny Lovo at a point of time. All the while by his side he has his loyal buddy Guino Ronaldo (George Raft) and a bumbling Angelo (Vince Barnett) as his secretary. The fast-paced machine-gun mayhem in this film almost never lets up in the crisp 90 minutes running time of the film. Parallely, there are the story angles of Tony's overprotective and seemingly incestuous demeanor towards his sister Francesca (Ann Dvorak), and that of his own pursuit of Johnny Lovo's girlfriend, Poppy (Karen Morley). Great acting skills displayed by most of the cast apart from Paul Muni, of course, who is wildly over-the-top, almost to the extent of hilarity, but in a positive sense! He is an absolute pleasure to watch as he hogs the screen. He has clearly had a lot of fun portraying this character, just as Pacino did in the remake. Penned by Ben Hecht and superbly directed by Howard Hawks,"Scarface" is a landmark in the gangster film genre. Highly recommended!

• AJ V

  
  An okay gangster movie, nothing special.

• Jennifer D

  
  I wanna say I liked this one better than the remake. I liked it because for 1932 this was really violent. Not gorey, nor bloody, but a lot more deaths than in any film I've seen from around this era. And on top of that I've got to say the cinematographer was on top of his… More
  I wanna say I liked this one better than the remake. I liked it because for 1932 this was really violent. Not gorey, nor bloody, but a lot more deaths than in any film I've seen from around this era. And on top of that I've got to say the cinematographer was on top of his game here, it's one of the few films were I actually noticed the fantastic lighting and camera movement combined. If you're a lover of the Brian de Palma remake, you gotta see this.

• KJ P

  
  I know they had poor technology compared to what we have today, but this movie rocks! I know it seems boring, because it's black and white. However, taking that away would make this movie that much better than it already is. Fantastic!

• jay n

  
  Classic version of the story although dated is still far superior to 83 remake. Muni has his moments but also a lot of overacting and declaiming is contained in the performance. The real acting standout is Ann Dvorak, a sadly undervalued actress.

• Pierluigi P

  
  Electrifying. Probably the most violent among all gangster films of the period.

• danny d

  
  the grandfather of all gangster films. the gold standard and one of the greatest films ever made, this film is everything that a gangster picture should be. haunting for its time, the original scarface puts the depalma version to shame and shows us what the gritty world of… More
  the grandfather of all gangster films. the gold standard and one of the greatest films ever made, this film is everything that a gangster picture should be. haunting for its time, the original scarface puts the depalma version to shame and shows us what the gritty world of 1930's depression era crime was like. masterpiece.

• Ken S

  
  Disappointing, but to be fair my expectations were really really high.

• Veronique K

  
  scarface in 1932 was one of the first film with the primitive perspective to dig into the anti-hero american dream.....perhaps partially spoiled by its moralistic ending, but subtled by its several metaphoric index such as the x sign which stands for toni camonte that is utilized as… More
  scarface in 1932 was one of the first film with the primitive perspective to dig into the anti-hero american dream.....perhaps partially spoiled by its moralistic ending, but subtled by its several metaphoric index such as the x sign which stands for toni camonte that is utilized as hommage by martin scorsesse's latest flick "the departed"....and also the cocktail glittering neon logo which says "the world is yours" that symbolizes camonte's greedy ambition to take it all....besides each time scarface tony camonte commits a murder, the sign of x in various forms would appear as some mystic forshadowing, even at camonte's demise. during several scenes, as camonte casts his covetous eye upon his boss' mistress puppy, he frequently utters words like "expensive? huh?" or "this is hot!" or showing off his extravagent leisure robe which is a token of wealth then. the man's concepts of success mainly base on materialistic conquest of interior decoration and daily accessory gadgets or imitating the taste of upper class by attending some refined drama show....but his trynnical inference over his younger playful sister manifests his crude and barbarian side that is the catalysis of his doom. as mentioned earlier, camonte terms his success by the materialistic conquest, so his ultimate success would be the conquest of boss's mistress puppy, he reaches his pinnacle of gangster career as he officially possess puppy who is the symbol of his american dream. camonte embraces puppy while pointing his finger to the cocktail sign "the world is yours" with a conspicuous demeanor.(same as the fitzgerald novel "the great gatsby", gatsby's term of success is to win rich girl daisy's love), then he flops into the lowest when his brutal obessession over his sister emerges upon the surface that is his tragic flaw....except paul muni as the legendary scarface whose character is drawed upon the notorious mobkiller al copone....george raft made his leap of fame by impersonifying camonte's good pal vs top hitman guino. (his trademark would be the mindless toying of a dime.).....the 30s scarface might not be as provocative and thrilling as al pacino's 1983 version but definitely riddled with more reading-into-mind sign language.

• Cindy I

  
  Surprisingly brutal for the time period. Probably seen as violent then as the remake was to us. Paul Muni did an impressive job in the title role.

• EightThirty .

  
  Classic, there's always talk about this movie in the hood, everyone in all the ghetto's got a copy.

• Michael S

  
  Way better than the 1983 version

• Michael G

  
  A great early gangster film.

• Cameron J

  
  It may have been nearly twice as long, about Cubans, set in the '80s and have a lot of other distinctive differences in plot (Like how this one actually has more of one), but Brian De Palma's 1983 version was at least faithful to its source material when it came to being… More
  It may have been nearly twice as long, about Cubans, set in the '80s and have a lot of other distinctive differences in plot (Like how this one actually has more of one), but Brian De Palma's 1983 version was at least faithful to its source material when it came to being absolutely crazy. Yeah, I know that a lot of people insist that this film isn't all that crazy, let alone as insane as De Palma's version (A "script" by Oliver Stone... enough said), but even though this film really isn't all that nutty... or exciting, it's still automatically pretty crazy by association, just because it has Howard Hughes producing, and if he was directing you'd probably be hard pressed to tell the difference between this and its "crazier" (Yeah, sure) counterpart. Yeah, I've seen "The Aviator"... three times (Man, I love that film), so I know that about this time in the '30s, Hughes was quite a good couple of years away from locking himself, naked, in his screening room and collecting his urine in empty milk bottles, but he was always pretty nutty with that mean case of OCD, and evidently about aviation, because he loved flying so much that he actually made one of his go-to directors Howard [u]Hawks[/u]. Hey, that wasn't the biggest stretch to a name of someone involved in this film, because our lead's birth name was Meshilem Meier Weisenfreund. Where in the world did he get Paul Muni from? Hey, whatever, I guess I'll let it go, because, I don't know about you, but during the Nazi era that Muni bled over into after this film, I wouldn't want to go see a film with someone who's name was that blasted Austrian. A name like Paul Muni is more likely to get people into the theater, and thank goodness, because Muni sure was a charisma to see, yet couldn't always charm away his flaws, let alone the flaws of this mess of a bore, though it's not just Muni's charisma that stands as an undeniable strength in this fall-flat film. While most certainly no stunner, the film remains rather handsomely filmed, with a kind of lighting and bounce in what color there is that may not have fared tremendously against the test of time as a noir tone-setter, yet still has a degree of attractive grit to it, which of course compliments the action sequences. Some of the bits of action that are available in this film have dated as either overbearingly noisy or somewhat limp (Not much punch to the punches), yet most are still rather well done, with a kind of clever staging and oomph that will cut to you and wake you up, if not pull you a little bit foward in your seat. Outside of that, what keeps you from completely falling out of the film are some charming performances, or at least the ones that just don't stink, because, as I'll get into later, this film was no groundbreaker when it came to acting sensibilities, yet the people who are just fine typically get by on charisma, with one person in particular getting by on especially strong charisma, even though he falls flat in many other regards. As I'll discuss further, leading man Paul Muni delivers no spotless performance, yet more often than not, he makes up for it with crackling charisma that does win you over to him, on the whole. Still, what saves the film the most is simply its own degree of charm, spawned through simplicity, and while that kind of charm is hardly all that intense, it's enough to keep you going. Still, the final product does not achieve redemption from its charm in the long run, falling more flat than not, and ultimately coming off as, not necessarily bad, due to its moderate charm, yet still a mediocre misfire. Still, it doesn't get to be that way without reasons, and plenty of them. Dry in tone, slow in pace, not all that boastful in sound and, here and there, even somewhat overdrawn, this film is, quite frankly, rather dull, limping along with limited intrigue, or any kind of oomph for that matter. The slowness that plagues much of the film really brings directors Howard Hawks' and Richard Rosson's falling short on consistent engagement value more to attention, if not intensifies it. Still, the slowness doesn't exacerbate the intrigue limiting alone, as there are a fair couple of spots of gaping lapses in subtlty, as well as a fair deal of cheesy directorial and writing choices that further bump down momentum. Yet another heavy blow to the compellingness is, well, the acting, some of which is, as I said, decent, with plenty of charmers to keep the overall acting experience not all that much of a pain, yet there are still plenty of performances that are weak and a few that are just downright awful. Getting back to Paul Muni, as I said, his charm gets him by more often than not, yet when it doesn't get him by, you really feel the full sting of his being just not that good, as he goes in and out of an atrocious "Italian" accent (I always joke about double-checking something, but this time, I really did double-check my sources to make sure that Tony Camonte wasn't Cuban like his De Palma counterpart), while pulling off plenty of matchingly embarassing and hammy line deliveries, expressions and gestures that make for a lead performance that may go saved by charisma, yet could have fallen as flat as some of this film's worst performances, which are ineffective, dated and all around about as poor as a good deal of performances in a run-of-the-mill flick of this film's time, yet that's not the only convention that this film collapses into. Yes, I'm fully aware that this is one of your earlier examples of a gangster film, or at least one of the most brutal of its era, so relative to its time, the film boasts a reasonable couple of audacious aspects that were inventive, yet on the whole, it doesn't stray terribly far away from familiar formulas, hitting many familiar spots for every unique spot - some of which aren't all that terribly unique to begin with -, and with that combined with the slowness, the end result is a final product that's often rather disengaging. There are a fair couple of high points, some of which nearly pulled this film from the dreaded waters of mediocrity - particularly the strong ending, notwithstanding Ann Dvorak's horrid acting -, and that is the genuine truth, yet steam dies down, little by little, as the film progresses, until it finally sputters out as dull, underwhelming, forgettable and, overall, just plain mediocre. Overall, the film is handsome in style and mostly slick in its occasional bits of action, yet is kept alive the most by the charm within a few performance - particularly leading man Paul Muni, even if he is a disaster in most every other acting regard -, as well as its general simplicity, leaving the final product safe from collapse into total dismissal as bad, yet it remains mediocre, nevertheless, made so by a general lack of intrigue, for which unsubtlties, mostly poor performances, cheesiness, conventions and, of course, dullness are to blame, and with not enough punch to carry the final product past its missteps - of which, there are far too many -, the Howard Hughes presentation of "Scarface" collapses as, not necessarily the "shame of the nation" (It's the extended title people, that's what I was gunning for), but still an ultimately forgettable bore of an early example of gangster filmmaking. 2/5 - Mediocre

• Eduardo T

  
  Almost as good as the original. At least we didn't get no disturbing chainsaw scene. The "say hello to my little friend", wasn't necessary. This classic film had good performances by the whole cast. Especially at the end, it was very emotional. If you like gangster… More
  Almost as good as the original. At least we didn't get no disturbing chainsaw scene. The "say hello to my little friend", wasn't necessary. This classic film had good performances by the whole cast. Especially at the end, it was very emotional. If you like gangster movies then there is no reason you won't like this one. Forget that it's in black and white and just appreciate it for what it truly is. A very entertaining film. The plot itself is a lot like the 80's version but there are some differences. The whole idea to add an X on screen when someone is about to be killed was genius. You don't see much symbolism in films now a days. The only problem I have with this film is the time length. I'm pretty sure they could have thought up more scenes that would have worked them self into the plot.

• Matthew Y

  
  I think Al Pacino was a more memorable character and performance but I think this is the better film. Everyone's seen the 1983 version but I bet few even knew it was a remake. Howard Hughes fought long and hard to get his version released with all the unflinching violence… More
  I think Al Pacino was a more memorable character and performance but I think this is the better film. Everyone's seen the 1983 version but I bet few even knew it was a remake. Howard Hughes fought long and hard to get his version released with all the unflinching violence attached. The film even begins with a disclaimer against such acts of violence and states that the film is a plea to good men to help clean-up our streets. Tommy-guns, Prohibition, Mobel T's! This is my kind of gangster film.

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