Scarface (1931)

I think in terms of remakes, the 80's version of Scarface is better than this, the 30's Howard Hawks original. 
The stories are essentially the same with a smart thug calculating his way to the top and be king gangster running booze (not the coke of the 80's), with dollops of violence and killen-ings. Other common threads include Tony's unhealthy if more subtle interest in his sister and his lieutenant and her get into a relationship too.
Also 80's Scarface has an extra hour on this one but De Palma's version hardly has any fat on it's running time.
Paul Muni is great and necessarily charismatic as Tony but when we're talking about iconic gangsters, Pacino's Tony Montana is just the definition of maniacal blind ambition -Muni's Tony at least has trace amounts of empathy. Karen Morley is just as great as the moll Tony's affections are vying for- the one you'll remember Michelle Pfeiffer playing in the remake.
You can see why Hawks was so influential to Tarantino and Scorsese- there are so many visual flourishes. Anyone who knows anything about Hawks, knows he was thought quite the exploitation director at the time but 80years later, his Scarface will hardly shock anyone with it's PG violence but i'd counter it's just as exciting and i'm going to say 'jaunty', in the way only films of the 30's could be. Actually the one thing 30's Scarface has over the 80's one is, it has a very ambitious car chase (of the 30's). (FFWD to between 1min18secs - 2min-20secs)

I think the main thing, De Palma and Oliver Stone's Scarface has over this one is major tension, like that of the chainsaw scene but obviously 50years later the limits of taste had... Well, there were few limits left by the 80's.


I watched Scarface (1932) on DVD via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Blue Valentine (2010)...