Pre-Code Blogathon – The Rise and Fall of the American Gangster: Scarface

The Rise and Fall of the American Gangster
Scarface

“As far back as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a gangster.” -Henry Hill – Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas.

Yes, gangsters seem to have it all: the clothes, the money, the respect, and the girls. However, there is another side of the gangster life: the reality. The reality is that the gangster doesn’t get the money, the respect, or the girls without getting to the top. And when the gangster gets to the top, he most certainly will not stay there. Howard Hawks’ 1932 seminal gangster flick, Scarface, perfectly puts on cinematic display the realities of the rise and fall of the American Gangster.

Let us start right at the beginning of the film. We first meet our gangster “hero,” Tony Camonte,  (Paul Muni) in the very first scene. However, when we first see him, well, we don’t really see him. We see only a glimpse of his shadow approaching mob boss “Big” Louis Costillo, whistling a jaunty tune, the complete opposite of his ominous presence.  As he approaches the unsuspecting Big Lou, he remains obscured in the shadow realm as he withdraws his gun to do the obvious: murder the rival crime boss and retreat in cold blood. Now, you might be wondering why Tony is in shadow when he’s clearly going to be the star of the show. Well, there are two reasons and both are related.

The first reason is simply to set the tone for who Tony is as a person: a man of the underworld, trapped in the shadows of society. Because of his affiliations with the criminal world of prohibition era Chicago, Tony must live his life away from the light of day – that is to say away from legitimacy. Already he is shown to have no way out of the life of the gangster, doomed to live and die by the code of hailing gun fire. His murder of “Big” Lou only serves to cement this notion. From now on, if Tony wishes to rise to the top it will only be in the underworld. The shadow also serves to show his place within the underworld itself – a no-name, no-faced soldier in the criminal enterprise of John “Johnny” Lovo (Osgood Perkins). However, now that he that has proven his ability to move and kill within the shadows, Tony is able to quickly rise in the ranks.

After successfully disposing of his bosses’ biggest rival, Tony quickly rises in the ranks of Johnny’s crew of cantankerous criminals – becoming Johnny’s right hand man. It’s here that Tony begins his fast ascent to the top, shooting and shouting his way through all of Johnny’s biggest enemies. And, of course, as his status begins to rise within the organization, so does his material wealth. Soon the poor immigrant from Italy with neary a penny to his name is wearing tailored suits, drinking foreign champagnes and living in the gaudiest apartment that new money can buy. But, of course,  this isn’t enough. Rather than look at his gains, Tony can only see what he doesn’t have: the Irish territories of Chicago’s north side. So, despite warnings from Johnny to leave the O’Hara territories alone, he defies orders. He begins attacking crime fronts on the North Side and orders his best friend/underlying, Guino Rinaldo (George Raft) to kill O’Hara, the Northside’s crime boss,  while unguarded. Sound Familiar?

Of course, Johnny is none-to-happy with Tony’s actions but that doesn’t matter. Tony is on his way to the top and nothing, not even the man currently occupying that spot, will stop him. Not to say that Johnny doesn’t try to stop him. In fact, fearing Tony’s unyielding ambition and reckless attitude, Johnny arranges for Tony to be knocked-off. The assassination attempt, however, fails miserably, and soon after, Tony decides he’s had enough of being number two and kills the big boss Johnny himself – officially reaching the top of Chicago’s criminal underworld. However, as the famous platitude goes, once you reach the top the only place to go is down. And for Tony, that descent begins happening immediately.

Because of Tony’s “shoot first, then shoot some more later,” attitude towards life, the civil-minded civilians of Chicago quickly begin to view Tony as menace to society and the police make his capture, dead or alive, their main priority. Now with the police hot on his bloody-ridden trail, it is only a matter of time before his impulsive actions catch up to him.

Also during this time his wild antics and unsavory occupation begin to take a toll on his personal life. His mother, whom Tony loves dearly, looks at her baby-boy with utter disdain, refusing any of his blood money and even going as far as to say she is ashamed of her only son. His almost incestious obsession with his sister Cesca (Ann Dvorak) also begins to boil over. Like her brother, Cesca is a hot-tempered iconoclast with a taste for the criminal element. She soon begins to attend the same criminal parties as Tony, even though he disapproves. Because of Tony’s need to be on top and in complete control of his surroundings, he does not take his dear baby sister’s defiance easily. When she appears at one of Tony’s parties, despite warnings not to, Tony’s temper gets the best of him and he slaps her *bam* square in the face. Cesca soon retaliates by successfully wooing Tony’s old friend Guino into a secret marriage much to Tony’s dismay.

And it is here that Tony’s descent from the top becomes a free-fall.  Unable to simply allow his sister and best friend/closest ally to live their life, the egotistical Tony must be in complete control of his surroundings. So, he does the only logical things he could think of: he shoots and kills Guido. This leads a distraught Cesca to go straight to the police, offering her brother, Chicago’s public enemy number one, to the authorities on a platter.

Cut to the final scenes of the film. Tony is now trapped and surrounded by the police. At this point Cesca has returned to her brother’s side, ready to go down in a blaze of glory with him. It’s romantic in a way,  the “ride or die” notion of the criminal world. However rather than fight the coppers together, a stray bullet kills Cesca – leaving Tony alone in the world. Everyone he once cared about is now either dead or has completely disowned him. In a final act of utter self-humiliation, Tony exits the building and begs for his life – a cowardly act in the eyes of the criminal act. And rather than going down in a blaze of glory like the heros of gangster lore, Tony turns around and runs away only to be shot by the police, dying with no money, no respect and no glory.

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A Big Thank You to Pre-Code.com and Shadows and Satin for hosting this Pre-Code Blogathon.  Please don’t forget to check out the other fabulous Blogathon entries via the above links!

Minoo Allen for Classic Movie Hub