World Film and Television Progress (1938)

Scarface (Howard Hawks — United Artists.) Paul Muni, George Raft, Boris Karloff, Ann Dvorak, Karen Morley. It is good to see these old classics of the cinema revived. In the early thirties the new talking pictures may have been crude and raucous, with little understanding of the subtler uses for sound, but even when dialogue was at its wordiest, as in The Front Page, the effect could still be dynamic. Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur wrote Scarface and The Front Page — both of which are now being revived — and since these two were newspapei men together in Chicago, the authenticity of their material need not be doubted. Scarface was one of the first, and is still one of the best, of the gangster pictures, while The Front Page is, and always will be, the most memorable newspaper story ever filmed. Together they will provide historians of the future with a remarkable study of the times, for both are basically documentary, as indeed are so many of Hollywood's pictures of contemporary American life. Here, preserved for posterity in celluloid, is the spirit of criminal force and of corruption ; and of a soulless, callous, heartless, sensation-seeking yellow press. With memories of Paul Muni as Pasteur and Zola still fresh in the mind, it is a strange experience to find him here as "Scarface" Toni Camonte, the gangster whose vaunting ambition will stop at nothing, and whose inspiration is the Cook's sign which flashes out "The World Is Yours" in bright white lights outside his window. Vulgar, coarse and vain, he lives by the gun alone and his motto in killing is simple: "Do it first, do it yourself, and keep on doing it." A braggart and a bully in success; a cringing yellow rat in defeat. — H. E. Blyth, World Film News Critical Summary. On pages 8, 9, 1 1 we have attempted to show the true background to the gangster film, and to tell the real story of "Scarface". Those who are interested, and who are tempted to see the film again with this added knowledge, will find many interesting parallels between the fictional story of "Scarface" Toni Camonte and the real life story of "Scarface" Al Capone. In Big Louis Costillo they will discern the shadow of Big Jim Colosimo, Chicago's first gang lord; in Johnny Lovo they will find more than a hint of John Torrio, Colosimo' s successor, although in the film "Scarface" kills Johnny, while Capone never murdered Torrio — he didn't have to, for Torrio quit. O'Hara, the florist whom George Raft bumps off, is, of course, O'Banion, and Boris Karloff, as head of the North Side gang, is a combination of " Bugs" Moran and Hymie Weiss. The St. Valentine's Day massacre is referred to, and the attack on the Hawthorne Hotel is more or less reconstructed, although the film probably does not do that famous assault justice. Capone, of course, did not have a sister, as in the film, but he had a brother, who was killed quite early on in the gang war. The "Scarface" of reality did not die in the manner of the film, but that he would have behaved as Muni did, slobbering and cringing with fear when faced with the guns by which he had lived, is a reasonable assumption, for this is how Capone is now behaving in his prison cell in Alcatraz. 38 \Tou*re a Sweetheart (David Butler — Universal.) Alice Faye, George Murphy. Keeping my fingers crossed, I think we have found a new dancing team in pictures. George Murphy and Alice Faye are so brilliant in You're a Sweetheart that I venture to forecast they may one day rival Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Please let me explain before you begin to throw things. You're a Sweetheart is not a Top Hat, but neither was Flying Down to Rio,'&x\c\ this new picture is a likeable entertainment with lots of cleverness in its making and two most spectacular dances. George Murphy has not — yet — the personality of Fred Astaire, but when it comes to dancing he has and does deliver the goods. The plot is unimportant, but it has the merit of adding novelty to the overworked situation of a stage show threatened with closure because no one has paid for the scenery. — Seton Margrave, The Daily Mail This is elegantly staged, glitters like a new pin and gives Miss Faye every opportunity to look lovely, croon engagingly, and dance gracefully with Mr. Murphy, himself a remarkably good dancer with much of the Astaire wit and invention in his nimble footwork. The picture is of that elastic nature which permits the introduction of individual "turns" and an amusing musical trial-scene. Thus, with spectacular dance ensembles on the stage and a hard-working company to fill in the gaps, You're a Sweetheart is, on the whole, a lively improvisation on the backstage theme. —Michael Orme, The Sketch 'Without which no film appears complete . . En Old Chicago (Henry King — 20th Century-Fox.) Tyrone Power, Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Alice Brady, Andy Devine. A bold and colourful page from the life of a great city. Those early days of Chicago present as bawdy and lusty material for a screen spectacle as Hollywood has attempted to commandeer in a long time. And In Old Chicago is a noteworthy presentation of it. Not only has the miraculously entertaining Americana been collected with vigour and astuteness, but the weaving of it into a story of the O'Leary family and their fabulous cow has been accomplished with a fine sense of excitement and dramatic crescendo. The O'Learys, a mother and three boys, ride into Chicago in a covered wagon, and its story and theirs build handsomely to the mighty catastrophe. It is a concise, compact human drama of woolly days until a cow knocks over a lantern, then it is a spectacle of unbelievable terror. The fire is first a tiny lick of flame, then a burning barn, then a house, then a whole block, and then on and on until before our eyes is the horrifying scene of a great city in flames. It is a brilliant climax. The principal players are not much more intensified as characters than the hundreds of extras who make this picture of a city a living thing. — Stage In addition to the story there are some sentimental episodes, a few songs very agreeably sung by Miss Alice Faye, and several of those scenes of fisticuffs between lovers without which no film appears at present to be complete. But in spite of all this varied entertainment, accompanied by lavish reconstructions of architecture and costume, much of the story appears to be marking time before the grand pyrotechnic display which the audience is at every moment expecting. It would be pleasant to be able to yawn during this preposterous shindy, to be genuinely bored by this triumph of organisation and waste. But unhappily it is not possible; the noises alone are overwhelming, the accumulation of disastrous detail is really horrifying, and these infernal landscapes, photographed from every angle and even from high up in the air, form the most extraordinary compositions. The real fire can hardly have been more spectacular, and it is certainly one of the achievements of the cinema that millions should now be able to share the emotions of Nero. — The Times Troy was a bonfire, Rome a false alarm, compared with Mr. Darryl Zanuck's //; Old Chicago. By some productional miracle, the film achieves the lusty, amoral quality of the original city, the city of prodigious growing pains, the infant Gargantua of the prairies, in spite of the Hays office—which is probably Art. Vulgar, ostentatious, squalid, exuberant, bawdy and delightful (to contemplate, at least). Mr. Zanuck's Chicago makes Carl Sandburg's metropolis of bohunks seem as literary and anaemic as the Hamptons. — B.R.C., The New York Times