Witch Scarface is better and...

Just wanted to say, I liked "witch scarface", the one where al pacino rides around on a broom stick and says memorable things like "you cockaroch, you bat tail, you eye of newt, you hair of one-legged cat" and of course when he says "in this country, you gotta make the money first. then when you get the money, you get the power. then when you get the power, then you get the broom", and who could forget "say hello to my little dustpan, my pretties, hehehehehehehhe!!! (in best witch cackle)".

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I noticed a remark or two about the inferior supporting cast of the original 1932 film; the Scarface from 1983 had some fairly terrible acting from it's supporting cast, including Tony's partner, played in a dull, unimpressive way by Steve Bauer. Yes, Manny was apallingly shallow, yet I feel his character was created and executed even <more> lazily than it should have been allowed to be. Michelle Pfieffer's role is unconvinvcing and ininspired; in fact, it may be possible people only enjoy it because they have knowledge of her future exploits in acting, where she has shown herself to be a versatile and fully capable actress. Here she was simply giving a half-baked performance (that and the fact that the screenplay seemed more focused on scrutinizing her character than giving her a proper perspective point, a situation wisely realized in the far superior gangster film 'Goodfellas' and it's portrayal of Lorraine Bracco's character). And don't get me started on the Pacino-hype wagon: he has had far better performances before and after this film, though I did understand Ebert's defense of his performance (Tony had to over-act, and sell himself to progress in his career, and ultimately Pacino did a good job of replicating the vigor of a power-hungry and vicious political reguee).


The music doesn't have to fulfill your tastes as I've heard so many people complain; I personally dislike mainstream 80's music, but make no mistake, the soundtrack perfectly encapsulized the word of Tony Montana. How else should the music have been? I personally dislike/have indifferent feelings towards much of the music in the film Goodfellas, but the songs do, in fact, properly progress the film in terms of theme and atmosphere. And while, yes, being a musical purist, I think Prince should have been tried and executed for actually axing the bassline to one of his hits from the album 'Purple Rain', the 80's vibe can be effectively attained from - guess what? - 80's music. Such a complaint lacks merit in my eyes.


This being said, I can say that while I feel DePalma is one of the most blunt and arrogant directors I've ever seen, his methods reached a peak in 'Scarface'; this may be the one film of his that not only fits his personality and scope as a film-maker, but reaps benefit from it in the long-term.


I feel, personally, that Scarface was unfaily scathed by the media upon it's release, but I do also think it is overly-touted today as a film. The original 1932 film requires a bit more imagination but has definitely aged honorably, whereas the 1983 film has aged amazingly poorly; yet, I believe this actually works better for the remake. Tony's world is one of grime and grit, one of violence and atrocity, one of excess and pompous arrogance, and the film preserves this feel, this immaculate sense of disparity and waste better than most films I have seen. I won't end this post cheaply by saying which I personally think is better, but I will say that I believe many of the above criticisms for the modern version of Scarface are, in the view of I, some of it's greatest successes as a film.

hahaahaha, that should be the question here.

Having watched the 1983 remake several times over the past few years as one of my all-time favourite movies, I have just watched the 1932 original and I must say I was quite impressed. Now I know where the basis for the remake came from. In fact, many - if not most - of the remake scenes were actually copied straight from the original, albeit with a little more descriptive decoration and colouring.

And therein lies the difference between the two films. Simply speaking, the original was a great movie in a black-and-white, basic story kind of way; the remake was just as brilliant but with more colour and story/character development.

Also, both Scarface characters were magnificently portrayed by the respective actors. I agree that Al Pacino is often too much over-the-top with his perfomances, but in the Tony Montana case that is exactly how the character was supposed to be played (in my opinion). As for Paul Muni's Tony Carmonte, it was really refreshing to see an entirely different, but just as realistic, version of the same character, from another age and another era altogether.

MY CONCLUSION: As someone suggested in an earlier post, you can't compare a real diamond with a bar of gold (or the other way round). You just can't.

I would defiantely have to say the 1932 version of SCARFACE was the definate version of the two. I prefered Paul Muni's performance as Tony Cammante over Al Pacino's Tony Montana. Muni's Cammante came off looking a little more like the more flamboyant Italian gangsters of the Prohibition era. Compared to him, Pacino's Montana looked like a dime-a-dozen hood or a gangster wanna-be. And the relationship between Cammante and his sister (Ann Dvorak) was one of those things that was considered very shocking (even by 1930's standards!).

BTW: I personally thought that Al Pacino did much better at playing a ganglord in his tongue-in-cheek performace as Big Boy Caprice in DICK TRACY than he did in his straight portrayal in the 1983 version of SCARFACE.

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