THE SPIRIT OF 1932: Our series continues with a gorgeous 4K restoration of Howard Hawks’ crime saga Scarface, a fictionalized variation on the Al Capone saga that captures the shocking grip of organized crime on American society in the midst of the Great Depression. More than 50 years before a crazed Al Pacino and his “little friend” took on the law in Brian De Palma’s famous remake, Paul Muni delivered an equally unhinged turn as Italian immigrant gangster Tony Camonte, whose violent urges get the best of him as he charges through Prohibition-era Chicago.
Taut gunplay and gripping car chases rule the day alongside Ben Hecht’s gritty screenplay, which maps out an unrelenting criminal underworld. A riveting Pre-Code achievement so controversial in its day that censors retitled it The Shame of the Nation, the movie reflects the adventurous taste of producer Howard Hughes as well as Hawks himself, who was on the verge of Hollywood’s most eclectic filmmaking career. Kristin M. Jones recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the film “is a plunge into a bitter realm with its own rules and rhymes, where bullets fall like hard rain.”
Our Saturday evening screening of Scarface will feature an introductory conversation on the history of organized crime in Long Island. We'll be ed by award-winning Newsday investigative journalist SJ Peddie, the author of SONNY, THE LAST OF THE LAST OF THE OLD TIME MOB BOSSES, JOHN SONNY FRANZESE. Peddie will discuss her research into the early days of organized crime as depicted in SCARFACE and her own encounters with a mob boss at the end of his life. Tickets on sale now!
