Scarface (1932)

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Directed by:
Howard Hawks, Richard Rosson

Written by:
Armitage Trail, Ben Hecht, Seton I. Miller

Cast:
Paul Muni (Tony), Ann Dvorak (Cesca), Karen Morley (Poppy), Osgood Perkins (Lovo), C. Henry Gordon (Guarino), George Raft (Rinaldo), Vince Barnett (Angelo), Boris Karloff (Gaffney), Purnell Pratt (Publisher), Tully Marshall (Managing Editor)

The original Scarface opens with a challenge — literally. The very first words on screen declare: “This picture is an indictment of gang rule in America. What are YOU going to do about it?” I can’t think of another film that confronts its audience so directly. It sets the tone for what’s to come: bold, brash, and unafraid to stir things up.

The story kicks off when Louis Costillo, the last of the old-school gang leaders, is gunned down. With him out of the way, Chicago is up for grabs. Enter Tony Camonte — a ruthless, trigger-happy Italian thug with big ambitions. He works for Johnny Lovo, a mob boss running the city’s bootlegging operations, but Tony clearly has bigger plans.

Tony’s greatest strength is his fearlessness. His greatest weakness? He’s reckless to the point of stupidity. At one point, he openly tells an underling — someone he barely knows — that he plans to kill Lovo and take over. Still, Tony lives by his own brutal code: “Do it first. Do it yourself. And keep doing it.” And for a while, that philosophy takes him far.

It’s no secret that Tony Camonte is a thinly veiled version of Al Capone — the real-life ‘Scarface’. The film even recreates the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, among other bloody moments from Capone’s reign. Paul Muni, who plays Tony, throws himself into the role with raw intensity. At times, maybe too much intensity. His exaggerated Italian accent borders on parody today — but to be fair, that larger-than-life acting style was very much in fashion back then.

Watching Scarface for the first time, I was struck by how much it echoes Brian De Palma’s 1983 version — the one I grew up with. Tony’s obsessive, almost incestuous protectiveness over his sister, the iconic ‘The World is Yours’ sign, and of course, his violent downfall in a hail of bullets — it’s all here. The DNA of De Palma’s Scarface runs straight back to Howard Hawks’ original.

But what really stood out to me on my recent rewatch was just how groundbreaking the action scenes are. The machine gun shootouts — stark, brutal, and filmed in gritty black and white — feel years ahead of their time. There’s a raw energy to them that still hits hard, even nearly a century later. This Scarface might not have the swagger of Al Pacino’s Tony Montana, but it’s every bit as bold, violent, and unforgettable.

Rating:

Quote:
TONY CAMONTE: “Hey, Cesca, you and me, huh? We’ll show them. We’ll lick them all, the North Side, the South Side! We’ll lick the whole world!”

Trivia:
Like many of the early gangster movies, real machine gun fire is used to create the bullet damage in walls, including scenes with main characters ducking gunfire.

Dungeon Classics #38: Foxy Brown

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

FilmDungeon’s Chief Editor JK sorts through the Dungeon’s DVD-collection to look for old cult favorites….

Foxy Brown (1974, USA)

Director: Jack Hill
Cast: Pam Grier, Antonio Fargas, Peter Brown
Running Time: 92 mins.

After the success of Coffy (1973), one of the defining films of the Blaxploitation era, director Jack Hill reunited with Pam Grier for Foxy Brown – a spiritual sequel that cranks up the style, violence, and attitude even further. Grier stars as Foxy Brown, a bold and beautiful woman who takes justice into her own hands after her undercover-cop boyfriend is betrayed and murdered. The snitch? Her own brother Link (Antonio Fargas), a small-time hustler desperate to pay off his debts to a ruthless drug syndicate led by the cold-blooded Miss Katherine Wall. Determined to take down the criminals who destroyed her life, Foxy infiltrates their front – a high-end modeling agency that’s really a cover for prostitution and drug trafficking. Undercover as the seductive ‘Misty Cotton’, she soon finds herself captured, drugged, and brutalized on a remote farm. But Foxy is far from finished. Escaping captivity, she joins forces with a militant Black community group to unleash righteous, bloody revenge on her enemies. The acting in Foxy Brown may not always aim for subtlety, but that’s hardly the point. What it delivers in spades is raw, unfiltered exploitation energy: flashy ’70s fashion, a killer soul-funk soundtrack, outrageous violence, razor-sharp one-liners, and some jaw-dropping set pieces – including a wild brawl in a lesbian bar where Foxy famously warns, “I got a black belt in bar stools!” Like many films of its kind, Foxy Brown is packed with gritty, shocking, and often deeply problematic content — misogyny, racism, drug abuse, and sadistic violence – but it’s also a defiant celebration of Black power, female strength, and street-level justice. By the end, Foxy ensures the villains get exactly what they deserve – and in true exploitation fashion, revenge has never tasted sweeter.

Dungeon Classics #37: Coffy

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

FilmDungeon’s Chief Editor JK sorts through the Dungeon’s DVD-collection to look for old cult favorites….

Coffy (1973, USA)

Director: Jack Hill
Cast: Pam Grier, Booker Bradshaw, Robert DoQui
Running Time: 90 mins.

‘Coffy is the color of your skin’, sings Denise Bridgewater in the opening theme of Coffy – a blaxploitation classic starring Pam Grier and one of Quentin Tarantino’s all-time favorite films. From the moment the stylish opening credits roll, it’s clear this movie is something special. Grier plays Flower Child ‘Coffy’ Coffin, a nurse whose sister’s life is shattered by heroin addiction. Fueled by rage, she sets out on a ruthless mission of revenge. Disguising herself as a drug-addicted prostitute, she lures street-level pushers into a trap – before blowing their brains out. But she doesn’t stop there. Determined to take down the real power players, she goes after the slick pimp and drug dealer King George, as well as the dangerous mob boss Vitroni. Directed by Jack Hill – an early collaborator of Roger Corman and Francis Ford Coppola before cementing his legacy as the king of blaxploitation – Coffy delivers everything the genre is known for: gritty action, bloody vigilante justice, and plenty of nudity, not least from Grier herself. While her acting faced some criticism at the time, her sheer star power is undeniable. She owns this film, elevating it beyond mere exploitation and securing its place in movie history as an absolute cult classic.

Why the Ukraine War Might End Soon

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

On February 24, 2022, the Russian army invaded Ukraine. Many, including myself and Russian President Vladimir Putin, initially believed it would be a short operation. Putin expected to topple the Ukrainian government within three days and install a puppet regime, turning Ukraine into a vassal state. However, events unfolded quite differently.

Rather than surrendering and giving up their sovereignty, Ukraine sought Western support, receiving weapons that allowed them to fiercely resist the Russian invasion. To avoid appearing weak, Putin escalated the conflict into a full-scale war, which has now dragged on for three years. During this time, Russia has managed to occupy around 20 percent of Ukrainian territory, but progress has been painstakingly slow and has come at an enormous cost in human lives, financial resources, and military equipment.

Russia’s relentless ‘meat grinder’ tactics are unsustainable. The country is running out of funds to continue the war while its economy struggles with soaring inflation and high interest rates. This puts Putin in a precarious position. If the West maintains pressure and Ukraine continues to receive support, Putin may eventually be forced to withdraw – a move that would leave him vulnerable to backlash from Russian elites, the public, and key power groups.

So far, Putin has consistently framed the military operation in Ukraine as a necessary measure to protect Russian speakers and to achieve the ‘demilitarization and denazification’ of Ukraine. He claims that Ukraine has been under the control of neo-Nazis and Western influences, posing a direct threat to Russia’s security. But if he pulls out of Ukraine without achieving these objectives, how will he justify it?

Trump may have just provided him with a convenient narrative. According to expert Konstantin Samoilov, Putin could use the Trump administration’s pro-Russian stance to declare victory. Samoilov suggests that Putin might announce this on May 9 – Victory Day in Moscow.

“In my eyes, Putin has won”, Samoilov stated in a recent episode of Silicon Curtain. “For three years, he has been telling Russians: ‘We are not fighting Ukraine; we are fighting the collective West, led by the USA, which is using Ukraine as a proxy.’ Now he has an event in the White House where Zelensky was basically kicked out. Additionally, the U.S. suspended military aid to Ukraine, and Ukrainian forces withdrew from Kursk. That, to Putin, is a victory. On May 9, he might say: ‘Dear Russians, we have fought the USA – and we have won.’”

While an end to the war might seem like a relief for Ukraine and the West, Samoilov warns that Russia’s withdrawal could signal something even more sinister. “Putin will end the special military operation in its current form, only to replace it with something far worse. He will shift the Russian economy and society into full-scale war mode. He will say: ‘This war is over, but the threat remains – and now it is even bigger because it is Europe.’ The Kremlin will manufacture reasons to convince Russians that the real enemy is closer than ever, and the state will take complete control of the economy.”

I find Samoilov’s arguments compelling. The Russian military simply does not have the strength to continue pushing forward, especially if Europe remains committed to supplying Ukraine with resources – which I believe they will. As Silicon Curtain host Jonathan Fink points out, there are already signs that the Kremlin is preparing for this shift. Russian propaganda is framing recent U.S. actions as evidence that the Kremlin’s narratives were correct all along, reinforcing the image of Russia as the victor. Last week, Putin made Trump wait an hour before speaking to him in the ‘negotiations’ call to show the people that he was the big alpha male and Trump is basically his bitch.

Once again, we – the West – should not underestimate Putin as we did in the past. If he indeed ends the Ukraine war, we must assume that he will be back in full force. We are very far from a permanent peace with Russia, and arguably this can only be achieved if Russia is defeated. An inconvenient truth if ever there was one.