Scarface, 1932. A gangster improves his situation by killing his competitors. Directed by Howard Hawks & Richard Rosson. Written by Ben Hecht, with Seton I. Miller, John Lee Mahin & W.R. Burnett; adapted by Fred Pasley from a book by Armitage Trail. Starring Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, Karen Morley, Osgood Perkins, George Raft, Vince Barnett & Boris Karloff.
Concept: 4/4 (Great). Pre-code violence!
Story: 3/4 (Good)
Characters: 1/4 (Bad). Just like in the re-make, Scarface is an unforgivably and universally awful person with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. But at least in this film they had reasons for doing that.
Dialog: 1/4 (Bad). Mostly good, but with a handful of awful moments of gratuitous lecturing.
Pacing: 3/4 (Good)
Cinematography: 3/4 (Good)
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good)
Acting: 1/4 (Bad)
Music: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Subjective Rating: 6/10 (Okay, 2/4). It's an interesting movie, and solidly (if not remarkably) crafted. Ultimately, though, I just don't care about a story with no protagonist.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.3/4 (Okay)
No comments:
Post a Comment