This Gangster Movie Was Banned In The US, And Looks Ridiculously Tame 90 Years Later

One gangster movie from the 1930s fought against censors and was ultimately banned, but looking back now, it's a ridiculously tame movie.

Summary

• Gangster movies, like the original Scarface from 1932, often faced censorship and bans due to their violent content and portrayal of mafia life.
• Censors believed that Scarface glorified violence, leading to changes in the film's ending and the addition of a prologue condemning gangsters.
• The original Scarface was eventually allowed to be released, but only in a heavily censored version. It wasn't until 2019 that the completely unaltered version was released alongside the limited edition set of Brian De Palma's remake.

Gangster movies are often controversial due to their content, with some of them even being banned – and one banned gangster movie in particular looks way too tame nine decades after its release. The gangster subgenre is home to some of the most successful movies in film history, such as Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather and Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, but this branch of the crime genre has gone through various issues for decades. Although filmmakers are now more free to address once-controversial topics in their gangster movies, there were some films that had to battle censorship many years ago.

Many gangster movies have been accused of glamorizing or romanticizing gangster life, leading to filmmakers having to cut or change some scenes so their movies could be released. In other cases, gangster films have been banned in different cities and countries for their content, a decision that, years later, seems ridiculous. Such is the case of Howard Hawks’ Scarface, based on the 1929 novel by Armitage Trail and released in 1932, which faced censorship and was even banned for reasons that now, after many more gangster movies and a remake, seem ridiculous.

Why Scarface (1932) Was Banned In The US

Before Brian de Palma’s take on Scarface, with Al Pacino as Tony Montana, Trail’s novel was adapted to the big screen in 1932. Directed by Howard Hawks, Scarface was set in 1920s Chicago and followed Antonio “Tony” Camonte (Paul Muni), an Italian immigrant gangster who rose through the Chicago gangland – the problem was that Camonte did so violently. Although Scarface was released pre-Code, the Hays Code was already influencing the content of movies in the early 1930s. The films that didn’t adhere to the code’s censorship guidelines could be delayed, heavily edited, or prevented from being produced, and with Scarface addressing topics related to the mafia and having a generous dose of violence, the code went after it.

Censors believed Scarface glorified violence and gangster life, so the film had to go through a couple of changes so it could be released, such as the inclusion of a prologue condemning gangsters, an alternate ending to clearly reprehend Camonte, and the addition of the alternative title The Shame of a Nation. Because of these changes, Scarface was delayed a year, though some screenings kept the original ending. Although the audience’s reaction to Scarface was positive, censors banned the film in various cities across the United States, leading producer Howard Hughes to remove it from circulation and keep it in his vault.

Scarface was eventually allowed by state and municipal censorship boards to be released, though only the cut and censored version. Jason Joy was the one who convinced the boards to allow Scarface’s release, arguing that while the code was against the positive portrayal of crime, gangster movies are documents against gangster life.

Scarface Is Ridiculously Tame Today (& Compared To The Remake)

The film industry has changed a lot since the 1930s, and while there are still topics and themes considered “controversial”, gangster movies rarely have to fight censors now. It’s clear now that, had Hawks’ Scarface been released today, it wouldn’t have had to change anything because the movie is actually quite tame, more so when compared to De Palma’s remake. The 1983 version of Scarface also had its dose of controversy, as it was criticized for its excessive violence, profanity, graphic drug usage, and the portrayal of Cubans as criminals and drug traffickers – but unlike the 1932 version, all of this is a lot more understandable as De Palma’s adaptation is a lot more violent.

De Palma’s Scarface did everything that Hawks’ version couldn’t, and most notably, it kept its original, violent ending. De Palma’s version ends with Pacino’s Tony Montana being shot multiple times and his body falling off the balcony into a pool, and Hawks’ original ending was similar to it, with Tony Camonte being shot by policemen. The censored version of 1932’s Scarface saw Tony attempting to run away only to be shot by a policeman and stumble into a gutter.

Why An Uncensored Scarface Took So Long To Release

The original ending of Hawks’ Scarface has been shown in modern screenings of the film and some DVD versions include it as a feature, but it wasn’t until 2019 that the completely unaltered version was released. The uncensored version of 1932’s Scarface was released alongside the limited edition set of De Palma’s adaptation in 2019, and while it’s unknown exactly why it took so long for the untouched version to be released, it might have to do with its late discovery. As mentioned above, Howard Hughes kept the movie in his vault, and it wasn’t until his death that the rights for Scarface (and other movies) were obtained, thus allowing De Palma’s remake. The original Scarface went through a lot in its fight against censors, but it was finally released the way it should have been from the beginning.