Little Caesar and Scarface

Scarface (1932) UA pictures. d. Hawks s. Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak
Little Caesar (1930) Warner Brothers. d. M. Leroy s. Edward G. Robinson, Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

The Howard Hughes production of Scarface, directed by Howard Hawks, is perhaps one of the best examples of the gangster genre, just before the code deprived it of its visceral impact. Compared with Little Caesar, the body count in this film is epic, there are so many drive by shootings that one loses count of who stands where in the gang war depicted. The seemingly non-stop violence aside, the film provides an excellent window into the ideological workings of the gangster film, and its depiction of immigrant life.
The film begins with a disclaimer: “This picture is an indictment of gang rule in America and of the callous indifference of the government to this constantly increasing menace to our safety and our liberty. Every incident in this picture is the reproduction of an actual occurrence, and the purpose of this picture is to demand of the government: ‘What are you going to do about it ?’ The government is your government. What are YOU going to do about it?” Thus the onus is placed squarely on the government, and by extension the audience. One wonders if the disclaimer presented, with all of its sensationalistic fervor, was not perhaps tacked on at the last minute due to conflict with the Hay’s office. Nevertheless, this sets the “ripped from the headlines” tone that governed gangster films and makes them easily identified as depression-era products.
The film opens with a soon-to-be murdered gang boss having a final drink after a party. His unmistakably pseudo-Italian accent marks him as one of the film’s many immigrants or children of immigrants. Well dressed, he makes a toast and talks about what a good life he has had here in America: “I got all I want...looka me, a man always got to know what he got to do. I got the plenty, I got a house, I gota automobile, I got a nice-a girl...” Soon after, he is shot down by a rival’s gunman, the titular Scarface. What this early scene, and several others like it throughout the gangster genre, does is both uphold and critique the capitalist system in which these characters compete. Here, the gangster has all the trappings of the American dream, but what, exactly, has he had to do to get it? Is it not this same dream that his assassin also aspires to? Again and again throughout the gangster drama is the motif of upward mobility.
In both Little Caesar and Scarface, the trajectory of the main character’s upward mobility can be measured by two visual cues, their clothing and their apartments. From the beginning of Little Caesar, Rico (Edward G. Robinson) has an almost fetishistic eye for clothing. It is in the film’s first act that we get an unusual and homo-erotic example of the male gaze, the visual fragmentation of another character as Rico takes notice of his tie-pin, pinky ring and suit coat. In Scarface the motif appears again, only this time manifesting itself in a series of silk robes, first worn by the boss, and then by Tony after usurping his position. This also highlights one of the more unusual tendencies in these two films to feminize their subjects. Rico as an almost homosexual attachment to his best friend, who, appropriately enough, abandons him to fulfill his dream of being a dancer. Rico’s jealousy of his friend’s female companion borders on the obsessive. Tony, on the other hand, has an almost incestuous attachment to his little sister, and the sexual nature of this obsession is rather pronounced for a film of this period.
Just as the lengthening of the dining room table in Citizen Kane symbolizes the growing distance between Kane and his wife, in these two pictures the change of domicile is dramatic, from cramped kitchens presided over by elderly and single matriarchs (who are always wearing a shawl-echoing the “old country”) to palatial penthouses complete with tacky Rocco moldings and bullet-proof shutters. This in itself creates an ironic commentary on laissez-faire capitalism; you can get to the top, but if you want to stay there, you’d better be armed.