‘Scarface’ is more than a genre movie
New book explores phenomenal 1983 film

PHILADELPHIA — Al Pacino, Oliver Stone, Brian De Palma, they just don’t get it.

A quarter century since its December 1983 release, "Scarface” remains a towering pop-cult phenom, a hyperactive gangster picture embraced by hip-hop artists, gangsta rappers, frat boys, gamers, poster merchants, blingmeisters and movie mavens who delight in dropping signature Tony Montana lines into their everyday yammer: Say hello to my little friend, indeed.

"I’m convinced that as the years have gone by, that they honestly have no idea, really, why it has remained as popular as it has,” says Ken Tucker, author of "Scarface Nation: The Ultimate Gangster Movie and How It Changed America,” a trade paperback just out from St. Martin’s Press. For Pacino (who starred as the Cuban refugee-turned-Miami crime lord Tony Montana), Stone (the screenwriter) and De Palma (the director), the success of the over-the-top crime saga remains something of a mystery.

"When I talked to Martin Bregman, ‘Scarface”s producer, he, too, was like: ‘I don’t know why these college kids watch it over and over again — but I’m glad they do!’” says Tucker, editor-at-large at Entertainment Weekly, and a TV and pop music critic who regularly contributes to NPR’s "Fresh Air with Terry Gross.”

"They have no idea of how it resonates in hip-hop culture and why it pops up in TV shows.”

Stone was likewise oblivious, says Tucker, who conducted countless interviews with "Scarface” cast and crew (though not Pacino, and not Michelle Pfeiffer) while researching his surprising, insightful and often keenly funny photo-laden book. "I would tell him that ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ and ‘The Simpsons’ and ‘The Family Guy’ were all referencing ‘Scarface,’ and that was news to him,” Tucker recalls. "So, they’re kind of clueless to their own phenomenon.”

Part of the movie’s lasting appeal, says Tucker, is that in some ways it’s a classic tale of capitalism, the pursuit of the "American Dream.” Never mind that it ends in a bloody hail of gunfire.

Stone went on to direct "Wall Street,” but "in retrospect, ‘Scarface’ was like a prelude. … All that stuff about money and power and greed.”

Tucker, a former Philadelphia Inquirer pop music and TV critic, worked on "Scarface Nation” over a two-year period, going back to the original 1930 Armitage Trail pulp novel (a pen name for Maurice Coons), revisiting and researching the original Howard Hawks-directed 1932 "Scarface,” with Paul Muni in the title role, and watching De Palma’s Scarface, transplanted from Chicago to Miami— well, watching it a lot.

"I’ve watched it at least 25 times,” he says.

McClatchy-Tribune Information Services

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