The League

Friday Afternoon Jukebox: Scarface Edition

by Sam Wilkinson · June 14, 2013

Tags: Extra Gross Sister Loving friday jukebox Scarface Tony Montana

Sam Wilkinson

According to a faithful reader, I'm Ordinary Times's "least thoughtful writer." So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

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Snarky McSnarkSnark says:

June 14, 2013 at 4:55 pm

Does it strike anybody that the music in the first click is very like Montage from Team America: World Police?Report
b-psycho says:

June 14, 2013 at 8:03 pm

Tony acknowledged how “dirty” the life he was engaged in was, & didn’t want Gina to end up deep in it. Bankrolling her salon was one thing, but being with Manolo put her too far in. Manolo corrupted her in his eyes.

Not saying there absolutely wasn’t the above mentioned ick factor, just that it ain’t necessarily reason #1 for that ending.Report
b-psycho says:

June 14, 2013 at 8:06 pm

BTW: I always found his comment about capitalism interesting in context.Report
Brandon Berg says:

June 15, 2013 at 12:14 am

There are people in the world who are attracted to members of their own family through no fault of their own. It’s one thing to discourage them from acting on it due to the elevated risk from recessive genetic disorders, but there’s no need to be gratuitously mean about it. They have it tough enough as it is. You wouldn’t say that homosexuality makes a character especially gross, because that’s offensive to real homosexuals. Same deal here.Report
- Sam in reply to Brandon Berg says:
  
  June 15, 2013 at 1:02 am
  
  Brandon,
  
  There are those people in the real world. This was in a movie. There’s no particular reason for Tony’s sexual attraction to his sister; it’s just oddly there, never specifically address, but just hinted at throughout until that final moment of exposure. That the film’s fans rarely comment upon its obvious presence only makes it all the stranger.Report
  - Snarky McSnarksnark in reply to Sam says:
    
    June 15, 2013 at 1:25 am
    
    Remember that Scarface was a remake.
    
    The dynamic you spoke of came from the 1932 movie, but was made a little more explicit, for its era. If you want to blame anyone, blame Howard Hawks.Report
    - MikeSchilling in reply to Snarky McSnarksnark says:
      
      June 15, 2013 at 2:18 am
      
      There’s a similar dynamic in Sweet Smell of Success, where most of the dirty tricks the Walter Winchell character (played by Burt Lancaster) orders Tony Curtis to perform have the aim of getting his sister away from her boyfriend (Martin Milner as a jazz musician. Seriously.)Report
      - Sam in reply to MikeSchilling says:
        
        June 15, 2013 at 11:22 pm
        
        So, I guess we’re supposed to then see this as some attempt to reference earlier historical works in which family members sleep with one another? Was it something specific to these individual characters or the individuals they were based on?Report
    - Glyph in reply to Snarky McSnarksnark says:
      
      June 15, 2013 at 11:48 pm
      
      Apparently the 1932 one is based on a book, has anyone read it? Maybe it’s originally from there.Report
      - Sam in reply to Glyph says:
        
        June 17, 2013 at 12:10 pm
        
        This has turned from a Friday afternoon snark off into a genuine interest: does anybody know the answer to Glyph’s question?Report
        
        Chris in reply to Sam says:
        
        June 17, 2013 at 12:34 pm
        
        The sister romance angle first appears in the ’32 film. It’s not in the book.Report
        
        Snarky McSnarksnark in reply to Sam says:
        
        June 17, 2013 at 6:22 pm
        
        For the record, Hawks and Ben Hecht, the writer, sought to tell the story of the Borgias in a Warner Brothers “modern,” “urban” context. Reportedly the orginal (1932) script was considerably more explicit in this them than the resulting movie, but Hawks was rather uncomfortable with how it all played out–all explicit references were removed.Report