I’ve been watching a lot of movies from the 70s lately — it sorta happened by accident: I’ve been watching the Alan Clarke box set, and I’ve also been following movie recommendations from Hazel Flagg (which are heavy on 70s movies). And then I just started watching random 70s movies, because the 70s is a decade I’ve been avoiding slightly?
But enough’s enough. Time to watch something else for a while!
Yeah, yeah, sure…
That’s the ticket.
Before I went all 70s, I bought a stack of Howard Hawks movies I’ve never seen before. I was watching Bringing Up Baby or something yet again and I went “well, what’s with all his other movies?”
And his movies are so … indifferently available? Some aren’t at all — the big ones are obviously meticulously restored and everything, but then there’s a lot more movies that are like this one — it’s fine, but … a bit fuzzy. It’s like they upscaled the film digitally — but it’s been nicely stabilised and despeckled.
Well… I know that this is one of the most influential mafia movies. And well liked:
But I don’t quite get it. It seems pretty leaden? None of the performances are much fun, and the direction is mostly pretty pedestrian. I mean, there’s some really nice dolly shots, but there’s also a lot of scenes that look a bit clumsy.
But then there’s shots like this.
Heh heh.
Tee hee. Hawks wasn’t afraid of getting rubbed out — he’s depicting the mobsters as illiterate morons and perverts.
Well, OK, it’s starting to get pretty funny now.
OK, this is very amusing.
And it’s a pro gun control movie, too.
I know, I know, this is a classic. And there’s some really funny scenes, and there’s some really striking sequences. But on the other hand, there’s so many turgid scenes — it’s like the movie was made by two directors filming separate scenes.
It’s just not altogether there — I suspect that the reputation has been bolstered by the movie being unavailable for many years.
Scarface. Howard Hawks. 1932. ⚂
