People liked the over-the-top violence, intense acting and the intentionally vulgar nouveau-riche look from art director Ed Richardson, visual consultant Ferdinando Scarfiotti and costume designer Patricia Norris.įor the record, the original ran 93 minutes the remake was 170 minutes. There were 100,000 videocassettes sold as of June 22, 1984, bringing in an estimated $5 million.Īnd the movie continued to add viewers in cable and streaming. In 1984, home vid execs said it was summer’s highest selling title - at $79.95 a pop. Still, the picture gained followers in home video and beyond. The remake did OK at the box office, earning $66 million worldwide, but that was not enough to offset the big budget. During production of “Scarface,” the film earned lots of advance publicity as Cuban-Americans protested the depiction.įueling more publicity: In early screenings, there were rumors that the film was facing an X rating, but the Variety review shrugged, “Pic is bloody but no more brutal than many other films in recent years, although odds are that it contains more four-letter words than any picture to date.” There were claims that a number of them were inmates from prison or mental institutions. The 1983 version switched to the Florida drug trade.īefore that version began, the filmmakers announced it would be timely, pegged to a 1980 boat-lift from Mariel Harbor in Cuba, where thousands had emigrated to the U.S.

The book and the 1932 film center on prohibition in Chicago. The project started as a 1929 pulp novel by Armitage Trail, inspired by gangster Al Capone, whose nickname was Scarface.

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