8. The Two Howards and the Birth of the Gangster film
At the same time that Hollywood and motion pictures augmented with sound, known colloquially as “talkies”, began to dominate the film industry, another American icon emerged. Prohibition led to the emergence of organized crime, and the subsequent decade of the 1930s brought about the roving criminal gangs of the American Midwest. Hollywood, led for the most part by two men named Howard, Hughes and Hawks, put them on film, creating a genre still immensely popular, and the public perception of crime and law enforcement in the United States. The gangster picture launched careers, made infamous criminals famous, and created fictional underworld figures based on real-life counterparts. One of the earliest films in the genre, 1932’s Scarface, created a fictional character named Antonio Camonte, though he was clearly depicting Alphonse Capone.
Scarface was banned by censors in several American communities for its glorification of the central character and its sympathetic presentation of his violent control of his criminal empire. The public for the most part loved the film, if box office receipts are indicative of acceptance, but a petulant Hughes pulled the film from circulation (he was also forced to change the title as Capone was known universally as Scarface). The film was presented under several titles in its original release. Hughes finally stored the print until his death, after which it was recovered from his estate, restored, and released under its original title. The genre which it largely birthed had by then dramatically bypassed it in depictions of violence and in presenting the gangster as a somewhat sympathetic hero, making the original somewhat lame in comparison.