at brutality is shown in terms of the use of fists and the use of guns. Camonte's story fits with the era in which it was made, centering on bootlegging and including the use of a new weapon soon to be outlawed, the machine gun. The plot is based on the American dream and the myth of the self-made man. This was true of earlier gangster films as well, though Scarface was different in the way it centered on Camonte's "primitive brutality, simple-minded naivetJ, and sexual confusion made him a figure with little charisma and with virtually no redeeming qualities" (Schatz 91). The film makes strong use of much gangster-film iconography, from the guns in shoulder holsters to the new machine-guns mowing people down in groups, from fast cars on city streets to the stern men in offices carrying out the business of the criminal enterprise.
             Scarface was actually produced in 1930 and not released for two years while the filmmakers battled "with industry censors over its sensationalism and glorification of the gangster menace" (Dirks para. 1). When the film was released, it had as its subtitle "The Shame of a Nation," a way of telling the public that the production company disapproved of the main character and his style of life. Such disclaimers were a response to public concerns raised after the release of films like Little Caesar (1930) and The Public Enemy (1931), films cited both for glorifying criminals and for excessive violence (though given the way the gangsters in each film were killed, it is difficult to see the film as a whole glorifying them or their crimes).
             Howard Hawks made the subject matter in Scarface his own, using his skill as a filmmaker to transcend the limitations of the genre: "The Hawksian heroes, who exclude others from their own group, are themselves excluded from society, exiled to the African bush or to the Arctic" (Wollen 534). Tony Camonte is only exiled from polite socie...