Scarface is one of the first great mob movies. Paul Muni plays Tony Camonte in a performance that never feels dated or boring; it bursts with sick energy. He makes these strange gestures, which he probably learned on the stage, to entice the other characters to play along with him; like he'll start making popping sounds, as he plucks his hand off his temple. He also shifts his emotions very abruptly, and you cannot really predict when he'll lose his temper, or when he'll act charming and witty. There is a scene when he directly implies to Poppy (Karen Morley) that he wants to have sex, and you can really see his great comic timing. His performance is ten times better than any other Cagney-mobster performance; so why am I the only one that knows it. Howard Hawkes directs with great vision and excellence. He made this into a very violent film for its time, but he also made some great visuals on the screen. Such as his use of the "X" every time someone is about to die or after they die. And who could forget that scene where the machine gun blasts the dates away on the calender. I think he was still learning how to make a movie, because some of the scenes just don't seem like they should be in this one. It never grows to the stature of "The Godfather," or "Goodfellas," but I think it's right behind them. And those films probably would have never been made if it wasn't for "Scarface."