Scarface (1932)
Howard Hawks's 1932 pre-Code Chicago gangster classic. Paul Muni as the Capone-adjacent Tony Camonte.
Writer: Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht won the first Academy Award for Original Story for Underworld and wrote or rewrote an enormous number of films, frequently in days, including Scarface, Nothing Sacred, Notorious and Spellbound.
He came from Chicago newspapers and co-wrote the play The Front Page, which has been filmed repeatedly, including as His Girl Friday. The rapid overlapping newsroom dialogue in American cinema is substantially his invention.
He worked uncredited on Gone with the Wind and many others, and was openly contemptuous of the industry while remaining its highest-paid writer.
