Scarface

The theme of Laemmle Theatres’ Throwback Thursday screenings in March is ... March Mobness!

Brian De Palma's blood-and-sun-drenched saga of a Cuban deportee's rise to the top of Miami's cocaine business has become something of a popular classic since its release; it's been referenced in rap songs and subsequent gangster movies and quoted the world over. Al Pacino stars as Tony Montana, whose intelligence, guts, and ambition help him skyrocket from dishwasher to the top of a criminal empire but whose increasing paranoia and incestuous desire for his kid sister (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) prove his undoing. Michelle Pfeiffer plays Tony's neglected cokehead trophy wife, and Steven Bauer his concerned friend. F. Murray Abraham, Robert Loggia, and Paul Shenar are memorable as Tony's sleazy business partners and potential killers. Oliver Stone wrote the screenplay, based on Howard Hawks's 1932 version, which was ostensibly about Al Capone and starred Paul Muni and George Raft. The synth-heavy Giorgio Moroder score expertly evokes the drug-fueled decadence of 1980s Miami, and De Palma provides several of his elaborate set pieces, including a horrific showstopper in a motel room with a chain saw.