December 9, 1983: The Remake of "Scarface" Premieres

December 9, 1983: This was a big day for movies: Barbara Streisand's Yentl premiered. So did Terms of Endearment, which would win the Academy Award for Best Picture. So did a film version of Stephen King's killer car story Christine. So did the 4th Dirty Harry movie, Sudden Impact, in which Clint Eastwood introduced the catchphrase, "Go ahead, make my day." And so did Scarface.

It was not quite a remake of the 1932 Howard Hawks film starring Paul Muni as Italian immigrant and booze bootlegger Tony Camonte, although the catchphrase "The World Is Yours" was borrowed, and the film was dedicated to the memories of Hawks, who died in 1977, and screenwriter Ben Hecht, who died in 1964. But not to Muni, who died in 1967.

Somehow, this film, directed by Brian De Palma after Sidney Lumet dropped out, with a screenplay by Oliver Stone, written by Oliver Stone, and starring Al Pacino as Cuban immigrant and Miami cocaine trafficker Tony Montana, has inspired hip-hoppers. Newsflash, "gentlemen": You are not Cuban, and Tony Montana is not a role model.

But, like fellow gangster movies The Godfather and Goodfellas, the movie has its share of memorable quotes:

* "Me, I always tell the truth, even when I lie."

* "All I have in this world is my balls and my word, and I don't break them for no one."

* "In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then, when you get the money, you get the power. Then, when you get the power, then you get the women."

* "Every day above ground is a good day."

* "Don't get high on your own supply."

* "Say hello to my little friend!"

An urban legend states that the rock bank Blink-182 chose their number based on the number of times the word "fuck" is used in Scarface '83. It's not true: They were originally named simply "Blink," and an established band had that name, so they added 182, and it was just a random number, with no previous significance.

(Scarface '83 uses the word 207 times. At the time, it was a record, but it has since been far surpassed by many. Not counting purposeful movies, like Fuck, a 2005 film about the word itself, using it 857 times, or Swearnet: The Movie, a 2014 film that uses it 935 times, the movie with the most "F-bombs" is The Wolf of Wall Street, 2013, 569 of them.)

The movie also stars Steven Bauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Robert Loggia, F. Murray Abraham, Míriam Colón, Harris Yulin, Paul Shenar, and comedian Ángel Salazar, one of the few people in the movie who was actually a Cuban exile.

It is worth noting that Tony Camonte ends up begging for his life, while Tony Montana goes down figuratively with all flags flying, and literally with all guns blazing. The original 1932 film was supposed to end that way, but Hawks bent to pressure to make Scarface look like a coward. On the other hand, Camonte, while insane, wasn't stupid enough to become addicted to his own product; Montana was stupid enough to do that.

Shenar died in 1989, Loggia in 2015. Colón in 2017; and Geno Silva, who played "The Skull," who ends up killing Tony, in 2020. As of December 9, 2022, De Palma, Stone, Pacino, Bauer, Pfeiffer, Mastrantonio, Abraham, Salazar are still alive. (UPDATE: Salazar died in 2024, Yulin in 2025.)

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December 9, 1983 was a Thursday. English soccer star Jermaine Beckford was born.

Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. No games were scheduled for the NHL. There were 9 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the San Diego Clippers, 111-92 at the San Diego Sports Arena (now the Pechanga Arena).

* The New Jersey Nets beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 100-93 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Denver Nuggets, 119-90 at the Boston Garden.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 96-83 at The Coliseum in the Cleveland suburb of Richfield, Ohio.

* The Indiana Pacers beat the Atlanta Hawks, 110-104 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Chicago Bulls, 115-112 in overtime at the Chicago Stadium.

* The San Antonio Spurs beat the Utah Jazz, 126-117 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah. Mike Mitchell scored 36 points for the Spurs.

* The Portland Trail Blazers beat the Detroit Pistons, 123-117 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum. Kelly Tripucka, from my hometown of Bloomfield, New Jersey, scored 36 points in defeat for the Pistons.

* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat the Dallas Mavericks, 132-124 at the Seattle Center Coliseum.

April 15, 1980: The Mariel Boatlift Begins

April 15, 1980: The Mariel Boatlift begins. After 10,000 Cubans tried to gain asylum by taking refuge on the grounds of the Peruvian embassy, the Cuban government announced that anyone who wanted to leave could do so. The ensuing mass migration was organized by Cuban Americans, with the agreement of Cuban President Fidel Castro.

The arrival of the refugees in the United States created political problems for President Jimmy Carter. His Administration struggled to develop a consistent response to the immigrants, and many of the refugees had been released from jails and mental health facilities in Cuba, as would be emphasized by the 1983 remake of the film Scarface.

The Mariel boatlift was ended by mutual agreement between the two governments in late October 1980. By then, as many as 125,000 Cubans had reached Florida.

In 1976, Carter got 52 percent of the vote in Florida. Since then, the Democratic nominee for President has gotten 38, 34, 38, 39, 48 (Bill Clinton in 1996), 48, 47, 51 (Barack Obama in 2008), 50 (Obama in 2012), 48, 48 and 43.

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April 15, 1980 was a Tuesday. These games were played in Major League Baseball:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Chicago White Sox, 4-3 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Chet Lemon singled Harry Chappas home with the winning run in the bottom of the 14th inning. Rich Wortham was the winning pitcher, in relief of Steve Trout. Jim Kaat was the losing pitcher, in relief of Ron Guidry. Reggie Jackson went 2-for-4 with 2 walks.

* The New York Mets lost to the Montreal Expos, 7-3 at Shea Stadium. Steve Rogers outpitched Craig Swan. Warren Cromartie hit 2 home runs for the Expos, while Jerry Morales hit one for the Mets.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Kansas City Royals, 12-2 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Eddie Murray went 2-for-4 with a walk and an RBI. Rick Dempsey and Ken Singleton hit home runs for the O's, George Brett for the Royals.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the San Francisco Giants, 8-3 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Johnny Bench went 0-for-4. Willie McCovey, in his final season, went 2-for-3 with a walk and 2 RBIs.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-2 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Keith Hernandez went 3-for-3 with a walk and an RBI. Mike Schmidt went 1-for-4. Pete Rose went 0-for-4.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Cleveland Indians, 3-0 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. Jon Matlack pitched a 5-hit shutout.

* The Houston Astros beat the Atlanta Braves, 6-2 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* The San Diego Padres beat their arch-rivals, Los Angeles Dodgers, 9-5 at San Diego Stadium (later Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium). Rick Wise beat Rick Sutcliffe. For the Padres, Gene Tenace hit a home run. For the Dodgers, Rudy Law went 4-for-5.

* The California Angels beat the Minnesota Twins, 3-1 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Frank Tanana outpitched Jerry Koosman. Rod Carew went 1-for-4 with an RBI against his former team.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Seattle Mariners, 12-3 at the Oakland Coliseum. Rookie Rickey Henderson went 2-for-4 with a walk.

* And the Boston Red Sox, the Detroit Tigers, the Milwaukee Brewers, the Toronto Blue Jays, the Chicago Cubs and the Pittsburgh Pirates were not scheduled.

Football was out of season. The Stanley Cup Playoffs were in progress, but no games were scheduled. There were 3 games in the NBA Playoffs:

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Atlanta Hawks, 105-100 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Phoenix Suns, 126-101 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scored 35 points and grabbed 16 rebounds.

* And the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 108-97 at the Seattle Center Coliseum.

April 9, 1932: The Original "Scarface" Premieres

April 9, 1932: Scarface: The Shame of the Nation premieres, directed by Howard Hawks, and produced by Hawks and another Howard H., Howard Hughes.

The Great Depression was a time of fear and anger, and this allowed gangster movies to be popular. This would also be true of horror movies. Before calendar year 1931 was over, "the Castellamamrese War" was ended, with the assassination of Joseph Masseria, then the leading Mafia figure in America, and the establishment of "The Commission" by Lucky Luciano to govern organized crime in America; the conviction of the real-life big boss in Chicago, Al Capone, known as "Scarface"; and 2 classic gangster films were released: Little Caesar starring Edward G. Robinson, and The Public Enemy starring James Cagney.

During the year, another was made: Scarface, a reference to one of Capone's nicknames, starring Paul Muni. It wouldn't be released until the next year, but was a runaway hit, and was remade in 1983 with Al Pacino.

Frederich Meshilem Meier Weisenfreund, born in 1895 in what is now Lviv, Ukraine, was an Austrian Jew. He made his name as a teenage actor in Chicago's Yiddish theater, and went to Hollywood, turning his nickname "Moony" into "Paul Muni." He was such an expert with makeup, including playing characters much older than himself, that he became known as "the new Lon Chaney." (This was before Lon Chaney Jr. became a well-known actor.)

In Scarface, Muni plays Italian immigrant gangster Antonio "Tony" Camonte, who violently rises through the Chicago gangland, with a supporting cast that includes real-life pal of gangsters George Raft, and horror icon Boris Karloff. Camonte's rise to power dovetails with his relentless pursuit of his boss's mistress, while his own sister pursues his best hitman. In an overt tie to the life of Capone, a version of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, perpetrated in Chicago on February 14, 1929, is depicted.

Muni was so well-respected as an actor that, in 1936, he was not nominated for his starring role in Black Fury, but came in 2nd (to Victor McLaglen for The Informer) on the basis of write-in votes, which were allowed that year.

In a 1976 episode of M*A*S*H, Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, played by Alan Alda, discussed his childhood by saying, "You knew where you stood in those days. Franklin Roosevelt was always President. Joe Louis was always the Champ. And Paul Muni played everybody."

Everybody? He played Don Juan, Hudson's Bay Company founder Pierre-Esprit Radisson, Napoleon Bonaparte, Franz Schubert, Benito Juárez, Louis Pasteur (for which he won his only Oscar), Émile Zola, and Joe Gans (a black boxer). He retired from acting after starring in The Last Angry Man in 1959, and died in 1967, at age 71.

Over 60 years after his Scarface , there was a remake. Actually, it would be fairer to call it a "re-imaging." It starred Al Pacino as Tony Montana, with cocaine replacing bootleg liquor as the trafficked drug of choice. The casting was a twist: Like Muni's character but unlike Muni himself, Pacino actually was Italian-American, but the character was Cuban. Like Camonte, Montana lived like a sewer rat. Unlike Camonte, Montana at least died like a man.

But Pacino himself gave credit where it was due:

I had been wanting to see Scarface since 1974... The film just stopped me in my tracks. All I wanted to do was imitate Paul Muni. His acting went beyond the boundaries of naturalism into another kind of expression. It was almost abstract what he did. It was almost uplifting.

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April 9, 1932 was a Saturday. Carl Perkins, the guitarist whose song "Blue Suede Shoes" made him one of the founding fathers of rock and roll, was born.

Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. And the NBA hadn't been founded yet. But there was one score in North American major league sports: The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the New York Rangers, 6-4 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, to complete a 3-game sweep of the Stanley Cup Finals. I have a separate entry for that event.

In English soccer, Liverpool hosted North London team Arsenal at Anfield, and won, 2-1.