United Artists studio was established in 1919 during the “Silent Era” of film by Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, D.W. Grifftih, and Charlie Chaplin. The reason they worked alone was because they had their own interests and in which they didn’t want to depend on big commercial studios. The fact that there were no facilities or theater chains allowed United Artists to maintain their own share of business in the studio era. During the 1930s, it was a time of poverty; better yet known as the time of prohibition and the Great depression era (Violence and American Cinema). Howard Hawk’s film, Scarface, examines this era of time through his numerous ideas shown throughout his films. Throughout the 1940s Academy Awards, four of the ten films nominated for best picture were United Artists productions. A few of the initial films produced by United Artists were: The America, Broken Blossoms, His Majesty, and When the Clouds Roll By. For instance, in Broken Blossoms, the film is …show more content…
Mr. Hawks had a wide range of films, which had different genres and functioned as mainstream entertainment. Scarface was inspired by the actions of real-life gangster Al Capone who was nicknamed “Scarface”. Al Capone’s notorious history began in the 1930’s and finished with many significant events in between. The relevant history behind Al Capone occurred when he went to jail for tax evasion in 1939 and eventually died in 1947 due to a STD. The New York and Pennsylvania censorship records included omissions of the film’s more provocative scenes. The MPAA was in disputation of young children viewing certain types of material throughout the film. Since alcohol was prohibited during the Great Depression, the MPAA attempted to reinforce this with cutting scenes featuring alcohol. When Scarface was released, the violence and intensity was something tremendous for the viewers; the audience was not used to this much violence, gore, and bloody