Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about movies and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the movie urban legends featured so far.
MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: Howard Hughes filmed an entirely different ending to Scarface (withOUT actor Paul Muni) to help appease censors.
Howard Hughes’ 1932 smash hit, Scarface, continued in Hughes’ string of screen hits that he produced that pushed the boundaries of censorship in the various states of the U.S. (this was all before the film industry decided to censor itself – back then, each state had their own censorship laws for films).

In the ending of the film (a fictionalized account of the life of Al Capone), Antonio “Tony” Camonte (played by Paul Muni), escapes police custody and is tracked down. He refuses to surrender and is instead gunned down in a blaze of gunfire.
Director Howard Hawks directs the conclusion of the film brilliantly, if violently.
Here, Tony is struck by police bullets…

See as he gets knocked around by the gunfire…

Here are the police firing on him…

Finally, his dead body lies on the ground…

And Hawks beautifully pulls up and we see a sign on a billboard, almost mocking Tony’s death…

And that is how the film ends, with a close-up of the billboard…

It’s a wonderful ending by Hawks.
The problem was, it was deemed far too violent (not to mention that it seemed to show Tony’s defiance of the police in a bit too positive of a light – almost like he was heroic to take on the police).
Hughes decided that his desire for a hit film outweighed any artistic problems he had with the censorship of the film, and since he could certainly afford the costs of doing so (being, you know, really rich and all), he re-shot a brand-new, censor-geared ending of the film, without Hawks’ presence (or permission).
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