10 Legendary Films You Never Realised Were Based On Books
6. Scarface - Based on Scarfare by Armitage Trail
Fans of this ultra-violent gangster tale will quite possibly be shocked to discover that the 1983 classic is based on a 1932 film on the same name, which is in turn based on a 1929 novel by pulp author Armitage Trail.
Famed industrialist Howard Hughes bought the rights to the novel from Trail soon after its release for $25,000 ($382,429 or £276,203 in today’s money) and Trail moved to Los Angeles, soon descending into a life of debauchery. He died of a heart attack barely a year later at just twenty-eight.
The book itself is quite obviously based on the life of gangster Al Capone, who himself was known as Scarface due to a knife injury sustained while he was working as a bouncer in his youth.
The plot is typically thin for crime stories of the era. An up-and-coming mobster assassinates his boss to rise to the top of the Chicago mafia and is turn murdered by his brother. It’s safe to say that both film adaptions have outshone the original novel when it comes to the depth of their characters and events.