Scarface: The Cuban Years

The Amazing Mr Berry brought up the subject of movie remakes this morning and it got me thinking about the endless remakes, sequels and prequels that are going around at moment. Although his question was more along the lines of what movie I’d remake, my thoughts actually took a wrong turn and end up heading straight for what movie I’d like to make a prequel to.

Like, say a prequel to 1981’s Scarface which covers the grim and gritty story of Tony Montana’s life leading up to his arrival in America.

Only, in order to reach the widest possible audience, I'd make it a PG rated musical romantic comedy set improbably in a modern Cuban High School starring Justin Timberlake as Tony Montana and replacing the rapes and murders alluded to in the 1981 movie with an abortive attempt to sneak into the girls locker room to see boobies, a TP-ing incident gone awry and a hilarious misunderstanding with a Canadian tourist played by a CGI John Candy.

It would open with a heart-warming scene in which Tony, trying to impress a girl, orders the most expensive thing on the menu in a Chinese restaurant, little knowing that the dish is actually a live kitten with noodles. When he tries, reluctantly to eat his meal, the kitten scratches him in the face, giving him the semi-eponymous scar and beautifully setting up an early scene in in the 1981 Scarface movie, in which an immigration officer asks him whether he got the scar eating pussy. 'How would I get a scar like this eating pussy?', Tony asks. Oh, the irony!


Rather than eating the kitten, Tony adopts it, leading into a massive burlesque show tune called 'Say Hello To My Little Friend' in which Tony introduces the world to his little kitten, which he has since named Pedro. Pedro is later run over when Tony leaves the handbrake off his vintage Ford Galaxy.

Stricken with grief, Tony searches Cuba for a replacement kitten but can find none and, in the movie's climax denounces his own country and declares his intent to go to America in search of a new kitten.

I think this idea works so well, because it lends emotional resonance to some of the key moments in the earlier movie. Remember the scene in the 1983 movie where Tony's brother waxes lyrical about how many kittens there are in America and how eager they are to be stroked? Or that tear jerking moment at the end, when Tony realises that he's lost sight of his search for a kitten and, flashing back to his high-school days, cries out the lyrics to the first great musical number in the saga?