'Scarface' revered nearly 30 years later

THE MOVIE year is 1983.

The Oscar contenders include "The Big Chill," "Yentl," "Silkwood."

The winner is "Terms of Endearment."

Across the country, all the good little boys and girls line up to see "Return of the Jedi," with its furry Ewoks.

Hollywood's idea of an action movie is "Octopussy," starring tea-sipping Roger Moore.

Then, in December, like a 20-ton hunk of crack plopped in the placid millpond of American movies, comes "Scarface."

Chain saw slaughter. Giant mounds of cocaine. Former pin-striped "Godfather" Al Pacino dropping f-bombs in a Cuban accent, spraying Miami with gunfire, getting high on his own supply, going out in a blaze of gory.

A typical review: "Wallows in excess and unpleasantness for nearly three hours."

Maybe so, but nearly 30 years later, nobody's rereleasing "Terms of Endearment" in hundreds of theaters nationwide, and nobody is looking for "Yentl" sneakers on line, or wearing "Big Chill" denim and rhinestone jackets, or preordering another special edition of "Octopussy."

"Scarface," on the other hand, is more popular than ever. There's a theatrical reissue tomorrow (one day only), yet another special edition Blu-ray coming next Tuesday, and a wealth of merchandise still selling online.

"Scarface" lives, and if it happens to live in infamy, that would please Tony Montana, played fearlessly to the hilt by Pacino.

Young actor Steven Bauer (Manny in the movie) remembers being mesmerized by Pacino's full-tilt interpretation of Tony.

"When we were on the set, even when we were reading the script, we thought this could be momentous. But when we were shooting it, there was also a feeling of dread, and it came from the way that Al attacked that character," said Bauer, who hung out with Pacino in his RV, first in Miami, then in Los Angeles, where the production moved after the crew received death threats.

"I asked him, 'Al, how do you think people are going to respond to that? Right away, or in years to come?' " Bauer recalled, mindful that moviegoers so closely identified Pacino with his self-controlled Michael Corleone in "The Godfather."

"He said, 'People are either going to hate it or love it, but it's not going to be dismissable,' " Bauer remembered. "At the time, nobody really knew. There were some people, even people on the set, who thought this might go down in history as the worst movie every made by really talented artists. And for like the first year, that's what most critics thought, that it was a piece of [crap]."