It was the worst of times, it was the best of films: Scarface was to be the gangster film to end all gangsters, but instead it produced a genre, and perhaps a few mobsters, inspired by Howard Hawks's fun-lovin' criminals riding the crest of a nation's misery. Of course, they all meet their Maker, but killing them is like Buñuel's “one less fly”-it only makes room for more. That's the real energy behind Hawks's rat-a-tat-taut direction that weaves visual tics (like the ubiquitous image of the X) and humor into the tragic trajectory of Tony Camonte, the original Italian Stallion doomed by his charged love for his own sister. So into this film that gave Paul Muni his first big role and introduced George “Little Boy” Raft walks Karen Morley's Poppy, cracking wise and electrifying the suits with her silken superiority while she is secretly smitten by their sensual anarchy. Suffice to say, if all the molls in all the gangster films had her moxie, it would have been a women's genre. Poppy is unequaled until Lauren Bacall's similarly smoky smarty in another Hawks film, 22 years later. Obviously, Hawks followed the gangster's credo: “Do it first...and keep on doin' it.”