Hawks did not get along with Warner Brothers executive Hal B. Wallis and his contract allowed him to be loaned out to other studios. Hawks took the opportunity to accept a directing offer from Harry Cohn at Columbia Pictures. The film opened in January 1931 and was a hit. The film was banned in Chicago, though, and the experience of censorship which would continue in his next film project. In 1930, Howard Hughes hired Hawks to direct "Scarface", a gangster film loosely based on the life of Chicago mobster Al Capone. The film was completed in September 1931, but the censorship of the Hays Code prevented it from being released as Hawks and Hughes had originally intended. The two men fought, negotiated and made compromises with the Hays Office for over a year, until the film was eventually released in 1932, after such other pivotal early gangster films as "The Public Enemy" and "Little Caesar". "Scarface" was the first film in which Hawks worked with screenwriter Ben Hecht, who became a close friend and collaborator for 20 years. After filming was complete on "Scarface", Hawks left Hughes to fight the legal battles and returned to First National to fulfill his contract, this time with producer Darryl F. Zanuck. For his next film, Hawks wanted to make a film about his childhood passion: car racing. Hawks developed the script for "The Crowd Roars" with Seton Miller for their eighth and final collaboration. Hawks used real race car drivers in the film, including the 1930 Indianapolis 500 winner Billy Arnold. The film was released in March and became a hit.