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Casablanca is a 1942 film set during World War II in the Vichy-controlled Moroccan city of Casablanca. The film was directed by Michael Curtiz, and stars Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine and Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund. It focuses on Rick's conflict between, in the words of one character, love and virtue: he must choose between his love for Ilsa and his need to do the right thing by helping her husband, Resistance hero Victor Laszlo, escape from Casablanca and continue his fight against the Nazis.

The film was an immediate hit, and it has remained consistently popular ever since. Critics have praised the charismatic performances of Bogart and Bergman, the chemistry between the two leads, the depth of characterisation, the taut direction, the witty screenplay and the emotional impact of the work as a whole.

Plot

Humphrey Bogart plays Rick Blaine, the owner of an upscale cafe/bar/gambling den in the Moroccan city of Casablanca which attracts a mixed clientele of Vichy French and Nazi officials, refugees and thieves. Rick is a bitter and cynical man, but still displays a clear dislike for the fascist part of his clientele.

A petty crook, Guillermo Ugarte (Peter Lorre), arrives in Rick's club with "letters of transit" he has obtained by killing two German couriers. The papers are signed by a French general (the pronunciation is muffled, it may be Charles de Gaulle or Maxime Weygand), and allow the bearer to travel at will around Nazi-controlled Europe, including to neutral Lisbon, Portugal, and from there to the United States. These papers are almost priceless to any of the continual stream of refugees who end up stranded in Casablanca. Ugarte plans to make his fortune by selling them to the highest bidder, who is due to arrive at the club later that night. However, before the exchange can take place, he is killed trying to evade the local police, under the command of Rick's close friend Captain Renault (Claude Rains). As a corrupt Vichy official, Renault accommodates the Nazis, but remains ambivalent about their influence in Casablanca. Unbeknownst to either Renault or the Nazis, Ugarte had left the letters with Rick for safekeeping, because "...somehow, just because you despise me, you are the only one I trust."

At this point, the reason for Rick's bitterness re-enters his life. His ex-lover, Ilsa Lund (Bergman) arrives with her husband, Victor Laszlo (Henreid), to purchase the letters. Laszlo is a famous Resistance leader from Czechoslovakia with a huge price on his head, and they must have the letters to escape. At the time Ilsa first met and fell in love with Rick in Paris, she believed her husband had been killed by the Nazis. When she discovered that Laszlo was in fact alive, she left Rick abruptly without explanation and returned to Laszlo, leaving Rick to feel betrayed.

The trio's awkward conversation is interrupted when a group of German officers, led by Major Strasser (Conrad Veidt), begin to sing the Wacht am Rhein, a German patriotic song from the nineteenth century (the producers wanted to use the Nazi Horst Wessel Lied, but it was copyrighted by a German publisher). Laszlo tells the house band to play La Marseillaise. The French customers join in and drown out the Germans. In retaliation, Strasser orders Renault to close the club.

Despite initially refusing to give the documents to Ilsa, even at gunpoint, Rick eventually decides to help Laszlo. He and Ilsa reaffirm their love for each other and she believes that she will stay with Rick when Laszlo leaves. Captain Renault is forced at gunpoint to assist in the escape. At the last moment, Rick makes Ilsa get on the plane with Laszlo, telling her that she would regret it if she stayed. "Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life." Rick shoots Major Strasser when he tries to intervene. When the police arrive, Renault saves his life by telling them to "round up the usual suspects". He then suggests that they both go join the Free French. They disappear into the fog with one of the most memorable exit lines in movie history: "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Production

The film was based on Murray Burnett and Joan Alison's unproduced play Everybody Comes to Rick's. The story analyst at Warner Brothers who read the play called it (approvingly) "sophisticated hokum", and the rights were bought for $20,000. The project was renamed Casablanca, apparently in imitation of the 1938 hit Algiers. Shooting began on May 25, 1942 and was completed on August 3.

The entire film was shot in the studio, except for the sequence filmed at Van Nuys Airport showing the arrival of Major Strasser. The street used for the exterior shots had recently been built for another film, The Desert Song, and was redecorated and used for the Paris flashbacks. It remained on the Warners backlot until the 1960s. The set for Rick's cafe was built in three unconnected parts, so the internal geography of the building is indeterminate, and in a number of scenes the camera looks through a wall from the cafe area into Rick's office. The final scene includes midget extras as aircraft personnel walking around a model cardboard plane, because of budgetary and wartime rationing constraints. The fog in the scene was there to mask the unconvincing appearance of the plane. Bergman's height caused some problems: she was somewhat taller than Bogart, so in their scenes together, he sometimes had to be put on boxes or cushions.

The film cost a total of $950,000, which was slightly over budget, but an average cost for a film of the time. Bogart was called in a month after shooting was finished to dub in the final line ("Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.") Later, there were plans for a further scene to be shot (featuring Renault, Rick and a detachment of Free French fighters on a ship), but these were abandoned.

Writing

The original play was inspired by a 1938 trip to Europe by Murray Burnett, during which he visited Vienna and the French south coast, both of which had uneasily coexisting populations of Nazis and refugees. In the play, the Ilsa character was American, and did not meet Laszlo until after her relationship with Rick in Paris had ended; Rick was a lawyer.

The first main writers to work on the script for Warners were the Epstein twins (Julius and Philip), who removed Rick's background and added more elements of comedy. The other credited writer, Howard Koch, joined later but worked in parallel with the Epsteins, despite their differing emphases (Koch highlighting the political and melodramatic elements). Important scenes were also added by the uncredited Casey Robinson, who contributed the series of meetings between Rick and Ilsa in the cafe. Curtiz seems to have favoured the romantic elements, insisting on retaining the flashback Paris scenes. One of the most famous lines— "here's looking at you"— is not in the draft screenplays, and has been attributed to the poker lessons Bogart was giving Bergman in between takes. The final line of the film was written by the producer Hal Wallis after shooting had been completed, and film critic Roger Ebert calls Wallis the "key creative force" for his attention to the details of production (down to insisting on a real parrot in the Blue Parrot bar).Ebert, Roger. Commentary to Casablanca (Two-Disc Special Edition DVD).

Despite the many different writers, the film has what Ebert describes as a "wonderfully unified and consistent" script. Critic Andrew Sarris called it "the most decisive exception to the auteur theory".Sarris, Andrew (1968). The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929-1968 (New York: Dutton, 1968), p. 176. Koch later said that it was the tensions between his own approach and that of Curtiz which accounted for this: "surprisingly, these disparate approaches somehow meshed, and perhaps it was partly this tug of war between Curtiz and me that gave the film a certain balance".Quoted in Sorel, Edward (1990). Footnotes to History” in American Heritage February 19990. Julius Epstein would later note that the screenplay contained "more corn than in the states of Kansas and Iowa combined. But when corn works, there's nothing better."Quoted in 'Casablanca' writer dies at 91 on CNN.com, January 1 2001.

The film ran into some trouble from Joseph Breen of the Production Code Administration (the Hollywood self-censorship body), who opposed the suggestions that Captain Renault extorted sexual favours from his supplicants and that Rick and Ilsa had slept together in Paris. Both, however, remained strongly implied in the finished version.

Direction

The director, Michael Curtiz, was a Hungarian emigre; he had come to the U.S. in the 1920s, but some of his family were refugees from Nazi Europe. Roger Ebert has commented that in Casablanca "very few shots ... are memorable as shots", Curtiz being concerned to use images to tell the story rather than for their own sake. However, he had relatively little input into the development of the plot: Casey Robinson said that Curtiz "knew nothing whatever about story... he saw it in pictures, and you supplied the stories".Quoted in Ebert commentary.

The second unit montages, such as that showing the invasion of France, were directed by Don Siegel.

Cinematography

The cinematographer was Arthur Edeson, a veteran who had previously shot The Maltese Falcon and Frankenstein. Particular attention was paid to photographing Bergman: she was shot mainly from her preferred left side, often with a softening gauze filter and with catch lights to make her eyes sparkle. The whole effect was designed to make her face seem "ineffably sad and tender and nostalgic". Bars of shadow across the characters and in the background variously imply imprisonment, the crucifix, the Free French symbol and emotional turmoil. Dark film noir and expressionist lighting is used in several scenes, particularly towards the end of the picture.

Music

The score was written by Max Steiner, who was best known for the musical score for Gone with the Wind. The song "As Time Goes By" by Herman Hupfeld had been part of the story from the original play; Steiner wanted to write his own song to replace it, but he had to abandon his plan because Bergman had already cut her hair short for her next role and could not re-shoot the scenes which mentioned the song. So Steiner based the entire score on it (and "The Marseillaise"), transforming them to reflect the changing moods of the movie. Particularly notable is the "duel of the songs", in which "The Marseillaise" is played by a full orchestra rather than just the small band actually present in Rick's club, competing against the Germans singing "Die Wacht am Rhein" at the piano. Other songs include "It Had to Be You" from 1924 with lyrics by Gus Kahn and music by Isham Jones, and "Knock on Wood" with music by M.K. Jerome and lyrics by Jack Scholl.

Reception

Reaction to the film at previews before release was described as "beyond belief". It premiered at the Hollywood Theater in New York City on November 26, 1942. It was a substantial box-office hit, taking $3.7 million on its initial U.S. release, and went on to win three Oscars, while As Time Goes By spent 21 weeks on the hit parade. As Koch later said, "it was a picture the audiences needed... there were values... worth making sacrifices for. And it said it in a very entertaining way." However, not everyone liked the film, including some critics in the French New Wave. American movie critic Manny Farber was less enthusiastic as well. In his book Negative Space, he calls the picture "Casablank" and states it has wrongly become a classic.

The film has maintained its popularity: Murray Burnett has called it "true yesterday, true today, true tomorrow". During the 1950s, the Brattle Theater of Cambridge, Massachusetts began a long-running tradition of screening Casablanca during the week of final exams at Harvard University. This tradition continues to the present day, and it is emulated by many colleges across the United States. It is also credited with helping the movie remain popular while other famous films of the 1940s have faded away.

However, there has been anecdotal evidence that Casablanca may have made a deeper impression among film-lovers than within the professional movie-making establishment. In the November/December 1982 issue of "American Film", Chuck Ross claimed that he had retyped the screenplay to Casablanca, using the playscript name "Everybody Comes to Ricks'"; submitting it to 217 agencies. 85 of them read it, of which 38 rejected it outright, 33 generally recognized it (but only eight specifically as Casablanca), three declared it commercially viable, and one suggested turning it into a novel.

Criticism

Roger Ebert has claimed that the film is "probably on more lists of the greatest films of all time than any other single title, including Citizen Kane", because of its wider appeal; while Citizen Kane is "greater", Casablanca is more loved. Behlmer also emphasises the variety in the picture: "it’s a blend of drama, melodrama, comedy * intrigue". Ebert says that he has never heard of a negative review of the film, even though individual elements can be criticised (he cites the unrealistic special effects and the stiff character/portrayal of Laszlo).

Ebert has also said that the film is popular because "the people in it are all so good". As the Resistance hero, Laszlo is ostensibly the most good, although he is so stiff that he is hard to like. The other characters, in Rudy Behlmer's words, are "not cut and dried": they come into their goodness in the course of the film. Renault begins the film as a collaborator with the Nazis, who extorts sexual favours from refugees and has Ugarte killed. Rick, according to Behlmer, is "not a hero, ... not a bad guy": he does what is necessary to get along with the authorities and "sticks his neck out for nobody". Even Ilsa, the least active of the main characters, is "caught in the emotional struggle" over which man she really loves. By the end of the film, however, "everybody is sacrificing".

A dissenting note comes from Umberto Eco, who wrote that "by any strict critical standards... Casablanca is a very mediocre film". He sees the changes the characters undergo as inconsistency rather than complexity: "It is a comic strip, a hotch-potch, low on psychological credibility, and with little continuity in its dramatic effects". However, he argues that it is this inconsistency which accounts for the film's popularity by allowing it to include a whole series of archetypes: unhappy love, flight, passage, waiting, desire, the triumph of purity, the faithful servant, the love triangle, beauty and the beast, the enigmatic woman, the ambiguous adventurer and the redeemed drunkard. Central is the idea of sacrifice: "the myth of sacrifice runs through the whole film".Eco, Umberto (1994). Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers (Sonia Maasik and Jack Solomon, eds.) Bedford Books.

Parodies

The film has been parodied several times, by:

Casablanca was also part of the film colorization controversy during the 1980s when a color version of the film aired on Australian television. This was briefly made available on home video, but its unpopularity with fans caused the altered version to fade away.

One episode of The Simpsons involved the discovery of a happy ending for the film.

Sequels

Almost from the moment Casablanca became a hit, talk began of producing a sequel to the film. A sequel entitled Brazzaville (named after the capital city of the Republic of the Congo, mentioned in the final scene) was planned, but never produced.

There have been two short-lived television series based upon Casablanca, both of which are considered prequels to the movie. The first aired in 1955 (with Charles McGraw as Rick and Marcel Dalio, who played Emil the croupier in the movie, as Renault). Another series in 1983 starred David Soul as Rick and included Ray Liotta as Sacha and Scatman Crothers as a somewhat elderly Sam.

In the 1980s and 1990s media reports occasionally arose about plans to either produce a sequel, or an outright remake of Casablanca, but as of 2006 no studio has seriously put such plans into action. To date the only authorized sequel to Casablanca has been the novel, As Time Goes By, written by Michael Walsh.

A radio adaptation of the film was broadcast on April 26 1943, again starring Bogart, Bergman and Henreid, while a second version of January 24 1944 featured Hedy Lamarr as Ilsa.

Cast

The cast is notable for its internationalism: only three of the credited actors were born in the U.S. The three top-billed actors were:
  • Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine. Bogart became a star with Casablanca. Earlier in his career he had been typecast as a gangster, playing characters called Bugs, Rocks, Turkey, Whip, Chips, Gloves and Duke (twice). High Sierra (1941) had allowed him to play a character with some warmth, but Rick was his first truly romantic role.
  • Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund. Bergman's official website calls Ilsa her "most famous and enduring role". After a well-received Hollywood debut in Intermezzo, her subsequent films had not been major successes— until Casablanca. Ebert calls her "luminous", and comments on the chemistry between her and Bogart: "she paints his face with her eyes".
  • Paul Henreid as Victor Laszlo. Henreid, an Austrian actor who had fled Nazi Germany in 1935, was reportedly reluctant to take this unrewarding role (it "cast him as a stiff forever", according to Pauline Kael), until he was promised top-billing with Bogart and Bergman.

The second-billed actors were:

Also credited were:

  • Dooley Wilson as Sam. He was one of the few American members of the cast. A drummer, he could not play the piano. Hal Wallis considered also dubbing his voice on the songs, but changed his mind.
  • Joy Page (Annina Brandel, the Bulgarian refugee), the other credited American, was studio head Jack Warner's step-daughter.
  • Madeleine LeBeau (Yvonne, Rick's girlfriend of the moment), a French actress, was Marcel Dalio's wife until their divorce in 1942.
  • S.Z. (or S. K.) "Cuddles" Sakall (Carl, the waiter) was a Hungarian actor who fled from Germany in 1939.
  • Curt Bois (the pickpocket) was a German Jewish actor and another refugee. He could claim the longest film career of any actor, making his first appearance in 1907 and his last in 1987.
  • John Qualen (Berger) was born in Canada, but grew up in America. He appeared in many of John Ford's movies.
  • Leonid Kinskey (Sascha) was born in Russia.

Notable uncredited actors were:

Part of the emotional impact of the film has been attributed to the large proportion of European exiles and refugees among the extras and in the minor roles. A witness to the filming of the "duel of the songs" sequence said, "half of the extras had real tears in their eyes... most of these people were singing out of their own experience as refugees from Nazi Germany".

Myths

Several myths have grown up around the film, one being that Ronald Reagan was originally chosen to play Rick. This originates in a press release issued by the studio early on in the film's development, but by that time the studio already knew that he was due to go into the army, and he was never seriously considered.

The other most famous myth is that the actors did not know until the last day of shooting how the film was to end. The original play (set entirely in the cafe) had ended with Rick sending Ilsa and Victor to the airport. During scriptwriting, the possibility was discussed of Laszlo being killed in Casablanca, allowing Rick and Ilsa to leave together, but as Behlmer points out, "there was only one dramatically viable real possibility: Ilsa and Laszlo take the plane". It was certainly impossible that Ilsa would leave Laszlo for Rick, as the production code forbade showing a woman leaving her husband for another man. The confusion was most likely caused by Bergman's later statement that she didn't know which man she was meant to be in love with. However, Aljean Harmetz' examination of the scripts has shown that many of the key scenes were shot after Bergman knew how the film would end: any confusion was, in Ebert's words, "emotional", not "factual".

The letters of transit are a subject of some confusion. Some viewers have the impression that Ugarte says the letters are signed by "General Weygand." English subtitles on the official DVD read "de Gaulle," and the latter name is heard by many others. The French subtitles say "Weygand." See also Errors.

Another famous myth is that Bergman asks Dooley Wilson, the piano player, to "play it again, Sam," see Quotes.

Errors

The film has several apparent logical flaws, foremost being the two "letters of transit" which enable anyone to leave for abroad. As mentioned before, it is unclear whether Ugarte says the letters have been signed by Vichy French General Maxime Weygand or then Free French leader General Charles de Gaulle. Weygand had been the Vichy French Delegate for the North-African Colonies until a month before the film is set (and a year after it was written). De Gaulle was at the time the head of the Free French government, which was considered a rebel movement by the Vichy government actually controlling Morocco. A Vichy French court martial had convicted De Gaulle to life in absentia with charges of treason on August 2, 1940. Thus, it seems unlikely that a letter signed by him might grant free transit through Vichy French territories at the time. A classic MacGuffin, the letters were invented by Joan Allison for the original play and never questioned. Even within the film, Rick suggests to Renault that the letters would not be enough for Ilsa to escape, let alone Laszlo: "people have been held in Casablanca in spite of their legal rights".

In the film, as Laszlo says, the Nazis cannot arrest him as "we're on free French soil; any violation of neutrality would reflect on Captain Renault". However "it makes no sense that he could walk around freely" in Casablanca, as Ebert points out: "he would be arrested on sight".

Other difficulties are the airport searchlight which is pointed at the cafe rather than into the sky; a continuity error at the station in Paris (Rick's wet coat becomes dry when he gets on the train); and Renault's claim that "I was with Americans when they blundered into Berlin in 1918." Curtiz's attitude to these issues was clear — he said, "I make it go so fast, nobody notices".

Finally, the movie depicts a flag of French Morocco that is incorrect, consisting of a French tricolour with an islamic crescent moon and star in the middleIn 1942, the flag of the French Protectorate of Morocco was the same as the current Moroccan flag, and the civil ensign consisted of a common Moroccan flag with white fimbriated French flag in the canton[http://flagspot.net/images/m/ma_39f.gif.

Awards

Casablanca won three Oscars: It was also nominated for another five Oscars:

In 1989 the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry, while in 1999 it was ranked by the American Film Institute as the 2nd greatest American film ever made (bested only by Citizen Kane). In 2005, it was named one of the 100 greatest films of the last 80 years by Time.com.

In 2006, the Writers Guild of America voted the screenplay of Casablanca as the best of all time, in its 101 Greatest Screenplays vote. *

Quotes

Ilsa says "Play it once, Sam, for old times' sake"; in response, Sam tries to lie, saying "I don't know what you mean, Miss Ilsa"; and she says "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.' " When Rick hears the song, not realizing yet that Ilsa is there, he rushes up and says "I thought I told you never to play that." Later, alone with Sam, he says "You played it for her and you can play it for me", and then "If she can stand it, I can! Play it!" In A Night in Casablanca, all this dialogue was parodied using the line "Play it again, Sam" — a phrase which has incorrectly become associated with the original film.

The line "Here's looking at you, kid", spoken by Rick to Ilsa, was voted in a 2005 poll by the American Film Institute as the fifth most memorable line in cinema history *. Six lines from Casablanca appeared in the top 100, by far the most of any film (Gone With The Wind and The Wizard of Oz had three apiece). The others were: "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." (20th), "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.'" (28th), "Round up the usual suspects." (32nd), "We'll always have Paris." (43rd), and "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." (67th).

Notes

References

External links

1942 films | Films based on plays | Best Picture Academy Award winners | Films featuring a Best Actor Academy Award nominated performance | Films featuring a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nominated performance | World War II films made in wartime | United States National Film Registry | Films directed by Michael Curtiz | Warner Bros. films | English-language films | French-language films | German-language films

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