Casablanca
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| Casablanca | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Michael Curtiz |
| Produced by | Hal B. Wallis |
| Screenplay by |
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| Based on | Everybody Comes to Rick's by Murray Burnett Joan Alison |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Max Steiner |
| Cinematography | Arthur Edeson |
| Edited by | Owen Marks |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) |
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| Running time | 102 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $878,000[2] |
| Box office | $3.7 million (initial US release) |
Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz and based on Murray Burnett and Joan Alison's un-produced stage play Everybody Comes to Rick's. The film stars Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid; and features Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Dooley Wilson. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in the words of one character, "love and virtue". He must choose between his love for a woman and helping her Czech Resistance leader husband escape the Vichy-controlled Moroccan city of Casablanca to continue his fight against the Nazis.
Story editor Irene Diamond convinced producer Hal Wallis to purchase the film rights to the play in January 1942. Brothers Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein were initially assigned to write the script. However, despite studio resistance, they left after the attack on Pearl Harbor to work on Frank Capra's Why We Fight series. Howard Koch was assigned to the screenplay until the Epsteins returned. Casey Robinson assisted with three weeks of rewrites, but his work would later go uncredited. Wallis chose Curtiz to direct the film after his first choice, William Wyler, became unavailable. Filming began on May 25, 1942, and ended on August 3, and was shot entirely at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, with the exception of one sequence at Van Nuys Airport in Van Nuys.
Although Casablanca was an A-list film with established stars and first-rate writers, no one involved with its production expected it to be anything out of the ordinary.[3] It was just one of hundreds of pictures produced by Hollywood every year. Casablanca had its world premiere on November 26, 1942, in New York City and was released on January 23, 1943, in the United States. The film was a solid if unspectacular success in its initial run, rushed into release to take advantage of the publicity from the Allied invasion of North Africa a few weeks earlier.[4] Despite a changing assortment of screenwriters adapting an unstaged play, barely keeping ahead of production, and Bogart attempting his first romantic leading role, Casablanca won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Its lead character,[5][6] memorable lines,[7][8][9] and pervasive theme song[10] have all become iconic. The film has consistently ranked near the top of lists of the greatest films of all time.
Plot
It is early December 1941. American expatriate Rick Blaine is the proprietor of an upscale nightclub and gambling den in Casablanca. "Rick's Café Américain" attracts a varied clientele: Vichy French, Italian, and German officials; refugees desperate to reach the still neutral United States; and those who prey on them. Although Rick professes to be neutral in all matters, it is later revealed he ran guns to Ethiopia during its war with Italy and fought on the Loyalist side against the fascist Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War.
Petty crook Ugarte shows up and boasts to Rick of "letters of transit" obtained by murdering two German couriers. The papers allow the bearer to travel freely around German-controlled Europe and to neutral Portugal, and are thus almost priceless to the refugees stranded in Casablanca. Ugarte plans to sell them at the club later that night. Before he can, he is arrested by the local police under the command of Vichy Captain Louis Renault, an unabashedly corrupt official. Ugarte dies in custody without revealing that he had entrusted the letters to Rick.
At this point, the reason for Rick's bitterness—his former lover, Norwegian Ilsa Lund—walks into his establishment. Upon spotting Rick's friend and house pianist, Sam, Ilsa implores him to play "As Time Goes By". Rick storms over, furious that Sam has disobeyed his order never to perform that song, and is stunned to see Ilsa. She is accompanied by her husband, Victor Laszlo, a renowned fugitive Czech Resistance leader. They need the letters to escape to America, where he can continue his work. German Major Strasser has come to Casablanca to see that Laszlo does not succeed.
When Laszlo makes inquiries, Ferrari, a major underworld figure and Rick's friendly business rival, divulges his suspicion that Rick has the letters. In private, Rick refuses to sell at any price, telling Laszlo to ask his wife the reason. They are interrupted when Strasser leads a group of officers in singing "Die Wacht am Rhein". Laszlo orders the house band to defiantly play "La Marseillaise". When the band looks to Rick, he nods his head. Laszlo starts singing, alone at first, then patriotic fervor grips the crowd and everyone joins in, drowning out the Germans. In retaliation, Strasser has Renault close the club.
That night, Ilsa confronts Rick in the deserted café. When he refuses to give her the letters, she threatens him with a gun, but then confesses that she still loves him. She explains that when they first met and fell in love in Paris in 1940, she believed that her husband had been killed attempting to escape from a concentration camp. Later, while preparing to flee with Rick from the imminent fall of the city to the German army, she learned that Laszlo was alive and in hiding. She left Rick without explanation to tend her ill husband.
Rick's bitterness dissolves. He agrees to help, leading her to believe that she will stay with him when Laszlo leaves. When Laszlo unexpectedly shows up, having narrowly escaped a police raid on a Resistance meeting, Rick has waiter Carl spirit Ilsa away. Laszlo, aware of Rick's love for Ilsa, tries to persuade him to use the letters to take her to safety. When the police arrest Laszlo on a minor, trumped-up charge, Rick convinces Renault to release him by promising to set him up for a much more serious crime: possession of the letters of transit. To allay Renault's suspicions, Rick explains he and Ilsa will be leaving for America. When Renault tries to arrest Laszlo as arranged, Rick forces him at gunpoint to assist in their escape. At the last moment, Rick makes Ilsa board the plane to Lisbon with her husband, telling her she would regret it if she stayed - "Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life."
Strasser, tipped off by Renault, drives up alone. Rick kills him when he tries to intervene. When the police arrive, Renault pauses, then tells them to "round up the usual suspects." Renault suggests to Rick that they join the Free French in Brazzaville. As they walk away into the fog, Rick says, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
Cast
The play's cast consisted of 16 speaking parts and several extras; the film script enlarged it to 22 speaking parts and hundreds of extras.[11] The cast is notably international: only three of the credited actors were born in the United States. The top-billed actors are:
- Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine. Rick was his first truly romantic role.
- Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund. Bergman's official website calls Ilsa her "most famous and enduring role".[12] The Swedish actress's Hollywood debut in Intermezzo had been well received, but her subsequent films were not major successes until Casablanca. Film critic Roger Ebert called her "luminous", and commented on the chemistry between her and Bogart: "she paints his face with her eyes".[13] Other actresses considered for the role of Ilsa included Ann Sheridan, Hedy Lamarr, Luise Rainer and Michèle Morgan. Wallis obtained the services of Bergman, who was contracted to David O. Selznick, by lending Olivia de Havilland in exchange.[14]
- Paul Henreid as Victor Laszlo. Henreid, an Austrian actor who had emigrated in 1935, was reluctant to take the role (it "set [him] as a stiff forever", according to Pauline Kael[15]), until he was promised top billing along with Bogart and Bergman. Henreid did not get on well with his fellow actors; he considered Bogart "a mediocre actor." Bergman called Henreid a "prima donna".[16]
- Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault. Rains was an English actor born in London. He had previously worked with Michael Curtiz on The Adventures of Robin Hood. He later played in Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious with Ingrid Bergman.
- Conrad Veidt as Major Heinrich Strasser. He was a German actor who had appeared in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. He fled the Nazis, but in the United States was frequently cast as a Nazi in American films related to the war.
- Sydney Greenstreet as Signor Ferrari, a rival nightclub owner. Another Englishman, Greenstreet had previously starred with Lorre and Bogart in his film debut in The Maltese Falcon.
- Peter Lorre as Signor Ugarte. Lorre, who was born in Austria-Hungary, had left Germany in 1933. Greenstreet and Lorre appeared in several films together over the next few years, although they did not share a scene in Casablanca.
- Curt Bois as the pickpocket. Bois was a German-Jewish actor and refugee. He had one of the longest careers in film, making his first appearance in 1907 and his last in 1987.
- Leonid Kinskey as Sascha, the Russian bartender infatuated with Yvonne. He was born into a Jewish family in Russia and had immigrated to the US.
- Madeleine Lebeau as Yvonne, Rick's soon-discarded girlfriend. The French actress was married to Marcel Dalio until their divorce in 1942.
- Joy Page as Annina Brandel, the young Bulgarian refugee. The third credited American, she was the stepdaughter of Jack Warner, the studio head.
- John Qualen as Berger, Laszlo's Resistance contact. He was born in Canada, but grew up in America. He appeared in many of John Ford's movies.
- S. Z. Sakall (credited as S. K. Sakall) as Carl, the waiter. He was a Jewish-Hungarian actor who fled from Germany in 1939. His three sisters later died in a concentration camp.
- Dooley Wilson as Sam. He was one of the few American members of the cast. A drummer, he could not play the piano. Even after shooting had been completed, Wallis considered dubbing over Wilson's voice for the songs.[17][18] Producer Wallis considered changing the character to a woman and thought of casting singers Hazel Scott or Ella Fitzgerald.
- Leon Belasco as a dealer in Rick's Cafe. A Russian-American character actor, he appeared in 13 films the year Casablanca was released.[19]
- Marcel Dalio as Emil the croupier. He had been a star in French cinema, appearing in Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion and La Regle de Jeu. After he fled the fall of France and went to America, he was reduced to bit parts in Hollywood. He had a key role in another of Bogart's films, To Have and Have Not.
- Helmut Dantine as Jan Brandel, the Bulgarian roulette player married to Annina Brandel. Another Austrian, he had spent time in a concentration camp after the Anschluss but left Europe after being freed.
- William Edmunds as a contact man at Rick's. He usually played characters with heavy accents, such as Martini in It's a Wonderful Life (1946).
- Gregory Gaye as the German banker who is refused entry to the casino by Rick. Gaye was a Russian-born actor who went to the United States in 1917 after the Russian Revolution.
- Torben Meyer as the Dutch banker who runs "the second largest banking house in Amsterdam". Meyer was a Danish actor.
- George London, one of those who sing "La Marseillaise". London was a Montreal-born bass-baritone opera singer.[20]
- Georges Renavent as a conspirator.
- Corinna Mura as the guitar player who sings "Tango Delle Rose" while Laszlo is consulting with Berger, and later accompanies the crowd on "La Marsaillaise".
- Dan Seymour as Abdul the doorman. He was an American actor who often played villains, including the principal one in To Have and Have Not, and one of the secondary ones in Key Largo, both opposite Bogart.
- Gerald Oliver Smith as the Englishman whose wallet is stolen. Smith was an English actor who appeared in National Velvet (1944), That Forsyte Woman (1949) and One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937).
- Norma Varden as the Englishwoman whose husband has his wallet stolen. She was a famous English character actress.
- Jean Del Val as the French police radio announcer who (following the opening montage sequence) reports the news of the murder of the two German couriers.
- Leo White as the waiter Emile (not to be confused with the croupier Emil), from whom Renault orders a drink when he sits down with the Laszlos. White was a familiar face in many Charlie Chaplin two-reelers in the 1910s, usually playing an upper-class antagonist.
Some of the refugee actors are:
- Louis V. Arco as a refugee in Rick's. Born Lutz Altschul in Austria, he moved to America shortly after the Anschluss because he was Jewish and changed his name.
- Trude Berliner as a baccarat player in Rick's. Born in Berlin, she was a famous cabaret performer and film actress. Jewish, she left Germany in 1933.
- Ilka Grünig as Mrs. Leuchtag. Born in Vienna, she was a silent movie star in Germany who came to America after the Anschluss.
- Lotte Palfi as a refugee trying to sell her diamonds. Born in Germany, she played stage roles at a prestigious theater in Darmstadt, Germany. She emigrated to the US after the Nazis came to power in 1933. She later married another Casablanca actor, Wolfgang Zilzer.
- Richard Ryen as Strasser's aide, Captain Heinze. The Austrian-born Jewish actor had performed in German films, but fled the Nazis.
- Ludwig Stössel as Mr. Leuchtag, the German refugee whose English is "not so good". Born in Austria, the Jewish actor was imprisoned following the Anschluss. When he was released, he left for England and then America. Stössel became famous for doing a long series of commercials for Italian Swiss Colony wine producers. Dressed in an Alpine hat and lederhosen, Stössel was their spokesman with the slogan, "That Little Old Winemaker, Me!"
- Hans Twardowski as a Nazi officer who argues with a French officer over Yvonne. He was born in Stettin, Germany (now Szczecin, Poland).
- Wolfgang Zilzer as a Free French agent who is shot in the opening scene of the movie was a silent movie actor in Germany who left when the Nazis took over. When applying for his US visa, he discovered that he had been born in Cincinnati, Ohio when his parents were visiting the United States and thus he was an American citizen. He later married Casablanca actress Lotte Palfi. Zilzer had one of the longest careers in the history of cinema; he first appeared in a movie in 1915, when he was 14, and last appeared in a made-for-TV film in 1986.
Production
The film was based on Murray Burnett and Joan Alison's then-unproduced play Everybody Comes to Rick's.[26] The Warner Bros. story analyst who read the play, Stephen Karnot, called it (approvingly) "sophisticated hokum",[27] and story editor Irene Diamond convinced producer Hal Wallis to buy the rights in January 1942 for $20,000,[28] the most anyone in Hollywood had ever paid for an unproduced play.[29] The project was renamed Casablanca, apparently in imitation of the 1938 hit Algiers.[30] Although an initial filming date was selected for April 10, 1942, delays led to a start of production on May 25.[31] Filming was completed on August 3, and the production cost $1,039,000 ($75,000 over budget),[32] above average for the time.[33] The film was shot in sequence, mainly because only the first half of the script was ready when filming began.[34]
The entire picture was shot in the studio, except for the sequence showing Major Strasser's arrival, which was filmed at Van Nuys Airport, and a few short clips of stock footage views of Paris.[35] The street used for the exterior shots had recently been built for another film, The Desert Song,[36] and redressed for the Paris flashbacks. It remained on the Warners backlot until the 1960s. The set for Rick's was built in three unconnected parts, so the internal layout of the building is indeterminate. In a number of scenes, the camera looks through a wall from the cafe area into Rick's office. The background of the final scene, which shows a Lockheed Model 12 Electra Junior airplane with personnel walking around it, was staged using little person extras and a proportionate cardboard plane.[37] Fog was used to mask the model's unconvincing appearance.[38] Nevertheless, the Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park in Orlando, Florida purchased a Lockheed 12A for its Great Movie Ride attraction, and initially claimed that it was the actual plane used in the film.[39] Film critic Roger Ebert called Hal 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).[13]
The difference between Bergman's and Bogart's height caused some problems. She was some two inches (5 cm) taller than Bogart, and claimed Curtiz had Bogart stand on blocks or sit on cushions in their scenes together.[40]
Later, there were plans for a further scene, showing Rick, Renault and a detachment of Free French soldiers on a ship, to incorporate the Allies' 1942 invasion of North Africa. It proved too difficult to get Claude Rains for the shoot, and the scene was finally abandoned after David O. Selznick judged "it would be a terrible mistake to change the ending."[41]
Writing
The original play was inspired by a trip to Europe made by Murray Burnett and his wife in 1938, during which they visited Vienna shortly after the Anschluss and were affected by the anti-Semitism they saw. In the south of France, they went to a nightclub that had a multinational clientele, among them many exiles and refugees, and the prototype of Sam.[42][43]The first writers assigned to the script were twins Julius and Philip Epstein, who, against the wishes of Warner Brothers, left after the attack on Pearl Harbor at Frank Capra's request to work on the Why We Fight series in Washington, D.C.[44][45] While they were gone, the other credited writer, Howard Koch, was assigned; he produced some thirty to forty pages.[45] When the Epstein brothers returned after a month, they were reassigned to Casablanca and—contrary to what Koch claimed in two published books—his work was not used.[45] In the final Warner Bros. budget for the film, the Epsteins were paid $30,416, while Koch earned $4,200.[46]
In the play, the Ilsa character was an American named Lois Meredith; she did not meet Laszlo until after her relationship with Rick in Paris had ended. Rick was a lawyer. To make Rick's motivation more believable, Wallis, Curtiz, and the screenwriters decided to set the film before the Pearl Harbor attack.[47]
The uncredited Casey Robinson assisted with three weeks of rewrites, including contributing the series of meetings between Rick and Ilsa in the cafe.[48][49] Koch highlighted the political and melodramatic elements,[50][51] while Curtiz seems to have favored the romantic parts, insisting on retaining the Paris flashbacks.[52] Wallis wrote the final line, "Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship," after shooting had been completed. Bogart had to be called in a month after the end of filming to dub it.[52]
Despite the many writers, the film has what Ebert describes as a "wonderfully unified and consistent" script. Koch later claimed it was the tension between his own approach and Curtiz's 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."[53] Julius Epstein would later note the screenplay contained "more corn than in the states of Kansas and Iowa combined. But when corn works, there's nothing better."[54]
The film ran into some trouble with Joseph Breen of the Production Code Administration (the Hollywood self-censorship body), who opposed the suggestions that Captain Renault extorted sexual favors from his supplicants, and that Rick and Ilsa had slept together in Paris.[55] Extensive changes were made, with several lines of dialogue removed or altered. All direct references to sex were deleted; Renault's selling of visas for sex, and Rick and Ilsa's previous sexual relationship were implied elliptically rather than referenced explicitly.[56] Also, in the original script, when Sam plays "As Time Goes By", Rick remarks, "What the —— are you playing?"[57] This line implying a curse word was removed at the behest of the Hays Office.
Direction
Wallis' first choice for director was William Wyler, but he was unavailable, so Wallis turned to his close friend Michael Curtiz.[58] Curtiz was a Hungarian Jewish émigré; 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," as Curtiz wanted images to express the story rather than to stand alone.[13] He contributed relatively little to development of the plot. Casey Robinson said Curtiz "knew nothing whatever about story ... he saw it in pictures, and you supplied the stories."[59]
Critic Andrew Sarris called the film "the most decisive exception to the auteur theory",[60] of which Sarris was the most prominent proponent in the United States. Aljean Harmetz has responded, "nearly every Warner Bros. picture was an exception to the auteur theory".[58] Other critics give more credit to Curtiz. Sidney Rosenzweig, in his study of the director's work, sees the film as a typical example of Curtiz's highlighting of moral dilemmas.[61]
The second unit montages, such as the opening sequence of the refugee trail and the invasion of France, were directed by Don Siegel.[62]
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".[13] Bars of shadow across the characters and in the background variously imply imprisonment, the crucifix, the symbol of the Free French Forces and emotional turmoil.[13] Dark film noir and expressionist lighting is used in several scenes, particularly towards the end of the picture. Rosenzweig argues these shadow and lighting effects are classic elements of the Curtiz style, along with the fluid camera work and the use of the environment as a framing device.[63]
Music
The music was written by Max Steiner, who was best known for the 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 composition to replace it, but Bergman had already cut her hair short for her next role (María in For Whom the Bell Tolls) and could not re-shoot the scenes which incorporated the song,[64] so Steiner based the entire score on it and "La Marseillaise", the French national anthem, transforming them to reflect changing moods.[65]Particularly notable is the "duel of the songs" between Strasser and Laszlo at Rick's cafe. In the soundtrack, "La Marseillaise" is played by a full orchestra. Originally, the opposing piece for this iconic sequence was to be the "Horst Wessel Lied", a Nazi anthem, but this was still under international copyright in non-Allied countries. Instead "Die Wacht am Rhein" was used. The opening bars of the "Deutschlandlied", the national anthem of Germany, are featured throughout the score as a motif to represent the Germans, much as "La Marseillaise" is used to represent the Allies.
Other songs include:
- "It Had to Be You", music by Isham Jones, lyrics by Gus Kahn
- "Shine", music by Ford Dabney, lyrics by Cecil Mack and Lew Brown
- "Avalon", music and lyrics by Al Jolson, Buddy DeSylva and Vincent Rose
- "Perfidia", by Alberto Dominguez
- "The Very Thought of You", by Ray Noble, and
- "Knock on Wood", music by M. K. Jerome, lyrics by Jack Scholl, the only original song.
Timing of release
Although an initial release date was anticipated for spring 1943,[67] the film premiered at the Hollywood Theater in New York City on November 26, 1942, to coincide with the Allied invasion of North Africa and the capture of Casablanca.[4][68] In the 1,500-seat theater, the film grossed $255,000 over ten weeks.[69] It went into general release on January 23, 1943, to take advantage of the Casablanca Conference, a high-level meeting in the city between Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was a substantial but not spectacular box-office success, taking $3.7 million on its initial U.S. release, making it the seventh best-selling film of 1943.[69][70]The Office of War Information prevented screening of the film to troops in North Africa, believing it would cause resentment among Vichy supporters in the region.[71]
Reception
Initial response
Casablanca received "consistently good reviews".[72] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote, "The Warners... have a picture which makes the spine tingle and the heart take a leap." The newspaper applauded the combination of "sentiment, humor and pathos with taut melodrama and bristling intrigue". While he noted its "devious convolutions of the plot", he praised the screenplay quality as "of the best" and the cast's performances as "all of the first order".[73]The trade paper Variety commended the film's "combination of fine performances, engrossing story and neat direction" and the "variety of moods, action, suspense, comedy and drama that makes Casablanca an A-1 entry at the b.o."[74] "Film is splendid anti-Axis propaganda, particularly inasmuch as the propaganda is strictly a by-product of the principal action and contributes to it instead of getting in the way."[74] The review also applauded the performances of Bergman and Henreid and note that "Bogart, as might be expected, is more at ease as the bitter and cynical operator of a joint than as a lover, but handles both assignments with superb finesse."[74]
Some other reviews were less enthusiastic. The New Yorker rated it only "pretty tolerable".[75]
Lasting influence
The film has grown in popularity. Murray Burnett called it "true yesterday, true today, true tomorrow".[76] By 1955, the film had brought in $6.8 million, making it the third most successful of Warners' wartime movies (behind Shine On, Harvest Moon and This is the Army).[77] On April 21, 1957, the Brattle Theater of Cambridge, Massachusetts, showed the film as part of a season of old movies. It was so popular that it began a tradition of screening Casablanca during the week of final exams at Harvard University, which continues to the present day. Other colleges have adopted the tradition. Todd Gitlin, a professor of sociology who had attended one of these screenings, has said that the experience was "the acting out of my own personal rite of passage".[78] The tradition helped the movie remain popular while other famous films of the 1940s have faded away. By 1977, Casablanca was the most frequently broadcast film on American television.[79]On the film's 50th anniversary, the Los Angeles Times called Casablanca's great strength "the purity of its Golden Age Hollywoodness [and] the enduring craftsmanship of its resonantly hokey dialogue". Bob Strauss wrote in the newspaper that the film achieved a "near-perfect entertainment balance" of comedy, romance, and suspense.[80]
According to Roger Ebert, Casablanca 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. Ebert opined that Citizen Kane is generally considered to be a "greater" film but Casablanca is more loved.[13] In his opinion, the film was popular because "the people in it are all so good", and it was "a wonderful gem".[13] Ebert said that he has never heard of a negative review of the film, even though individual elements can be criticized, citing unrealistic special effects and the stiff character/portrayal of Laszlo.[59]
Rick, according to Rudy 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". The other characters, in Behlmer's words, are "not cut and dried" and come into their goodness over the course of the film. Renault begins as a collaborator with the Nazis who extorts sexual favors from refugees and has Ugarte killed. Even Ilsa, the least active of the main characters, is "caught in the emotional struggle" over which man she really loves. By the end, however, "everybody is sacrificing."[59] Behlmer also emphasized the variety in the picture: "it's a blend of drama, melodrama, comedy [and] intrigue".[59]
A few reviewers have had reservations. According to Pauline Kael, "It's far from a great film, but it has a special appealingly schlocky romanticism..."[81] Umberto Eco wrote that "by any strict critical standards... Casablanca is a very mediocre film." He viewed the changes the characters undergo as inconsistent rather than complex: "It is a comic strip, a hotch-potch, low on psychological credibility, and with little continuity in its dramatic effects." However, he added that due to the presence of multiple archetypes which allow "the power of Narrative in its natural state without Art intervening to discipline it", it is a movie reaching "Homeric depths" as a "phenomenon worthy of awe."[82]
In the November/December 1982 issue of American Film, Chuck Ross claimed that he retyped the screenplay to Casablanca, changing the title back to Everybody Comes to Rick's and the name of the piano player to Dooley Wilson, and submitted it to 217 agencies. Eighty-five of them read it; of those, thirty-eight rejected it outright, thirty-three generally recognized it (but only eight specifically as Casablanca), three declared it commercially viable, and one suggested turning it into a novel.[83]
Influence on later works
Many subsequent films have drawn on elements of Casablanca. Passage to Marseille reunited Bogart, Rains, Curtiz, Greenstreet and Lorre in 1944. There are similarities between Casablanca and two later Bogart films, To Have and Have Not (1944) and Sirocco (1951).Parodies have included the Marx Brothers' A Night in Casablanca (1946), Neil Simon's The Cheap Detective (1978), and Out Cold (2001). It provided the title for the 1995 hit The Usual Suspects. Woody Allen's Play It Again, Sam (1972) appropriated Bogart's Casablanca persona as the fantasy mentor for Allen's nebbishy character, featuring actor Jerry Lacy in the role of Bogart.
The film Casablanca was a plot device in the science-fiction television movie Overdrawn at the Memory Bank (1983), based on John Varley's story. It was referred to in Terry Gilliam's dystopian Brazil (1985). Warner Bros. produced its own parody in the homage Carrotblanca, a 1995 Bugs Bunny cartoon.[84] In Casablanca, a novella by Argentine writer Edgar Brau, the protagonist somehow wanders into Rick's Café Americain and listens to a strange tale related by Sam.[85]
Interpretation
Casablanca has been subjected to many different readings. Semioticians account for the film's popularity by claiming that its inclusion of a whole series of stereotypes paradoxically strengthens the film.[86][87][88][89] Umberto Eco explained:Thus Casablanca is not just one film. It is many films, an anthology. Made haphazardly, it probably made itself, if not actually against the will of its authors and actors, then at least beyond their control. And this is the reason it works, in spite of aesthetic theories and theories of film making. For in it there unfolds with almost telluric force the power of Narrative in its natural state, without Art intervening to discipline it.
...When all the archetypes burst in shamelessly, we reach Homeric depths. Two clichés make us laugh. A hundred clichés move us. For we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, and celebrating a reunion.[90][91]Eco also singled out sacrifice as one of the film's key themes: "the myth of sacrifice runs through the whole film."[92] It was this theme which resonated with a wartime audience that was reassured by the idea that painful sacrifice and going off to war could be romantic gestures done for the greater good.[93]
Koch also considered the film a political allegory. Rick is compared to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who gambled "on the odds of going to war until circumstance and his own submerged nobility force him to close his casino (partisan politics) and commit himself—first by financing the Side of Right and then by fighting for it."[94] The connection is reinforced by the film's title, which means "white house".[94]
Harvey Greenberg presents a Freudian reading in his The Movies on Your Mind, in which the transgressions which prevent Rick from returning to the United States constitute an Oedipus complex, which is resolved only when Rick begins to identify with the father figure of Laszlo and the cause which he represents.[95] Sidney Rosenzweig argues that such readings are reductive, and that the most important aspect of the film is its ambiguity, above all in the central character of Rick; he cites the different names which each character gives Rick (Richard, Ricky, Mr. Rick, Herr Rick, boss, and so on) as evidence of the different meanings which he has for each person.[96]
Awards and honors
Because of its November 1942 release, the New York Film Critics decided to include the film in its 1942 award season for best picture. Casablanca lost to In Which We Serve.[69] However, the Academy stated that since the film went into national release in the beginning of 1943, it would be included in that year's nominations.[97] Casablanca was nominated for eight Academy Awards, and won three. When the award for Best Picture was announced, producer Hal B. Wallis got up to accept but studio head Jack Warner rushed up to the stage "with a broad, flashing smile and a look of great self-satisfaction," Wallis later recalled. "I couldn’t believe it was happening. Casablanca had been my creation; Jack had absolutely nothing to do with it. As the audience gasped, I tried to get out of the row of seats and into the aisle, but the entire Warner family sat blocking me. I had no alternative but to sit down again, humiliated and furious. ... Almost forty years later, I still haven't recovered from the shock."[98] This incident would lead Wallis to leave Warner Bros. in April.[99]| Award | Category | Nominee | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16th Academy Awards | Outstanding Motion Picture | Warner Bros. (Hal B. Wallis, Producer) | Won |
| Best Director | Michael Curtiz | Won | |
| Best Actor | Humphrey Bogart | Nominated | |
| Best Writing, Screenplay | Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, and Howard Koch | Won | |
| Best Supporting Actor | Claude Rains | Nominated | |
| Best Cinematography | Arthur Edeson | Nominated | |
| Best Film Editing | Owen Marks | Nominated | |
| Best Music (Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture) | Max Steiner | Nominated |
In 1989, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2005, it was named one of the 100 greatest films of the last 80 years by Time magazine (the selected films were not ranked). Screenwriting teacher Robert McKee maintains that the script is "the greatest screenplay of all time".[14] In 2006, the Writers Guild of America, west agreed, voting it the best ever in its list of the 101 greatest screenplays.[100] The film has been selected by the American Film Institute for many of their lists.
| Year | Category | Nominee | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies | 2 | |
| 2001 | AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills | 37 | |
| 2002 | AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions | 1 | |
| 2003 | AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains | Rick Blaine (hero) | 4 |
| 2004 | AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs | "As Time Goes By" | 2 |
| 2005 | AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes | 5, 20, 28, 32, 43, and 67 (see Quotations section below) | |
| 2006 | AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers | 32 | |
| 2007 | AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) | 3 |
Home media releases
Casablanca was initially released on Betamax and VHS by Magnetic Video and later by CBS/Fox Video (as United Artists owned the rights at the time). It was next released on laserdisc in 1991, and on VHS in 1992—both from MGM/UA Home Entertainment (distributing for Turner Entertainment), which at the time was distributed by Warner Home Video. It was first released on DVD in 1997 by MGM, containing the trailer and a making-of featurette (Warner Home Video reissued the DVD in 2000). A subsequent two-disc special edition, containing audio commentaries, documentaries, and a newly remastered visual and audio presentation, was released in 2003.[101]An HD DVD was released on November 14, 2006, containing the same special features as the 2003 DVD.[102] Reviewers were impressed with the new high-definition transfer of the film.[103]
A Blu-ray release with new special features came out on December 2, 2008; it is also available on DVD.[104] The Blu-ray was initially only released as an expensive gift set with a booklet, a luggage tag and other assorted gift-type items. It was eventually released as a stand-alone Blu-ray in September 2009. On March 27, 2012, Warner released a new 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition Blu-ray/DVD combo set. It includes a brand-new 4K restoration and new bonus material.[105][106]
Sequels and other versions
Almost from the moment Casablanca became a hit, talk began of producing a sequel. One titled Brazzaville (in the final scene, Renault recommends fleeing to that Free French-held city) was planned, but never produced.[107] Since then, no studio has seriously considered filming a sequel or outright remake. François Truffaut refused an invitation to remake the film in 1974, citing its cult status among American students as his reason.[108] Attempts to recapture the magic of Casablanca in other settings, such as Caboblanco (1980), "a South American-set retooling of Casablanca",[109] Havana (1990),[110] and Barb Wire (1996), set in 2017, have been poorly received.The novel As Time Goes By, written by Michael Walsh and published in 1998, was authorized by Warner.[111][112] The novel picks up where the film leaves off, and also tells of Rick's mysterious past in America. The book met with little success.[113] David Thomson provided an unofficial sequel in his 1985 novel Suspects.
There have been two short-lived television series based upon Casablanca, both considered prequels. The first aired from 1955 to 1956, with Charles McGraw as Rick and Marcel Dalio, who played Emil the croupier in the movie, as Renault; it aired on ABC as part of the wheel series Warner Bros. Presents.[114] It produced a total of ten hour-long episodes. Another, briefly broadcast on NBC in 1983, starred David Soul as Rick, Ray Liotta as Sacha, and Scatman Crothers as a somewhat elderly Sam.[115] A total of five hour-long episodes were produced.
There were several radio adaptations of the film. The two best-known were a thirty-minute adaptation on The Screen Guild Theater on April 26, 1943, starring Bogart, Bergman, and Henreid, and an hour-long version on the Lux Radio Theater on January 24, 1944, featuring Alan Ladd as Rick, Hedy Lamarr as Ilsa, and John Loder as Victor Laszlo. Two other thirty-minute adaptations were aired: on Philip Morris Playhouse on September 3, 1943, and on Theater of Romance on December 19, 1944, in which Dooley Wilson reprised his role as Sam.
Julius Epstein made two attempts to turn the film into a Broadway musical, in 1951 and 1967, but neither made it to the stage.[116] The original play, Everybody Comes to Rick's, was produced in Newport, Rhode Island, in August 1946, and again in London in April 1991, but met with no success.[117] The film was adapted into a musical by the Takarazuka Revue, an all-female Japanese musical theater company, and ran from November 2009 through February 2010.[118]
A spoof of this film is shown in The Muppets Go to the Movies where Kermit the Frog is saying his goodbyes to Miss Piggy. The Sesame Street segment "Great Movie Classics" showcased a spoof of this film in 1990. In this version, Rick keeps telling the pianist to keep saying the alphabet ("Say it again, Sam"). A PBS Kids Ready To Learn segment featured Grover at the piano and Cleo Lion (of Between the Lions) reminiscing the "rhyming game" in 2007.
Colorization
Casablanca was part of the film colorization controversy of the 1980s,[119] when a colorized version aired on the television network WTBS. In 1984, MGM-UA hired Color Systems Technology to colorize the film for $180,000.[120] When Ted Turner of Turner Entertainment purchased MGM-UA's film library two years later, he canceled the request, before contracting American Film Technologies (AFT) in 1988. AFT completed the colorization in two months at a cost of $450,000.[120] Turner later reacted to the criticism of the colorization, saying, "[Casablanca] is one of a handful of films that really doesn't have to be colorized. I did it because I wanted to. All I'm trying to do is protect my investment."[120]
The Library of Congress deemed that the color change differed so much from the original film that it gave a new copyright to Turner Entertainment. When the colorized film debuted on WTBS, it was watched by three million viewers, not making the top-ten viewed cable shows for the week. Although Jack Matthews of the Los Angeles Times called the finished product "state of the art", it was mostly met with negative critical reception.[120] It was briefly available on home video. Gary Edgerton, writing for the Journal of Popular Film & Television criticized the colorization, "... Casablanca in color ended up being much blander in appearance and, overall, much less visually interesting than its 1942 predecessor."[120] Bogart's son Stephen said, "if you're going to colorize Casablanca, why not put arms on the Venus de Milo?"[108]
Rumors
Several rumors and misconceptions 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 going into the Army, and he was never seriously considered.[121] George Raft claimed that he had turned down the lead role.Studio records make clear, however, that Wallis was committed to Bogart from the start.[122]
Another well-known story 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) 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 Casey Robinson wrote to Hal Wallis before filming began, the ending of the film "set up for a swell twist when Rick sends her away on the plane with Victor. For now, in doing so, he is not just solving a love triangle. He is forcing the girl to live up to the idealism of her nature, forcing her to carry on with the work that in these days is far more important than the love of two little people."[123] It was certainly impossible for Ilsa to leave Laszlo for Rick, as the production code forbade showing a woman leaving her husband for another man. The concern was not whether Ilsa would leave with Laszlo, but how this result could be engineered.[124] The problem was solved when the Epstein brothers, Julius and Philip, were driving down Sunset Boulevard and stopped for the light at Beverly Glen. At that instant the identical twins turned to each other and simultaneously cried out, "Round up the usual suspects!"[125] By the time they had driven past Fairfax and the Cahuenga Pass and through the Warner Brothers studio's portals at Burbank, in the words of Julius Epstein, "the idea for the farewell scene between a tearful Bergman and a suddenly noble Bogart" had been formed and all the problems of the ending had been solved.[126]
The confusion was probably caused by Bergman's later statement that she did not know which man she was meant to be in love with. While rewrites did occur during the filming, Aljean Harmetz's 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 critic Roger Ebert's words, "emotional", not "factual".[13]
Errors and inaccuracies
The film has several logical flaws, the foremost being the two "letters of transit" which enable their bearers to leave Vichy French territory. According to the
audio (help·info), Ugarte says the letters had been signed by (depending on the listener) either Free French General Charles de Gaulle or Vichy General Maxime Weygand.
The English subtitles on the official DVD read de Gaulle, while the
French ones specify Weygand. Weygand had been the Vichy Delegate-General
for the North African colonies until November 1941, a month before the film is set. De Gaulle was the head of the Free French government in exile, so a letter signed by him would have provided no benefit.[32] A classic MacGuffin, the letters were invented by Joan Allison for the original play and neverquestioned.[127] Rick suggests to Renault that the letters would not have allowed Ilsa to escape, let alone Laszlo: "People have been held in Casablanca in spite of their legal rights."
In the same vein, though Laszlo asserts that the Nazis cannot arrest him, saying, "This is still unoccupied France; any violation of neutrality would reflect on Captain Renault," Ebert points out, "It makes no sense that he could walk around freely. ... He would be arrested on sight."[13] Harmetz, however, suggests that Strasser intentionally allows Laszlo to move about, hoping that he will tell them the names of Resistance leaders in occupied Europe in exchange for Ilsa being allowed to leave for Lisbon.
In addition, no uniformed German troops were stationed in Casablanca during World War II, and neither American nor French troops occupied Berlin in 1918.[32]
According to Harmetz, few of the refugees portrayed would have gone to Casablanca at the time portrayed.[128] The usual route out of Germany was via Vienna, Prague, Paris, and London. Others tried to go from Paris through the Pyrenees to Spain. The film's technical advisor, Robert Aisner, traced the path to Morocco shown in Casablanca's opening scene.
Quotations
One of the lines most closely associated with the film—"Play it again, Sam"—is a misquotation.[129][130] When Ilsa first enters the Café Americain, she spots Sam and asks him to "Play it once, Sam, for old times' sake." After he feigns ignorance, she responds, "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By'." Later that night, alone with Sam, Rick says, "You played it for her, you can play it for me," and "If she can stand it, I can! Play it!"Rick's toast to Ilsa, "Here's looking at you, kid", used four times, is not in the draft screenplays, but has been attributed to something Bogart said to Bergman as he taught her poker between takes.[131] It was voted the fifth most memorable line in cinema in AFI's 100 Years…100 Movie Quotes by the American Film Institute.[132]
Six lines from Casablanca appeared in the AFI list, the most of any film (Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz tied for second with three apiece). The other five are:
- "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
- "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."—67th
