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Casablanca (film) 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. 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. 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, memorable lines, and pervasive
theme song 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, however, 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. 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". 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". Other actresses considered for the role of Ilsa included Ann Sheridan,
Hedy Lamarr and Michèle Morgan. Wallis obtained the services of Bergman, who was contracted
to David O. Selznick, by lending Olivia de Havilland in exchange.
Paul Henreid as Victor Laszlo. Henreid, an Austrian actor who had emigrated in 1935,
was reluctant to take the role (it "set as a stiff forever", according to Pauline Kael),
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". The second-billed actors are:
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. He had previously appeared with Bogart and Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon.
Also credited are: 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. Producer Wallis considered changing the character to
a woman and thought of casting singers Hazel Scott or Ella Fitzgerald.
Notable uncredited actors are: Leon Belasco as a dealer in Rick's Cafe. A
Russian-American character actor, he appeared in 13 films the year Casablanca was released.
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. 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. 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.
Much of the emotional impact of the film has been attributed to the large proportion of
European exiles and refugees who were extras or played minor roles. A witness to the filming
of the "duel of the anthems" sequence said he saw many of the actors crying and "realized
that they were all real refugees". Harmetz argues that they "brought to a dozen small
roles in Casablanca an understanding and a desperation that could never have come from
Central Casting". The German citizens among them had to keep curfew, as they were classified
by the US as enemy aliens and under restrictions. They were frequently cast as Nazis in war
films, even though many were Jewish. 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 Jew had acted 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.
The comedian Jack Benny may have had an unbilled cameo role (as claimed by a contemporary newspaper
advertisement and reportedly in the Casablanca press book). When asked in his column "Movie
Answer Man", critic Roger Ebert first replied, "It looks something like him. That's all I
can say." He wrote in a later column, "I think you're right."
Production The film was based on Murray Burnett and Joan
Alison's then-unproduced play Everybody Comes to Rick's. The Warner Bros. story analyst
who read the play, Stephen Karnot, called it (approvingly) "sophisticated hokum", and
story editor Irene Diamond convinced producer Hal Wallis to buy the rights in January 1942
for $20,000, the most anyone in Hollywood had ever paid for an unproduced play. The
project was renamed Casablanca, apparently in imitation of the 1938 hit Algiers. Although
an initial filming date was selected for April 10, 1942, delays led to a start of production
on May 25. Filming was completed on August 3, and the production cost $1,039,000 ($75,000
over budget), above average for the time. The film was shot in sequence, mainly because
only the first half of the script was ready when filming began.
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. The street used for the exterior shots had recently been built for another
film, The Desert Song, 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. Fog was used to mask the
model's unconvincing appearance. 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. 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).
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. 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." 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. 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. While they were gone, the other credited writer, Howard Koch, was
assigned; he produced some thirty to forty pages. 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. In the final Warner Bros. budget for the film,
the Epsteins were paid $30,416, while Koch earned $4,200.
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. The uncredited Casey Robinson assisted with
three weeks of rewrites, including contributing the series of meetings between Rick and Ilsa
in the cafe. Koch highlighted the political and melodramatic elements, while Curtiz seems
to have favored the romantic parts, insisting on retaining the Paris flashbacks. 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. 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." 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." 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. 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. Also, in the original script,
when Sam plays "As Time Goes By", Rick remarks, "What the —— are you playing?" 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. 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. 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." Critic Andrew Sarris called the film "the
most decisive exception to the auteur theory", 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". 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. The second unit montages, such as the opening
sequence of the refugee trail and 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 symbol of the Free French Forces and emotional turmoil. 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. 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, so Steiner based the entire score
on it and "La Marseillaise", the French national anthem, transforming them to reflect changing
moods. 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. The piano featured in the Paris flashback
sequences was sold in New York City on December 14, 2012 at Sotheby's for more than $600,000
to an anonymous bidder. Timing of release
Although an initial release date was anticipated for spring 1943, 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. In the 1,500-seat theater, the film grossed
$255,000 over ten weeks. 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. 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. Reception
Initial response Casablanca received "consistently good reviews".
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".
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." "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." 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." Some other reviews were less enthusiastic.
The New Yorker rated it only "pretty tolerable". Lasting influence
The film has grown in popularity. Murray Burnett called it "true yesterday, true today, true
tomorrow". 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). 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". 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. On the film's 50th anniversary, the Los Angeles
Times called Casablanca's great strength "the purity of its Golden Age Hollywoodness 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.
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. 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. Rudy Behlmer emphasized the variety in the picture:
"it's a blend of drama, melodrama, comedy intrigue".
Ebert said the film was popular because "the people in it are all so good" and that it
was "a wonderful gem". As the Resistance hero, Laszlo is ostensibly the most noble, although
he is so stiff that he is hard to like. The other characters, in Behlmer's words, are
"not cut and dried" and come into their goodness in the course of the film. Renault begins
the film as a collaborator with the Nazis, who extorts sexual favors 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 few reviewers dissent. According to Pauline Kael, "It's far from a great film, but it
has a special appealingly schlocky romanticism..." 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".
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. 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. 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.
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. Umberto Eco explained:
Eco also singled out sacrifice as one of the film's key themes: "the myth of sacrifice
runs through the whole film." 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. 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." The connection is reinforced by the film's title, which means "white house".
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. 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. 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. 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. 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." This incident would lead Wallis to leave Warner Bros. in April.
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". In 2006, the Writers Guild of America, west agreed,
voting it the best ever in its list of the 101 greatest screenplays. The film has been
selected by the American Film Institute for many of their lists.
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. An HD DVD was released on November 14, 2006,
containing the same special features as the 2003 DVD. Reviewers were impressed with the
new high-definition transfer of the film. A Blu-ray release with new special features
came out on December 2, 2008; it is also available on DVD. 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.
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. 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. Attempts to recapture the magic of Casablanca in other settings,
such as Caboblanco (1980), "a South American-set retooling of Casablanca", Havana (1990), 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. 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. 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. 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.
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. 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. 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.
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, 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. 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. Turner later reacted to the criticism
of the colorization, saying, " 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."
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. 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." Bogart's son Stephen
said, "if you're going to colorize Casablanca, why not put arms on the Venus de Milo?"
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. 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.
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." 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. 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!" 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.
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". 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. A classic MacGuffin, the letters were invented by Joan
Allison for the original play and never questioned. 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." 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 the Second World War and neither American nor French
troops occupied Berlin in 1918. According to Harmetz, few of the refugees
portrayed would have gone to Casablanca at the time portrayed. 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.
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. It was voted the fifth most memorable line in cinema in AFI's 100 Years…100
Movie Quotes by the American Film Institute. 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