Surprisingly modern

Rating: 7/10 (18 September 2010)

Watching 'Casablanca' for the first time one is struck by a number of things: the already-known dialogue (though of course, not including the exact line, "Play it again, Sam", which no-one actually says); the swanky nature of Rick's bar, the very un-African nature of Casablanca in general and the fact that Sam, although a minor character, is a black man presented as intelligent and even a friend of the Humphrey Bogart's hero, in a way that can't have been completely normal in 1942. I also like the way that Sam's music is integrated into the film, although in places the soundtrack overdoes the romantic notes. It's also interesting to think about the story-lines chosen by film-makers before the war was won, although the film isn't quite as detached from the allied cause as it first suggests. Overall, it's aged much better than most films of its era, probably because it's mainly a character study, albeit one supported by a heavy dose of wisecracking; and it's stateless characters, drifting through a world that has lost it's certainties, live beyond the bounds of conventional morality in a very matter-of-fact way. Of course it won Oscars, but a comparison with the modern day is telling; in how many contemporary blockbusters does the hero let his girl go?