An "All-Time Best"-- A Critical Perspective

Rating: Null/10 (9 March 2015)

I'm not sure what makes this WWII film still an all-time best. Nonetheless, I can certainly see why audiences continue to like it. But an all-time critical best should include more than audience popularity.
There're a number of assets on the movie's plus side. Certainly, the effort's an outstanding production from a number of standpoints. The cast amounts to a real slice of serendipity. Aside from the compelling leads, just about every colorful Warner Bros. support player gets a turn, including that mad Russian Leonid Kinskey (the bartender). Then too, the screenplay amounts to a triumph of individual moments that happily evolve into a satisfying whole, while the script itself manages a number of well-known throw-away lines that still resonate. Moreover, direction under Mike Curtiz keeps things moving in what's often a single set (Rick's Club). Plus Curtiz has an uncanny knack of coming up with the right close-up at the right emotional time. In short, the production's a masterpiece of Hollywood craftsmanship, the elements fitting darn near perfectly together.
Perhaps more importantly, the film's theme strikes a key audience chord. Rick's a wounded idealist who for cloudy reasons has closed himself off to all emotions and commitments. He's become a complete political cynic, even after fighting against the fascists in Spain. Why this has happened is not made clear (unless I missed something), but it also has to do with his unhappy affair with Ilsa (Bergmann). Now his club in Casablanca has become a gathering spot for characters of all political stripes-- Nazi, Vichy French, Free French, anti-Fascist, or plain refugees fleeing a war-torn Europe. But it's really his relationship with Ilsa and Vichy cop Renault (Rains) that's pivotal to the story's outcome.
Now, there's an apparent subtext to Rick's evolution that's symbolic of events in the early stages of WWII. Rick's disengagement from politics mirrors America's tradition of isolation from European conflicts. (Note here how Rick has fought in Spain mirrors America's exception by fighting in WWI.) As a result, neither Rick nor an isolationist US makes a moral distinction between the various parties (England, France, Nazi Germany) to WWII in its earliest stages. Thus, only by overcoming his cynicism can Rick recognize the evil Nazism represents, in the same way that only by breaking out of an isolationist stance can the US combat the menace Nazism poses.
Here the analogy between Rick's behavior and US policy breaks down. As I see it, Rick comes to see Victor's (Henreid) anti-Nazi moral value through his recurring love for Ilsa, even though Ilsa is married now to Victor. But if Ilsa is willing to sacrifice her happiness so that Victor can lead people against the Nazis, then Rick the cynic must reckon with Victor's ultimate moral worth. And by so doing, he recovers his own moral compass, which in a noble act of selflessness, enables the married couple to return to the European struggle. Thus Rick has taken a stand just as the US would do.
I think this is a satisfying climax to events, but it wouldn't be nearly so memorable without the foggy airport staging, and cop Renault rejecting his Vichy authority and departing with Rick into what may be the "Beginning of a beautiful friendship". Both have now seen the light even amidst the foggy future.
Now, if ranking movies were simply about craftsmanship, I'd rate Casablanca one of the best. But all-around bests have to include more than craftsmanship. There is an essential area where I think the movie falls short. That is, it's tied very much to its time period. Finding a moral compass may be a universal challenge, and in that sense, a human condition. But here finding that compass is tied too specifically to the historical evils of Nazism, not to a more trans-historical condition that would have universal application.
In that specific regard, compare Casablanca with 1951's award winning A Place In The Sun. Both are expertly cast and produced. However, it's hard to think of the 1942 movie without thinking specifically of the Nazis as the catalyst. The 1951 film, on the other hand, concerns no particular time period. Instead, it's about the corruptive appeal of wealth and glamour on a particular individual (Monty Clift's character). The seductions of wealth and power, of course, are trans-historical. So, the lasting impression of that movie has application now as well as then, even though the ending, unlike Casablanca, is no crowd-pleaser.
My overall point is not to derogate the 1942 film. It remains a triumph of studio movie- making. On the other hand, I don't think it qualifies as an all-time critical best, even if it does star filmdom's favorite covert idealist, Humphrey Bogart.