Perfect . . . just perfect

Rating: Null/10 (4 October 2014)

'Casablanca' was just another movie to those making it, one of 200 pictures that Warner Bros. released in 1942. In the decade before television, the major studios had a movie a week to get into theaters and so with that schedule one movie was just as important as another. 'Casablanca' was not expected to do well (or rather not nearly as well as it did) even though the cast was first rate – Humprey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet. It doesn't comfortably fit a genre, its plot is too complicated to put into an ad and, in the maelstrom of World War II, movies about the events overseas were a tough sell unless they had John Wayne or Gary Cooper blasting the Axis powers back to the Stone Age.
When it was released late in 1942 it quickly found audiences lined up around the block to see it. Part of its appeal I think was the timeliness of the subject. This was a time when Hitler's armies were spreading across Europe and a time when no one knew what the Nazis were going to do next. That uncertainty is present in the film. There is a desperation that is always present just beneath the surface of 'Casablanca', the pervasive dread of the Nazi death grip on the world.
The movie takes place in the tiny village of Casablanca in Northern Morocco, one of the last French occupied countries not in the grip of the Nazis. As the movie opens it has become a human traffic jam of refugees trying to get money and transport to Lisbon where they can catch a plane to America. Few opportunities arise to book such a passage so many find themselves stranded for days weeks and even months. At the center of this chaos is Casablanca's most popular nightspot Rick's Café Americain which is run by Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) a man who remains steadfast at staying out of political affairs ('I stick my neck out for no one' he says).
One day he is given an order by police chief Louis Renault (Claude Rains) that a man wanted by the Reich is on his way to Casablanca and that Rick is to make sure that he stays in Casablanca. The man, Victor Lazlo (Paul Henreid), escaped a concentration camp and is now a major figure in the French resistance and his passage to Lisbon would be a bit detrimental to the Reich. Rick isn't interested but in the interest of humoring Renault he agrees. What he doesn't know is that Lazlo is currently married to Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman), a woman that left Rick standing alone on a rainy train platform some years earlier with a Dear John letter soaking in his hand (this is part of the reason that he has retreated to Casablanca). He has held a deep resentment for years so naturally this reopens old wounds as Victor and Ilsa enter Rick's club and Rick grieves that 'Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine'.
There is a legitimate reason that Ilsa left Rick and when she reveals it to him, he understands but she falls into a quandary. She loves Rick and can't bear to hurt him again but she loves Lazlo and she must she knows that he needs her now more than ever. Bergman's performance as the emotionally confused Ilsa is due in part to the fact that during filming she was never told which man she was going to end up with. She twists and turns with confused emotions and we never see her leaning one way or the other. When Rick tells her in the end that she is getting on the plane with Lazlo her face reveals confusion as she tries to comprehend it. The moment is very real. If she knew how the movie was going to end, I don't think that the subtleties of her performance would be as present.
Bogart, known at this point for his cold tough guy roles, showed a sensitive side here and hereafter is where he flourished as a leading man. As Rick, he is cold to those who come looking for a favor but in Ilsa's eyes he simply melts. This was a side of Bogart that was new to audiences and it changed his image for the rest of his career. This was his best performance so naturally he lost the Oscar to an unworthy contender Paul Lukas in 'Watch on the Rhine' (heard of it? Me neither?). Bogart would win the Oscar for 1951's 'The African Queen' continuing the academy's strange habit (after Cagney in 'Yankee Doodle Dandy and Gable in 'It Happened One Night) of giving Oscars to Hollywood tough guys for sensitive pussycat roles.
I greatly admire the screenwriters Julius and Philip Epstein and Howard Koch for their restraint. It must have been tempting to present the Nazis dominating the screen but the presence of too many might have lessened the credibility that Lazlo could escape. Also, it must have been so tempting in a movie with this much star power and this much emotion to supply an ending that would find Rick and Ilsa in each other's arms. That would have been a mistake. Rick's change of heart is the most important aspect of the film. He realizes that he must let her go in the interest of the greater good, that Lazlo, off on his mission, needs her now more than ever. The script allows the characters to follow their hearts rather than some kind of crowd pleasing convention. It took nerve to allow the characters to find the courage of their convictions, that the cause of stopping the Nazi's is far more important because they realize that their personal problems just 'don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world'.