The Classic Romance Thriller

Rating: 10/10 (22 January 2001)

An exceptional ensemble cast, a richly textured script, and director Michael Curtiz's gift for observing rather than passing judgement upon the behaviour of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances make Casablanca an outstanding film nearly a half century after its release. The film itself takes its tone from the Richard Blaine character with its deft blend of cynicism and engagement, ironic detachment and the dormant capacity to Believe. Coming as it did in the early years of the Second World War, when the outcome was far from certain, Casablanca stands as an astonishing act of bravado that offers a measure of hope without collapsing into propaganda slogans about the inevitability of victory. The particular ambiguity of the Vichy regime (that arresting opening, with the fleeing man shot under the the wall portrait of Marechal Petain proclaiming "I keep not only my promises, but those of others") is vividly captured in Casablanca, embodied in Capitaine Renault. The central romance has perhaps become a cliche in the eyes of modern viewers, because there have been so many parodies, reinterpretations, imitations. Yet there is something thrilling about a romance in which the carnality is implied rather than displayed in numbing (dare one say dull) detail, the easy way out taken by so many modern directors. Indeed, the most recent modern parallel to the plangent sexuality of Casablanca is the prison cell scene in Gladiator. Altogether a marvellous film of abiding quality, and just as a bonus, it offers the second-most blood-stirring version of the Marseillaise you will hear (first place is still claimed by Jessye Norman, draped in the French tricouleur, moving down the Champs Elysees, bringing tears to the soldiers of the honour guard during the bicentenary of the French Revolution).