An actor's movie...and one of the best!

Rating: 10/10 (29 November 2006)

If there was ever a movie that proved the old saw, "there are no small parts, only small actors," this is it. While I usually feel that directors are responsible for the greatness of films, not actors, this is certainly a case to test that rule. The more than capable cast give, almost to a one, riveting performances; consider how, in a very few minutes of screen time, Peter Lorre, or Sydney Greenstreet, capture not only our attention, but the essence of the shady, disreputable characters they play. There is an ocean of sublime performance in Lorre's deliver of the "You despise me, don't you?" line; hams like Costner, Cruise and die Caprio should be forced to watch him over and over, until they get it right.
Or consider Conrad Veidt (Major Strasser), who in life had fled from the Nazis, and despised them, but gave far more than a caricature or stock performance as an evil Prussian; watch how he probes Rick in the scene in the Café Americain and read the conflict in his eyes as he gives a truly nuanced read to lines that could have flopped in the hands of a lesser actor.
And then there is S.Z. Sakall's performance as the head waiter, Carl; we sense that the actor had, in his mind, a full back story that is barely alluded to in the script, save for a single time when a waiter calls him "Professor". That is richness at a Tolkeinian level.
Of course, a good deal of the strength of this movie, and the characters in it, derives from the excellent script; but this script changed and developed as the film shoot progressed (a very famous story), and as the writing team changed, and changed again. It is the actors fleshing out the roles that made the story and the brilliant ending. Not to say that Director Micahel Curitz was just along for the ride, but he managed to capture art by seeing what would work, and where to go next  an unusual kind of brilliance.
And, what can be said about the depth of Humphrey Bogart's or Ingrid Bergman's acting? Thank the gods of film that the roles were not given to Ronald Regan or Ann Sheridan; what a hash they would have made of this.
Competent camera work, lighting and set design show that it isn't a huge budget that makes a great picture; nor, at 102 minutes running time, can length be the key ingredient in a first class film. The self indulgent movie makers of today should take note  why insist of inflicting bloated budgets on the industry, and bloated 3 hour ordeals on the public when so much more can be done with so much less?