One of Hollywood's Greatest!

Rating: 10/10 (27 July 2017)

If ever a movie deserved the year's most prestigious award for Best Picture, Casablanca is it! The tragedy is that Bergman was not even nominated for Best Actress, and that Bogart and Claude Rains both lost! And that Arthur Edeson was passed over for Best Photography is equally incomprehensible! Time has robbed many of the other winners and nominees (Joan Fontaine in "The Constant Nymph"? Mickey Rooney in "The Human Comedy"? J. Carroll Naish in "Sahara"?) of present-day relevance, but Casablanca — the first cult movie — has undoubtedly been seen and enjoyed by a far greater audience than all the other 1943 nominations put together.
What is the reason for this amazing popularity? I'd like to put it down to the picture's excellence in all departments:— its stylish, pacey direction, the enormous variety and drama of its camera set-ups, its sharp film editing and artistic lighting — not to mention its superb performances and engrossing plot. In his fascinating book Cult Movies, Danny Peary feels that audiences respond because "Casablanca" contains every element of ideal entertainment — "Action, adventure, bravery, danger, espionage, exotic locale, friendship, gun-play, humor, intrigue, a love triangle, a masculine hero, a mysterious heroine, patriotism, politics (without being too political), romance, sentimentality, a theme song, a time factor, a venomous villain, and war."
Yes, Peary is absolutely on the right track. "Casablanca: provides all these ideal qualities — and more. Rick is not only a masculine hero — but a hero with a romantic past. This is the trait that appeals to women, while men admire Rick's resourcefulness and savage wit. And, as Peary points out, there's not just a simple friendship between the Bogart and Rains characters, but a tension, a respect, a latent guiltiness for abandoned ideals. These three- dimensional characterizations make the film seem so realistic despite its preposterous plot and laughable stage devices such as the irrevocable letters of transit.
Tension is what "Casablanca" is all about. The war-time tension of the setting, the tension of the plot, and especially the tension between the characters — not just tension in the broad sense or even tension between the principal figures in the action, but tension between just about every character in the script — between Bogart and LeBeau for instance, between Rains and Veidt, between Curt Bois and Olaf Hytten, between Rains and Joy Page, between Veidt and Sakall, between Kinsky and LeBeau, between Lorre and Bogart, between the Italians and the Germans. This is just the beginning of a list. But then you have inner tension in the characters themselves, particularly Bogart and Bergman of course, but even in minor figures like John Qualen and Dooley Wilson. Only Henreid and Veidt, who both stand for what they see as ideals, are free of any guilt or self- doubts and can be relied upon to act decisively and predictably at any given moment. This is why the climax is so effective and Veidt's action is just what we would expect.
Hard to believe isn't it that a script so perfectly constructed — such a fine meshing of so many disparate elements — was the work of many hands, often working independently and (especially in the latter half of the film) in considerable haste?
That's the picture business. Curtiz's control, mastery and unification of all these elements cannot be over-estimated. And he gives them class, style, polish and atmosphere as well.