"Who's got trouble? We got trouble."

Rating: 10/10 (27 October 2010)

For the Allies, 1943 was perhaps the grimmest and most desperate year of the war, as the conflict threatened to grind on into stalemate. Back on the home front, movie production was responding appropriately, cutting back on the flag-waving calls-to-arms, and making pictures that were more about hope, endurance, and getting on with life during a state of war. This is where Casablanca fits in.
Everybody knows about Casablanca – even people who think they don't will probably be tacitly aware of its many quotable lines. Why has the picture become such a cultural monument? The reasons are many, but that quotable script is as good a place to start as any. Casablanca is based on a (then un-produced) play by Murray Bennet and Joan Alison, which provided the outline. However it was given its Hollywood makeover by celebrated screen writing twins Julius and Philip Epstein, whose best picture up to this point had probably been The Strawberry Blonde (1941) with James Cagney; a witty, rather sentimental and very musical period piece. The Epsteins have brought many similar touches to this picture, especially their approach to music and comedy. Many of the key moments have a musical underpinning; not just the recurring love theme "As Time Goes By", but the playing of the Marseilles to drown out the Nazis, or the "Knock on Wood" number which is played in the first scene at Rick's, and very much establishes the atmosphere of the joint. The Epstein brand of humour doesn't rely on a handful of ridiculous and exaggerated characters, as was the usual at this time. Instead, the jokes all arise from normal things that we might laugh at in real life, such as the market trader reducing the price when he realises Ingrid Bergman is "a special friend of Rick's". This sort of thing is crucial for Casablanca, because it allows a little touch of humour without robbing the story of its dignity or credibility.
Then there is the director Michael Curtiz, a man who has not been deified by the magic wand of the auteur theory, and yet one whom any serious film scholar is forced to pay attention to simply because of the number of important pictures he helmed. Despite this being his best-known picture, he is himself better known for the series of swashbucklers he made with Errol Flynn in the mid-to-late 1930s. It is true that Curtiz's style tended to be very technical, and certainly his most noticeable work has been in the action genre, so as such his having directed Casablanca is seen as being coincidental to its success. Still, his shrewd mechanical mind has added a thing or two to this picture. Take that opening shot of the city, panning down from the mosque tower into the busy street. It's a complex, cluttered shot, but it really gives us a feel for the location and that tense atmosphere, with great touches like those two extras bickering in the foreground. A lot of Curtiz pictures begin with a shot like this – crowd scenes that look completely random and extremely realistic, and yet are full of meaning and rich in detail. Curtiz was also not quite the mean-minded movie-making machine that he is sometimes painted as. He did have a feel for romance and sentiment if it was a picture that relied upon it. Casablanca features quite a few uncomplicated close-ups of characters in emotional intensity, just about the only uncluttered shots you get in a Curtiz movie, and they are incredibly moving.
But of course, what would these close-ups be if they weren't of great actors? Casablanca has a flawless cast, but also a very bold one at the time. Humphrey Bogart was only just starting to play leading roles, and even then he was generally an anti-hero. However, Casablanca solidified his screen-persona, a tough individualist on the outside, but a good man at heart, albeit one loathe to reveal it. By showing that there was a human side to his charismatic demeanour, he gave his best performance to that point. Bergman too was just on the cusp of stardom, but she pulls off a role of frailty and tearfulness without getting hysterical, as many a lesser actress would have done. And then there is Claude Rains, one of the few long-established players in the picture. Rains is playing his usual type – perhaps his archetypal role – and it is actually one not unlike Bogart's, with the crucial difference being that Rains revels in his amorality. And yet Rains's art is that he makes this character, who is utterly despicable on paper, likable on screen.
On that note, it's tempting to view Bogart and Rains as the two leads – not Bogart and Bergman. It is Bogart and Rains whose story arcs deal with the main theme of Casablanca – whether to strive for individual gain or to fight for the good of the people. And this is after all a movie about people, and hope in the unity of people. There is this feeling of people brought together by their desperate situation, which permeates Rick's and the picture in general, and it's something writers, director and cast have all contributed to. It makes us feel that the struggles of every minor player – Peter Lorre's nervous underground agent, Joy Page's young wife desperate to escape the city, S.Z. Sakall's jovial headwaiter, the sadly-unsung Dooley Wilson – are as important and immediate as those of the lead players. It is perhaps more than anything else this rich humanity that made the picture connect with wartime audiences, and has made it a work of power and resonance ever since.