Casablanca

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***Casablanca*** is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz based on Murray Burnett and Joan Alison's unproduced stage play *Everybody Comes to Rick's*. The film stars Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid; it also features Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Dooley Wilson. The film premiered in Untied States theaters on January 23 with a Looney Tunes short called *Confusions of a Nutzy Spy* starring Porky Pig being shown preceding the film.

## Plot

In December 1941, American expatriate Rick Blaine is the proprietor of an upscale nightclub and gambling den in Casablanca. "Rick's Café Américain" attracts a varied clientele: Vichy French and German officials; refugees desperate to reach the still-neutral United States; and those who prey on them. Although Rick professes to be neutral in all matters, it is later revealed he ran guns to Ethiopia during its war with Italy and fought on the Loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War.

Petty crook Ugarte shows up and boasts to Rick of "letters of transit" obtained by murdering two German couriers. The papers allow the bearers to travel freely around German-controlled Europe and to neutral Portugal, and are thus almost priceless to the refugees stranded in Casablanca. Ugarte plans to sell them at the club that night, and asks Rick to hold them. Before he can meet his contact, he is intercepted by the local police under the command of Captain Louis Renault, an unabashedly corrupt Vichy official. Ugarte dies in custody without revealing that he entrusted the letters to Rick.

At this point, the reason for Rick's bitterness—former lover Ilsa Lund—walks into his establishment. Upon spotting Rick's friend and house pianist, Sam, Ilsa asks him to play "As Time Goes By." Rick storms over, furious that Sam has disobeyed his order never to perform that song, and is stunned to see Ilsa. She is accompanied by her husband, Victor Laszlo, a renowned fugitive Czech Resistance leader. They need the letters to escape to America to continue his work. German Major Strasser has come to Casablanca to see that Laszlo does not succeed.

When Laszlo makes inquiries, Ferrari, a major underworld figure and Rick's friendly business rival, divulges his suspicion that Rick has the letters. In private, Rick refuses to sell at any price, telling Laszlo to ask his wife the reason. They are interrupted when Strasser leads a group of officers in singing "Die Wacht am Rhein." Laszlo orders the house band to play "La Marseillaise." When the band looks to Rick, he nods his head. Laszlo starts singing, alone at first, then patriotic fervor grips the crowd and everyone joins in, drowning out the Germans. In retaliation, Strasser has Renault close the club.

That night, Ilsa confronts Rick in the deserted café. When he refuses to give her the letters, she threatens him with a gun, but then confesses that she still loves him. She explains that when they met and fell in love in Paris in 1940, she believed her husband had been killed attempting to escape from a concentration camp. Later, while preparing to flee with Rick from the imminent fall of the city to the German army, she learned that Laszlo was alive and in hiding. She left Rick without explanation to nurse her sick husband.

Rick's bitterness dissolves. He agrees to help, letting her believe that she will stay with him when Laszlo leaves. When Laszlo unexpectedly shows up, having narrowly escaped a police raid on a Resistance meeting, Rick has waiter Carl spirit Ilsa away. Laszlo, aware of Rick's love for Ilsa, tries to persuade him to use the letters to take her to safety. When the police arrest Laszlo on a minor, trumped-up charge, Rick persuades Renault to release him by promising to set him up for a much more serious crime: possession of the letters. To allay Renault's suspicions, Rick explains that he and Ilsa will be leaving for America. When Renault tries to arrest Laszlo as arranged, Rick forces him at gunpoint to assist in their escape. At the last moment, Rick makes Ilsa board the plane to Lisbon with her husband, telling her that she would regret it if she stayed—"Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life."

Strasser, tipped off by Renault, drives up alone. Rick kills him when he tries to intervene. When policemen arrive, Renault pauses, then orders them to "round up the usual suspects." Renault suggests to Rick that they join the Free French in Brazzaville (the capital of French Congo, modern-day Republic of the Congo). As they walk away into the fog, Rick says, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

## Why It Rocks

1. For two generations the film stood as the definite American movie romance, build on regret and a new awareness of how world events impacted individuals. Even though its reputation had dimmed in recent years with World War II memories fading, the film's many great quotes originated from this movie and gauzy clinches continue to be used to this day.
2. There are multiple different ways for viewers to interpret the film: a stand against fascism, an example of star machinery, proof (or refutation) of the auteur theory. On more fundamental levels, the film shows better than many films exactly how the studio system worked.
	* While various modern day viewers may criticize the film's illogical ending (Rick killing the Nazi officer who invades Casablanca, sacrificing his own happiness to save Ilsa's marriage and walking off arm-and-arm with his old foe Renault), some additional viewers argued that this was intentional since logic had been portrayed as the enemy or the modern invention that has frozen our hearts, allowed war to flourish, and alienated us from the deeper togetherness that we once knew. It's the cognitive effect of the film's ending; a mood of sentimental return that defies logic so we could recover a lost utopian love.
3. Many A-List celebrities for the time -- a combination of contact and independent actors, including Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Claude Rains, Paul Henreid, Dooley Wilson and Ingrid Bergman.
4. Beautiful settings and scenes, especially Rick's nightclub.
5. The movie shows how love can change us for the better or the worse.
6. While the doomed romance between Rick and Ilsa gives the film a tragic appeal, what really won over viewers was Rick's transformation from a disinterested, apathetic bystander and bitter man who sticks his neck out for nobody to a selfless committed patriot who gives up the love of his life so she'd be safe and ensure she helps a good man continue his work. It was how moviegoers wanted to believe they would act in similar circumstances.
7. Well-written characters in general. Laszlo, Renault and Ilsa are all portrayed as closet sentimentalists, with the script making the audience sympathy for them all for different yet similar reasons:
	1. Victor Laszlo is the brave resistance leader who's willing to fight against the German Nazi for the French.
	2. Captain Louis Renault starts off as a corrupt officer close to the Nazis, and eventually starts to join the opposing side to fight against them.
	3. Ilsa Lund is a surprisingly very compelling and interesting despite being a usual love interest. She has her history and reasons for her actions.
	4. Even the Nazis are interesting characters. Strasser in particular has an actual personality, rather than being your generic commander who gives orders all the time.
	5. Pretty much everyone in the supporting cast has their own subplot to tell. Ferrari, Ugarte, Renault and various other secondary characters have shown to be just as compelling as the leads.
8. Considering the film was released during World War II, some the actors weren't actually acting, the roles were genuine and tragic. Smart move directors.
	1. Like, *La Marseillaise* for example. That scene where Madeleine Lebeau (who played Yvonne in the film) got tears in her eyes; those were genuine tears. Why? Because Madeleine was a refugee during WWII and had to flee France.

## Trivia

* Dooley Wilson -- who played Sam in the film -- couldn't play the piano. Wilson was a professional drummer, and all of the piano playing in the film was dubbed.
* Hal B. Wallis (the film's producer) originally wanted Hedy Lamarr to play Ilsa Lund. MGM refused to loan her out as she was a contract player with the studio at the time.
* A sequel was originally planned and announced. Titled *Brazzaville* (named after the capital of what was at the time French Congo in French Equatorial Africa, in what is now the Republic of the Congo), it was to meant star Humphrey Bogart as Rick again, and it would have been centered at the location of the Free French garrison mentioned in the last scene of *Casablanca*.
* Despite the line “Play it again, Sam!” being one of the film's iconic lines, nobody actually says that line word-for-word.
* Ronald Reagan (who would soon become president) was originally announced to star as Rick in the film. Reagan was summoned to the US Cavalry Reserves after he finished his previous film, so the role went to Humphrey Bogart.
* A cover of the song "As Time Goes By" plays in the Warner Bros. logo, and still plays up to this day. It would later be re-orchestrated for the new logo's fanfare, composed by Ludwig Göransson, which was favored over Billy Mallery's composition and four other composers, which debuted on April 21, 2021 in Italy with Non Mi Uccidere (the television counterpart debuted before its movie counterpart on March 4, 2021 with *Young Sheldon* season 4 episode 10, entitled "Cowboy Aerobics and 473 Grease-free Bolts"). In the new version, the fanfare now played in a different key and has a more powerful build up and the opening notes are now played on a guitar as opposed to a piano.
* While this movie takes place in the city Casablanca, Morocco and is named after it, the name of the city in Morocco’s native language Arabic is Dar al-Bayda (دار البيضة), despite this, the movie’s name in Arabic is not the city’s Arabic name and actually uses a variation on the city’s European name and is called Kaziblanka (كازبلانكا).

## Reception

*Casablanca* is regarded as one of the greatest films of all time and was one of the first 25 films to be added to the National Film Registry when it was founded in 1988. *Casablanca* holds a 99% approval rating and a weighted average of 9.41/10 on Rotten Tomatoes based on 91 reviews. The site's critics consensus reads: "An undisputed masterpiece and perhaps Hollywood's quintessential statement on love and romance, Casablanca has only improved with age, boasting career-defining performances from Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman." On Metacritic, the film has a perfect score of 100 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

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