Casablanca (1942) Casablanca (1942) Pages: ( 1 ) ( 2 ) ( 3 ) ( 4 ) ( 5 ) Background The classic and much-loved romantic melodrama Casablanca (1942), always found on top-ten lists of films, is a masterful tale of two men vying for the same woman's love in a love triangle. The story of political and romantic espionage is set against the backdrop of the wartime conflict between democracy and totalitarianism. [The date given for the film is often either 1942 and 1943.

That is because its limited premiere was in 1942, but the film did not play nationally, or in Los Angeles, until 1943.] With rich and smoky atmosphere, anti-Nazi propaganda, Max Steiner's superb musical score, suspense, unforgettable characters (supposedly 34 nationalities are included in its cast) and memorable lines of dialogue (e.g., "Here's lookin' at you, kid," and the inaccurately-quoted "Play it again, Sam"), it is one of the most popular, magical (and flawless) films of all time - focused on the themes of lost love, honor and duty, self-sacrifice and romance within a chaotic world. Woody Allen's Play It Again, Sam (1972) paid reverential homage to the film, as have the lesser films Cabo Blanco (1981) and Barb Wire (1996), and the animated Bugs Bunny short Carrotblanca (1995). The line "Play it again, Sam" appeared in the Marx Brothers' A Night in Casablanca (1946).

Clips or references to the film have been used in Play It Again, Sam (1972) , Brazil (1985) , My Stepmother is an Alien (1988), and When Harry Met Sally (1989) . Directed by the talented Hungarian-accented Michael Curtiz and shot almost entirely on studio sets, the film moves quickly through a surprisingly tightly constructed plot, even though the script was written from day to day as the filming progressed and no one knew how the film would end - who would use the two exit visas? [Would Ilsa, Rick's lover from a past romance in Paris, depart with him or leave with her husband Victor, the leader of the underground resistance movement?] And three weeks after shooting ended, producer Hal Wallis contributed the film's famous final line - delivered on a fog-shrouded runway. The sentimental love story, originally structured as a one-set play, was based on an unproduced play entitled Everybody Comes to Rick's by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison - the film's original title. Its collaborative screenplay was mainly the result of the efforts of Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch.

In all, six writers took the play's script, and with the models of Algiers (1938) and Only Angels Have Wings (1939) to follow, they transformed the romantic tale into this quintessential classic that samples almost every film genre. Except for the initial airport sequence, the entire studio-oriented film was shot in a Warner Bros. Hollywood/Burbank studio. Many other 40s stars were considered for the lead roles: Hedy Lamarr, "Oomph Girl" Ann Sheridan, French actress Michele Morgan, and George Raft. [It's an 'urban legend' that Ronald Reagan was seriously considered for a role in the film. The Warner Bros.

publicity office famously planted a pre-production press release in The Hollywood Reporter on January 5, 1942 (it was also released to dozens of newspapers across the country two days later), stating that Reagan would co-star with Ann Sheridan for the third time in Casablanca (1942) - in order to actually encourage support for the soon-to-be-released film Kings Row (1942) with the two stars.] And pianist Sam's role (portrayed by "Dooley" Wilson - who was actually a drummer) was originally to be taken by a female (either Hazel Scott, Lena Horne, or Ella Fitzgerald). The lead male part went to Humphrey Bogart in his first romantic lead as the tough and cynical on-the-outside, morally-principled, sentimental on-the-inside cafe owner in Casablanca, Morocco. His appearance with co-star Ingrid Bergman was their first - and last.

As a hardened American expatriate, Bogart runs a bar/casino (Rick's Cafe Americain) - a way-station to freedom in WWII French-occupied Morocco, where a former lover (Bergman) who previously 'jilted' him comes back into his life. She is married to a heroic French Resistance leader (Henreid). Stubbornly isolationist, the hero is inspired to support the Resistance movement and give up personal happiness with his past love. The Hollywood fairy-tale was actually filmed during a time of US ties with Vichy France when President Roosevelt equivocated and vacillated between pro-Vichy or pro-Gaullist support. And it was rushed into general release almost three weeks after the Allied landing at the Axis-occupied, North African city of Casablanca, when Eisenhower's forces marched into the African city. Due to the military action, Warner Bros. Studios was able to capitalize on the free publicity and the nation's familiarity with the city's name when the film opened. It played first as a pre-release engagement on Thanksgiving Day, 1942 at the Hollywood Theater in New York.

[On the last day of 1942, Roosevelt actually screened the film at the White House.] Its strategic timing was further enhanced at the time of its general release in early 1943 by the January 14-24, 1943 Casablanca Conference (a summit meeting in which Roosevelt broke US-Vichy relations) in the Moroccan city with Churchill, Roosevelt, and two French leaders - DeGaulle (the charismatic Free French leader) and General Henri Giraud (supportive of Marshal Petain). [Note: Stalin declined the invitation to attend the so-called 'Big Three' Conference.] The big-budget film (of slightly less than $1 million), took in box-office of slightly more than $4 million. It was considered for eight Academy Awards for the year 1943. [Actually, it should have competed against Mrs. Miniver (1942) (the Best Picture winner in the previous year), since it premiered in New York in November of that year.

However, because it didn't show in Los Angeles until its general release that January, it was ineligible for awards in 1942, and competed in 1943.] The nominations included Best Actor (Humphrey Bogart), Best Supporting Actor (Claude Rains), Best B/W Cinematography (Arthur Edeson, known for The Maltese Falcon (1941) ), Best Score (Max Steiner, known for Gone With the Wind (1939) ), and Best Film Editing (Owen Marks). The dark-horse film won three awards (presented in early March of 1944): Best Picture (producer Hal B. Wallis), Best Director, and Best Screenplay. Bogart lost to Paul Lukas for his role in Watch on the Rhine. And Bergman wasn't even nominated for this film, but instead was nominated for Best Actress for For Whom The Bell Tolls (and she lost to Jennifer Jones in The Song of Bernadette). Bogart had made three other films in 1943: Sahara, Action in the North Atlantic, and Thank Your Lucky Stars.

The Story At the film's beginning, the credits are displayed over a political map of Africa. In the first five minutes of footage, the introductory details are succinctly communicated by a stentorian narrator. Over a crude, slowly-spinning globe and a zoom-in shot toward Western Europe, a doom-laden, ominous voice-over, similar to the March of Time newsreel narrations [by Westbrook Van Voorhis], explains the turbulent Nazi takeover of Europe, the coming of World War II, and the frenetic stream of political refugees (superimposed over the globe) from persecution out of Hitler's besieged Europe to Vichy France and North Africa: With the coming of the Second World War, many eyes in imprisoned Europe turned hopefully or desperately toward the freedom of the Americas. Lisbon became the great embarkation point. But not everybody could get to Lisbon directly... A three-toned relief map of the land mass of Axis-occupied Europe spins into the frame, showing the opposing sides in the conflict: Light Tone: Allied Powers: Great Britain, the British Empire, and her allies (including the Soviet Union) Middle Tone: Neutral Nations: Sweden, Switzerland, Eire (Ireland), Spain, and Portugal.

Unoccupied and neutral zones include the southern portion of France and French North Africa (Tunisia, Algeria, and French Morocco) Dark Tone: Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, their allies (Hungary, Rumania, Slovakia, Croatia), and conquered territories (Belgium, The Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, and parts of Poland, Luxembourg, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia). Northwestern France is German occupied European refugee trails and torturous escape routes are developing - a bold line is drawn from the city of Paris to Marseilles in Vichy France. The line finally reaches to Casablanca on the coast of neutral French Morocco, the setting for the film, where refugees (unless they are wealthy or influential enough to acquire quick-exit visas) are victimized by predatory, corrupt Vichy bureaucrats: And so a torturous, round-about refugee trail sprang up. Paris to Marseilles, across the Mediterranean to Oran [in Algeria], then by train or auto or foot across the rim of Africa to Casablanca in French Morocco. Here the fortunate ones through money or influence or luck might obtain exit visas and scurry to Lisbon, and from Lisbon to the New World.

But the others wait in Casablanca, and wait and wait and wait. The camera descends from a mosque into the crowded, stucco-walled coastal city of Casablanca, a way station city (an upscale concentration camp) technically ruled by neutral Unoccupied France - located out of war-torn Europe. The story is set in early December 1941 in a city (and cafe), in a dangerous, far-off locale that is a microcosm of the wartime world. More important details regarding the setting and characters are telescoped very precisely and economically - information about the theft of transit letters, the political and social situation in pro-Vichy Casablanca, the arrival of the Nazi commandant and his friendship with the self-satisfied Vichy policeman, the crucial daily flights to Lisbon, and the central importance of Rick's Cafe.

[The film's opening montage was created by Don Siegel, later known for Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and Dirty Harry (1971) .] In a medium closeup shot, a French-accented police officer reads a teletype report to all officers (over the radio) about the Tuesday, December 1, 1941 murder of two German couriers and the theft of official important documents they were carrying: To all officers. Two German couriers carrying important official documents murdered on train from Oran. Murderer and possible accomplices headed for Casablanca. Round up all suspicious characters and search them for stolen document. IMPORTANT. The French police, not the Germans, have the jurisdiction and authority to investigate the crime that occurred in Unoccupied France, a neutral country.

During a round-up of suspects by police gendarmes in the city, the precarious situation of a collection of refugees (those in European clothing in Casablanca) is set up by a few short scenes: The open-air city market, a scene of intrigue, is teeming with black marketeers, smugglers, thieves, spies, double agents and refugees who desperately seek to obtain tickets (exit visas) on the daily plane to neutral Lisbon. During a roundup by the French police, one fleeing civilian suspect (Paul Andor) with expired identification papers who refuses to halt is shot in the back and falls dead beneath a wall poster (Je Tiens Mes Promesses Mem Celles Des Autres - "I Keep My Promises, Just as I Keep the Promises of Others") of Marshal Philippe Petain, the dictatorial French head of state in Vichy France. The suspect dies clutching a resistance handbill bearing the Cross of Lorraine symbol - revealing his membership in the Free France Organization headed by Petain's arch rival, General Charles De Gaulle.

The camera pans down from an etched-stone slogan above a doorway: "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite" (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity), the slogan of the French Republic - an outdated, tarnished sign that hadn't yet been replaced by the Vichy Government. The many suspects are herded into a police-station building bearing the sign: "Palais de Justice." At an open-air cafe, a dark, wiry pickpocket (Curt Bois) preys on an English couple, stranded in the Vichy-controlled area. As he informs them that the "scum of Europe has gravitated to Casablanca" and warns them to "be on guard" for "vultures," he lifts the gentleman's wallet. An arriving plane flies over the rooftop sign of Rick's Cafe Americain as a crowd of refugees covetously watches it pass overhead.

Among many faces that turn skyward and yearn for freedom in the Americas, a Bulgarian couple, Jan Viereck (Helmut Dantine) and Annina Brandel (Joy Page) hopefully wonder aloud: "Perhaps tomorrow, we'll be on the plane." But the refugees are mistaken - it is not the single-engined, high-winged plane from Lisbon, the gateway city, but one with a swastika bringing the new German Nazi/Gestapo commander Major Heinrich Strasser (Conrad Veidt). The Gestapo Major is ready to assist in the investigation of the murdered German couriers and pressure the French Police to do their duty. In the honor guard of assembled dignitaries, the Nazis exchange "Heil Hitlers" with outstretched arms. Then, the local Vichy puppet Chief (Préfet de Police), the sophisticated Capitaine Louis Renault (Claude Rains) with his police cap tilted jauntily, already identified by the pickpocket as a Parisian womanizer who takes advantage of "beautiful young girl(s)" among the refugees, greets the disdainful and arrogant German Nazi: Renault: Unoccupied France welcomes you to Casablanca. Strasser: Thank you, Captain.

It's very good to be here...(Renault introduces his aide Lt. Casselle, and is brusquely intruded upon by Italian Capt. Tonelli.) You may find the climate of Casablanca a trifle warm, Major. Strasser: Oh, we Germans must get used to all climates, from Russia to the Sahara. But perhaps you were not referring to the weather. Renault: What else, my DEAR Major? Renault assures him that everything is being done to find the murderer of the two German couriers with their valuable letters of transit: "Realizing the importance of the case, my men are rounding up twice the usual number of suspects." The witty Prefet of Police informs him that the suspected killer's identity is known, and that his arrest is being staged, in Strasser's honor, later that night at Rick's Cafe Americain - a gambling den.

Renault states that the cafe is the center of everything that happens in Casablanca, in a tribute to the film's source: "Everybody Comes to Rick's." [Later flashbacks reveal that Rick left Paris in June of 1940 - remarkably, he was able to set up a prosperous cafe/casino in only 18 months.] The scene quickly dissolves to the cafe that evening - at one edge of the airport runway. An airport's beacon light sweeps across the exterior of the cafe - resembling a prison's circular searchlight to emphasize the forced confinement of everyone in the city. Below a lit sign Rick's Cafe Americain, a Moroccan doorman lets the guests into the fashionable, upscale club. When the door opens, the smoky, Moorish atmosphere of the Cafe Americain is revealed.

For a crowd of varied nationalities, black pianist Sam (Arthur "Dooley" Wilson) jauntily sings and plays big band swing music typical of the 40s: "It Had To Be You" and "Shine." [In reality, Wilson was not a piano player but a drummer, so his piano pieces were played off-camera by a studio pianist, and he faked the piano-playing.] The camera eavesdrops on various groups found at different tables to introduce the activities of those stranded in Casablanca. Refugees attempt to escape from Nazi pursuit, hidden by the jovial, hectic and festive atmosphere in the cafe. Shady deals are being made by greedy black marketeers and the desperate, hopeful clientele of all classes and races speaking in various accents. One man bemoans the endless waiting to leave Casablanca: "Waiting, waiting, waiting. I'll never get out of here. I'll die in Casablanca." A woman sells her smuggled diamonds in a glutted market to a Moor: "But can't you make it just a little more, please?" She accepts 2,400 in Moroccan francs (about $72) as the price.

In hushed tones, others make secretive travel arrangements to get out: "The trucks are ready. The men are waiting." At another table, a man tells a second man about escaping on the fishing smack Santiago: "It leaves at 1:00 tomorrow night, here from the end of the Medina. Third boat...and bring 15,000 francs - in cash. Remember, in cash." The camera quickly pans by two Chinese refugees speaking an Oriental language to each other. In a private gambling room, Carl (S. Z. Sakall, mis-typed in the credits as S. K. Sakall), the genial German headwaiter tells one of the affluent female customers that Rick, the uncaring and sole proprietor/owner of the cafe, doesn't socialize or accept invitations to sit with the clients. Class distinctions are non-existent among those living in the chaotic world of the 1940s: Carl: Madame, he never drinks with customers. Never. I have never seen it. Female companion: What makes saloonkeeper so snobbish? Gentleman: Perhaps if you told him I ran the second largest banking house in Amsterdam. Carl: The second largest?

That wouldn't interest Rick - the leading banker in Amsterdam is now the pastry chef in our kitchen -- Gentleman: We have something to look forward to. Carl: -- and his father is the bellboy! Cynical, disillusioned, embittered, self-centered, and an exiled loner, Richard "Rick" Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) makes a delayed entrance in the film - in a foreground closeup, only his hand is first viewed scrawling/scribbling a signature of authorization/approval across a check for an advance of 1,000 francs: "OK - Rick." Then, the camera reveals the objects in front of him - an ashtray with a smoldering cigarette, an empty glass, a chess board, and a pen. It slowly follows his arm up to his immaculate white tuxedo to his sober face as he drags on his cigarette. Presiding over the gambling tables in the gaming room, Rick drinks and sits by himself, playing a solitary game of chess. His main functions in the casino are to sign checks and vouchers and to occasionally break up fights. Expressionless, he has learned how to survive and be vigilant in the hostile environment.

Moments later after a commotion develops at the entryway to the private gaming room, Rick argues with a pompous, bullying German banker (Gregory Gaye) who has been denied access. The cafe owner stands firm and pre-empts the bumptious, indignant customer from presenting his calling card - and he demonstrates his anti-German dislike by ripping it up. Refusing to be intimidated, Rick doesn't explain the reason for refusing to do business with him - just a cryptic conversation to deflate him and dispose of him: Rick: Your cash is good at the bar. German: What? Do you know who I am? Rick: I do. You're lucky the bar's open to you. German: This is outrageous. I shall report it to the Angriff. Italian-born Guillermo Ugarte (Peter Lorre), a slimy North African black market dealer in extra-legal items, weasels his way into the gambling room.

He nervously observes Rick's anti-German insult, questions the evasive American's origins - and his cynicism, and then expresses sympathy for the "two German couriers" that were murdered: Ugarte: You know, Rick, watching you just now with the 'Deutschebank' [the German banker], one would think you'd been doing this all your life. Rick: Oh, what makes you think I haven't? Ugarte: Oh, nothing. But when you first came to Casablanca, I thought... Rick: You thought what? Ugarte: What right do I have to think?..(hypocritically) Too bad about those two German couriers, wasn't it? Rick: (disparagingly) They got a lucky break. Yesterday, they were just two German clerks. Today, they're the Honored Dead. Ugarte: You are a very cynical person, Rick, if you forgive me for saying so. Rick: I forgive you. Rick is contemptuous of Ugarte's "cut-rate" business of selling exit visas for half of Renault's price - and Ugarte senses it, with a sad tone.

Ugarte explains his plan to leave Casablanca once and for all: Ugarte: You despise me, don't you? Rick: Well, if I gave you any thought, I probably would. Ugarte: But why? Oh, you object to the kind of business I do, huh? But think of all those poor refugees who must rot in this place if I didn't help them. Well that's not so bad, through ways of my own, I provide them with exit visas. Rick: For a price, Ugarte, for a price. Ugarte: But think of all the poor devils who can't meet Renault's price. I get it for them for half. Is that so parasitic? Rick: I don't mind a parasite. I object to a cut-rate one. Ugarte: Well, Rick, after tonight, I'll be through with the whole business, and I'm leaving finally, this Casablanca. Rick: (quipping) Who'd you bribe for your visa, Renault or yourself?

Ugarte shows Rick two non-rescindable French General-signed letters of transit out of Casablanca that allow their possessor to travel without a regular passport or visa. [The pronunciation of the General's name is muffled - whether the irrevocable letters of transit were signed by General Charles DeGaulle or General Maxime Weygand, the military-Vichy commander in French N. Africa, is in question. Weygand would be the more accurate and likely one to issue irrevocable letters of transit - although they probably never existed.] His display of the visas insinuates that he killed the German couriers. His plan is to sell them and make a fortune - "more money than even I have ever dreamed of." Chain-smoking nervously, small-time operator Ugarte trusts only Rick and explains his criteria with an ironic compliment: "You know Rick, I have many a friend in Casablanca, but somehow, just because you despise me you are the only one I trust." Ugarte temporarily entrusts the letters of transit with the trustworthy cafe proprietor.

Ugarte hopes that Rick admires him: "Rick, I hope you are more impressed with me now, huh?" With a slight sneer on his face, Rick tells Ugarte that he has heard a rumor that the two murdered German couriers were carrying letters of transit - implying that Ugarte was involved in their demise. Ugarte commiserates sarcastically: "Oh, I've heard that rumor too. Poor devils." Rick compliments Ugarte: "Yes, you're right, Ugarte. I am a little more impressed with you," referring to Ugarte's bold murders to get the exit visas, as well as a little disgust that he would have gone so far. Rick hides the two priceless letters of transit for him, secretly stashing them in the club's upright piano while Sam sings and plays: "Who's Got Trouble? - Knock on Wood" - the song title provides commentary that is pregnant with meaning. The king of the Black Market and rival Blue Parrot cafe proprietor, a large-figured Senor Ferrari (Sydney Greenstreet), enters the cafe. Immediately after the song ends, the white-suited, large man offers to buy the cafe - an offer that he has made (and had rejected) numerous times.

Rick isn't interested in selling, so Ferrari offers instead to buy the contract of Rick's piano player Sam (Dooley Wilson in his film debut), and then criticizes Rick for his "isolationist" policy: Rick: It's not for sale. Ferrari: You haven't heard my offer. Rick: It's not for sale at any price. Ferrari: What do you want for Sam? Rick (looking down and with understatement): I don't buy or sell human beings. Ferrari: Too bad. That's Casablanca's leading commodity. In refugees alone, we could make a fortune, if you work with me through the black market. Rick: Suppose you run your business and let me run mine. Ferrari: Suppose we ask Sam. Maybe he'd like to make a change? Rick: Suppose we do. Ferrari: My dear Rick, when will you realize that in this world, today, isolationism is no longer a practical policy? Sam is asked about his loyalties, and steadfastly wishes to remain with Rick ("I like it fine here"). Rick is ultimately detached from politics. Rick is also divorced from romantic associations and commitment.

At the bar, a cute, infatuated French bargirl Yvonne (Madeleine LeBeau) confrontationally begs for his interest, but his alcoholic mistress no longer figures in his life: Yvonne: Where were you last night? Rick: That's so long ago, I don't remember. Yvonne: Will I see you tonight? Rick: I never make plans that far ahead. Rick orders his crazy Russian bartender Sascha (Leonid Kinskey) not to serve Yvonne any more drinks, and then orders Sascha to call for a cab to get her to leave quietly and go home. Outside, the rejected, drunken mistress tells him: "What a fool I was to fall for a man like you." After putting her in the cab with Sascha, he turns and sees Renault relaxing on the front patio terrace at one of the outdoor tables. The opportunistic police Capitaine Renault, who enjoys a social friendship with Rick, has witnessed her send-off. He resents Rick's easy way with women and wryly observes that maybe his chances with the discarded Yvonne will now improve: How extravagant you are - throwing away women like that. Some day they may be scarce.

Oh, I think now I shall pay a call on Yvonne, maybe get her on the rebound, huh? Rick politely calls Renault promiscuous: "When it comes to women, you're a true democrat." Casablanca (1942) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications. Director: a list of 21 titles created 18 Sep 2012 a list of 28 titles created 05 Feb 2013 a list of 32 titles created 03 Mar 2013 a list of 27 titles created 4 months ago a list of 49 titles created 1 month ago Search for " Casablanca " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site?

Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Won 3 Oscars. Another 4 wins & 8 nominations. See more awards » Videos Following the death of a publishing tycoon, news reporters scramble to discover the meaning of his final utterance. Director: Orson Welles A Phoenix secretary embezzles $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run, and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother. Director: Alfred Hitchcock A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbours from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder. Director: Alfred Hitchcock A hapless New York advertising executive is mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies, and is pursued across the country while he looks for a way to survive. Director: Alfred Hitchcock A criminal pleads insanity after getting into trouble again and once in the mental institution rebels against the oppressive nurse and rallies up the scared patients. Director: Milos Forman A San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.

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When Nazi Major Strasser arrives in Casablanca, the sycophantic police Captain Renault does what he can to please him, including detaining a Czechoslovak underground leader Victor Laszlo. Much to Rick's surprise, Lazslo arrives with Ilsa, Rick's one time love. Rick is very bitter towards Ilsa, who ran out on him in Paris, but when he learns she had good reason to, they plan to run off together again using the letters of transit. Well, that was their original plan.... Written by Gary Jackson <garyjack5@cogeco.ca> See All (148) » Taglines: As big and timely a picture as ever you've seen! You can tell by the cast it's important! gripping! big! See more » Genres: Rated PG for mild violence | See all certifications » Parents Guide: 23 January 1943 (USA) See more » Also Known As: Everybody Comes to Rick's See more » Filming Locations: Did You Know?

Trivia The French dialogue between Yvonne and the French officer translates as: French Officer: "Hey you, you're not French to go out with a German like that!" Yvonne: "What are you butting in for?" French Officer: "I am butting in..." Yvonne: "It's none of your business!" See more » Goofs Major Strasser's airplane has Nazi markings on the left side, but not the right side of the plane. See more » Quotes [first lines] Narrator : With the coming of the Second World War, many eyes in imprisoned Europe turned hopefully, or desperately, toward the freedom of the Americas. Lisbon became the great embarkation point. But, not everybody could get to Lisbon directly, and so a tortuous, roundabout refugee trail sprang up - Paris to Marseilles... across the Mediterranean to Oran... then by train, or auto, or foot across the rim of Africa, to Casablanca in French Morocco. Here, the fortunate ones through money, or ...

[...] (Greenwich, CT United States) – See all my reviews "Casablanca" remains Hollywood's finest moment, a film that succeeds on such a vast scale not because of anything experimental or deliberately earthshaking in its design, but for the way it cohered to and reaffirmed the movie-making conventions of its day. This is the film that played by the rules while elevating the form, and remains the touchstone for those who talk about Hollywood's greatness. It's the first week in December, 1941, and in the Vichy-controlled African port city of Casablanca, American ex-pat Rick Blaine runs a gin joint he calls "Rick's Cafe Americaine." Everybody comes to Rick's, including thieves, spies, Nazis, partisans, and refugees trying to make their way to Lisbon and, eventually, America. Rick is a tough, sour kind of guy, but he's still taken for a loop when fate hands him two sudden twists: A pair of unchallengeable exit visas, and a woman named Ilsa who left him broken-hearted in Paris and now needs him to help her and her resistance-leader husband escape.

Humphrey Bogart is Rick and Ingrid Bergman is Ilsa, in roles that are archetypes in film lore. They are great parts besides, very multilayered and resistant to stereotype, and both actors give career performances in what were great careers. He's mad at her for walking out on him, while she wants him to understand her cause, but there's a lot going on underneath with both, and it all spills out in a scene in Rick's apartment that is one of many legendary moments. "Casablanca" is a great romance, not only for being so supremely entertaining with its humor and realistic-though-exotic wartime excitement, but because it's not the least bit mushy. Take the way Rick's face literally breaks when he first sees Ilsa in his bar, or how he recalls the last time he saw her in Paris: "The Germans wore gray, you wore blue." There's a real human dimension to these people that makes us care for them and relate to them in a way that belies the passage of years. For me, and many, the most interesting relationship in the movie is Rick and Capt.

Renault, the police prefect in Casablanca who is played by Claude Rains with a wonderful subtlety that builds as the film progresses. Theirs is a relationship of almost perfect cynicism, one-liners and professions of neutrality that provide much humor, as well as give a necessary display of Rick's darker side before and after Ilsa's arrival. But there's so much to grab onto with a film like this. You can talk about the music, or the way the setting becomes a living character with its floodlights and Moorish traceries. Paul Henreid is often looked at as a bit of a third wheel playing the role of Ilsa's husband, but he manages to create a moral center around which the rest of the film operates, and his enigmatic relationship with Rick and especially Ilsa, a woman who obviously admires her husband but can't somehow ever bring herself to say she loves him, is something to wonder at. My favorite bit is when Rick finds himself the target of an entreaty by a Bulgarian refugee who just wants Rick's assurance that Capt. Renault is "trustworthy," and that, if she does "a bad thing" to secure her husband's happiness, it would be forgivable.

Rick flashes on Ilsa, suppresses a grimace, tries to buy the woman off with a one-liner ("Go back to Bulgaria"), then finally does a marvelous thing that sets the whole second half of the film in motion without much calling attention to itself. It's not fashionable to discuss movie directors after Chaplin and before Welles, but surely something should be said about Michael Curtiz, who not only directed this film but other great features like "Captain Blood" and "Angels With Dirty Faces." For my money, his "Adventures Of Robin Hood" was every bit "Casablanca's" equal, and he even found time the same year he made "Casablanca" to make "Yankee Doodle Dandy." When you watch a film like this, you aren't so much aware of the director, but that's really a testament to Curtiz's artistry. "Casablanca" is not only exceptionally well-paced but incredibly well-shot, every frame feeling well-thought-out and legendary without distracting from the overall story.

Curtiz was a product of the studio system, not a maverick like Welles or Chaplin, but he found greatness just as often, and "Casablanca," also a product of the studio system, is the best example. It's a film that reminds us why we go back to Hollywood again and again when we want to refresh our imaginations, and why we call it "the dream factory." As the hawker of linens tells Ilsa at the bazaar, "You won't find a treasure like this in all Morocco." Nor, for that matter, in all the world. 263 of 315 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes Who Directed Casablanca Who Directed Casablanca 02 Feb, 2012 facts 0 Casablanca is considered to be one of the finest films that Hollywood has ever produced. It featured some of the best known actors of the time including the starring pair Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. The movie is set in Africa during the early part of World War II and follows an American expatriate who must choose between love and integrity.

Casablanca won 3 Oscars, including Best Picture, from 8 Academy Award nominations. It was released in 1942 and received most good reviews. Despite many of the movies from this era fading into obscurity, Casablanca remains popular to this day. Let’s take a look at who directed this popular movie. Who directed Casablanca? Casablanca was directed by Michael Curtiz, who won the Academy Award for Best Director for his work on the film. Curtiz was the close friend of the producer Hal B. Wallis. Wallis originally wanted director William Wyler, but he was unavailable for the filming. Even though he won an Academy Award for his work on the film many experts were critical of his directing. Some of the subsidiary footage, including the opening montage, was directed by Don Siegel. Did you know? Michael Curtiz directed more than 150 films during his career, including the popular Christmas film “White Christmas”. He was nominated for 3 other Academy Awards during his career, but didn’t win another one.

Related Article Casablanca premieres in NYC - Nov 26, 1942 - HISTORY.com Casablanca premieres in NYC Publisher A+E Networks On this day in 1942, Casablanca, a World War II-era drama starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, premieres in New York City; it will go on to become one of the most beloved Hollywood movies in history. In the film, Bogart played Rick Blaine, a former freedom fighter and the owner of a swanky North African nightclub, who is reunited with the beautiful, enigmatic Ilsa Lund (Bergman), the woman who loved and left him. Directed by Michael Curtiz, Casablanca opened in theaters across America on January 23, 1943, and was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Bogart. It took home three Oscars, for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.

The film featured a number of now-iconic quotes, including Rick’s line to Ilsa: “Here’s looking at you, kid,” as well as “Round up the usual suspects,” “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship” and “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” Bogart was born on December 25, 1899, in New York City, and during the 1930s established his movie career playing tough-guy roles. He gained fame as Detective Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1941), which marked John Huston’s directorial debut. Bogart and Huston later collaborated on such films as The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and The African Queen (1951) with Katharine Hepburn, which earned Bogart a Best Actor Oscar. In 1945, Bogart married his fourth wife, the actress Lauren Bacall, with whom he co-starred for the first time in 1944’s To Have and Have Not.

Bogey and Bacall became one of Hollywood’s legendary couples and went on to appear together in The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947) and Key Largo (1948). Among Bogart’s other film credits are The Barefoot Contessa (1954), with Ava Gardner; Sabrina (1954), with Audrey Hepburn; and The Caine Mutiny (1954), which earned him another Best Actor nomination. Bogart’s final film was The Harder They Fall (1956). He died on January 14, 1957. Casablanca was also the movie for which the Swedish-born actress Ingrid Bergman is perhaps best remembered. Bergman, born August 29, 1915, received a Best Actress Academy Award nomination for 1943’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, which was followed by a win in the same category for 1944’s Gaslight. She was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar again for 1945’s The Bells of St. Mary’s and 1948’s Joan of Arc.

Bergman worked with the acclaimed director Alfred Hitchcock on Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946) and Under Capricorn (1949). In 1949, the then-married Bergman began a romance with director Roberto Rossellini that created a huge scandal after she became pregnant with his child. (Bergman and Rossellini, who later married, had three children together, including the noted actress Isabella Rossellini.) Although Bergman won another Best Actress Academy Award for 1956’s Anastasia, the actor Cary Grant accepted the award on her behalf, and Bergman did not return publicly to Hollywood until the 1958 Oscars, at which she was a presenter. She won her third Academy Award, in the category of Best Supporting Actress, for 1974’s Murder on the Orient Express. Her final Oscar nomination, in the Best Actress category, was for 1978’s Autumn Sonata, which was helmed by famed Swedish director Ingmar Bergman (to whom she was not related). She died on August 29, 1982.

Related Videos Movie Review - - ' Casablanca,' With Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, at Hollywood -- 'White Cargo' and 'Ravaged Earth' Open - NYTimes.com ' Casablanca,' With Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, at Hollywood -- 'White Cargo' and 'Ravaged Earth' Open By BOSLEY CROWTHER Published: November 27, 1942 Against the electric background of a sleek cafe in a North African port, through which swirls a backwash of connivers, crooks and fleeing European refugees, the Warner Brothers are telling a rich, suave, exciting and moving tale in their new film, "Casablanca," which came to the Hollywood yesterday. They are telling it in the high tradition of their hard-boiled romantic-adventure style. And to make it all the more tempting they have given it a top-notch thriller cast of Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Conrad Veldt and even Claude Rains, and have capped it magnificently with Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid and a Negro "find" named Dooley Wilson.

Yes, indeed, the Warners here have a picture which makes the spine tingle and the heart take a leap. For once more, as in recent Bogart pictures, they have turned the incisive trick of draping a tender love story within the folds of a tight topical theme. They have used Mr. Bogart's personality, so well established in other brilliant films, to inject a cold point of tough resistance to evil forces afoot in Europe today. And they have so combined sentiment, humor and pathos with taut melodrama and bristling intrigue that the result is a highly entertaining and even inspiring film. The story, as would be natural, has its devious convolutions of plot. But mainly it tells of a tough fellow named Rick who runs a Casablanca cafe and of what happens (or what happened last December) when there shows up in his joint one night a girl whom he had previously loved in Paris in company with a fugitive Czech patriot. The Nazis are tailing the young Czech; the Vichy officials offer only brief refuge—and Rick holds the only two sure passports which will guarantee his and the girl's escape.

But Rick loves the girl very dearly, she is now married to this other man—and whenever his Negro pianist sits there in the dark and sings "As Time Goes By" that old, irresistible feeling consumes him in a choking, maddening wave. Don't worry; we won't tell you how it all comes out. That would be rankest sabotage. But we will tell you that the urbane detail and the crackling dialogue which has been packed into this film by the scriptwriters, the Epstein brothers and Howard Koch, is of the best. We will tell you that Michael Curtiz has directed for slow suspense and that his camera is always conveying grim tension and uncertainty. Some of the significant incidents, too, are affecting—such as that in which the passionate Czech patriot rouses the customers in Rick's cafe to drown out a chorus of Nazis by singing the Marseillaise, or any moment in which Dooley Wilson is remembering past popular songs in a hushed room. We will tell you also that the performances of the actors are all of the first order, but especially those of Mr. Bogart and Miss Bergman in the leading roles. Mr.

Bogart is, as usual, the cool, cynical, efficient and super-wise guy who operates his business strictly for profit but has a core of sentiment and idealism inside. Conflict becomes his inner character, and he handles it credibly. Miss Bergman is surpassingly lovely, crisp and natural as the girl and lights the romantic passages with a warm and genuine glow. Mr. Rains is properly slippery and crafty as a minion of Vichy perfidy, and Mr. Veidt plays again a Nazi officer with cold and implacable resolve. Very little is demanded of Mr. Greenstreet as a shrewd black-market trader, but that is good, and Mr. Henreid is forthright and simple as the imperiled Czech patriot. Mr. Wilson's performance as Rick's devoted friend, though rather brief, is filled with a sweetness and compassion which lend a helpful mood to the whole film, and other small roles are played ably by S. Z. Sakall, Joy Page, Leonid Kinskey and Mr. Lorre. In short, we will say that "Casablanca" is one of the year's most exciting and trenchant films.

It certainly won't make Vichy happy—but that's just another point for it. CASABLANCA; screen play by Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch; from a play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison; directed by Michael Curtiz; produced by Hal B. Wallis for Warner Brothers. At the Hollywood. Rick . . . . . Humphrey Bogart Casablanca Movie Review & Film Summary (1942) | Roger Ebert Tweet If we identify strongly with the characters in some movies, then it is no mystery that “Casablanca” is one of the most popular films ever made. It is about a man and a woman who are in love, and who sacrifice love for a higher purpose. This is immensely appealing; the viewer is not only able to imagine winning the love of Humphrey Bogart or Ingrid Bergman , but unselfishly renouncing it, as a contribution to the great cause of defeating the Nazis. Advertisement No one making “Casablanca” thought they were making a great movie. It was simply another Warner Bros. release.

It was an “A list” picture, to be sure (Bogart, Bergman and Paul Henreid were stars, and no better cast of supporting actors could have been assembled on the Warners lot than Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet, Claude Rains and Dooley Wilson). But it was made on a tight budget and released with small expectations. Everyone involved in the film had been, and would be, in dozens of other films made under similar circumstances, and the greatness of “Casablanca” was largely the result of happy chance. The screenplay was adapted from a play of no great consequence; memoirs tell of scraps of dialogue jotted down and rushed over to the set. What must have helped is that the characters were firmly established in the minds of the writers, and they were characters so close to the screen personas of the actors that it was hard to write dialogue in the wrong tone. Humphrey Bogart played strong heroic leads in his career, but he was usually better as the disappointed, wounded, resentful hero. Remember him in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” convinced the others were plotting to steal his gold.

In “Casablanca,” he plays Rick Blaine, the hard-drinking American running a nightclub in Casablanca when Morocco was a crossroads for spies, traitors, Nazis and the French Resistance. Advertisement The opening scenes dance with comedy; the dialogue combines the cynical with the weary; wisecracks with epigrams. We see that Rick moves easily in a corrupt world. “What is your nationality?” the German Strasser asks him, and he replies, “I'm a drunkard.” His personal code: “I stick my neck out for nobody.” Then “of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” It is Ilsa Lund (Bergman), the woman Rick loved years earlier in Paris. Under the shadow of the German occupation, he arranged their escape, and believes she abandoned him--left him waiting in the rain at a train station with their tickets to freedom. Now she is with Victor Laszlo (Henreid), a legendary hero of the French Resistance. All this is handled with great economy in a handful of shots that still, after many viewings, have the power to move me emotionally as few scenes ever have.

The bar's piano player, Sam (Wilson), a friend of theirs in Paris, is startled to see her. She asks him to play the song that she and Rick made their own, “As Time Goes By.” He is reluctant, but he does, and Rick comes striding angrily out of the back room (“I thought I told you never to play that song!”). Then he sees Ilsa, a dramatic musical chord marks their closeups, and the scene plays out in resentment, regret and the memory of a love that was real. (This scene is not as strong on a first viewing as on subsequent viewings, because the first time you see the movie you don't yet know the story of Rick and Ilsa in Paris; indeed, the more you see it the more the whole film gains resonance.) Advertisement The plot, a trifle to hang the emotions on, involves letters of passage that will allow two people to leave Casablanca for Portugal and freedom. Rick obtained the letters from the wheedling little black-marketeer Ugarte ( Peter Lorre ). The sudden reappearance of Ilsa reopens all of his old wounds, and breaks his carefully cultivated veneer of neutrality and indifference.

When he hears her story, he realizes she has always loved him. But now she is with Laszlo. Rick wants to use the letters to escape with Ilsa, but then, in a sustained sequence that combines suspense, romance and comedy as they have rarely been brought together on the screen, he contrives a situation in which Ilsa and Laszlo escape together, while he and his friend the police chief (Claude Rains) get away with murder. (“Round up the usual suspects.”) What is intriguing is that none of the major characters is bad. Some are cynical, some lie, some kill, but all are redeemed. If you think it was easy for Rick to renounce his love for Ilsa--to place a higher value on Laszlo's fight against Nazism--remember Forster's famous comment, “If I were forced to choose between my country and my friend, I hope I would be brave enough to choose my friend.” From a modern perspective, the film reveals interesting assumptions. Ilsa Lund's role is basically that of a lover and helpmate to a great man; the movie's real question is, which great man should she be sleeping with?

There is actually no reason why Laszlo cannot get on the plane alone, leaving Ilsa in Casablanca with Rick, and indeed that is one of the endings that was briefly considered. But that would be all wrong; the “happy” ending would be tarnished by self-interest, while the ending we have allows Rick to be larger, to approach nobility (“it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world”). And it allows us, vicariously experiencing all of these things in the theater, to warm in the glow of his heroism. Advertisement In her closeups during this scene, Bergman's face reflects confusing emotions. And well she might have been confused, since neither she nor anyone else on the film knew for sure until the final day who would get on the plane. Bergman played the whole movie without knowing how it would end, and this had the subtle effect of making all of her scenes more emotionally convincing; she could not tilt in the direction she knew the wind was blowing. Stylistically, the film is not so much brilliant as absolutely sound, rock-solid in its use of Hollywood studio craftsmanship.

The director, Michael Curtiz, and the writers (Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch ) all won Oscars. One of their key contributions was to show us that Rick, Ilsa and the others lived in a complex time and place. The richness of the supporting characters (Greenstreet as the corrupt club owner, Lorre as the sniveling cheat, Rains as the subtly homosexual police chief and minor characters like the young girl who will do anything to help her husband) set the moral stage for the decisions of the major characters. When this plot was remade in 1990 as “Havana,” Hollywood practices required all the big scenes to feature the big stars ( Robert Redford and Lena Olin ) and the film suffered as a result; out of context, they were more lovers than heroes. Seeing the film over and over again, year after year, I find it never grows over-familiar. It plays like a favorite musical album; the more I know it, the more I like it. The black-and-white cinematography has not aged as color would. The dialogue is so spare and cynical it has not grown old-fashioned.

Much of the emotional effect of “Casablanca” is achieved by indirection; as we leave the theater, we are absolutely convinced that the only thing keeping the world from going crazy is that the problems of three little people do after all amount to more than a hill of beans. Advertisement

Question: Who directed the 1942 film, ‘Casablanca’?
Answer: MICHAEL CURTIZ