Casablanca (film)

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. Set during World War II, it focuses on an American expatriate who must choose between his love for a woman and helping her and her husband, a Czech resistance leader, escape from the Vichy-controlled city of Casablanca to continue his fight against the Germans.

Casablanca
Theatrical release poster by Bill Gold
Directed byMichael Curtiz
Produced byHal B. Wallis
Screenplay by
Based onEverybody Comes to Rick's
by Murray Burnett
Joan Alison
Starring
Music byMax Steiner
CinematographyArthur Edeson
Edited byOwen Marks
Production
company
Distributed byWarner Bros. Pictures
Release date
  • November 26, 1942 (1942-11-26) (Hollywood Theatre)
  • January 23, 1943 (1943-01-23) (United States)
Running time
102 minutes[2]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$878,000[3]–$1 million[4][5]
Box office$3.7[6]–6.9 million[4]

Warner Bros. story editor Irene Diamond convinced producer Hal B. Wallis to purchase the film rights to the play in January 1942. Brothers Julius and Philip G. Epstein were initially assigned to write the script. However, despite studio resistance, they left to work on Frank Capra's Why We Fight series early in 1942. Howard Koch was assigned to the screenplay until the Epsteins returned a month later. Principal photography began on May 25, 1942, ending on August 3; the film was shot entirely at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California with the exception of one sequence at Van Nuys Airport in Van Nuys, Los Angeles.

Although Casablanca was an A-list film with established stars and first-rate writers, no one involved with its production expected it to be anything other than one of the hundreds of ordinary pictures produced by Hollywood that year.[7] Casablanca was rushed into release to take advantage of the publicity from the Allied invasion of North Africa a few weeks earlier.[8] It had its world premiere on November 26, 1942, in New York City and was released nationally in the United States on January 23, 1943. The film was a solid if unspectacular success in its initial run.

Exceeding expectations, Casablanca went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, while Curtiz was selected as Best Director and the Epsteins and Koch were honored for writing the Best Adapted Screenplay. Its reputation gradually improved, to the point that its lead characters,[9][10] memorable lines,[11][12][13] and pervasive theme song[14][15] have all become iconic and it consistently ranks near the top of lists of the greatest films in history.

Plot
Left to right: Henreid, Bergman, Rains and Bogart

In December 1941, American expatriate Rick Blaine owns an upscale nightclub and gambling den in Casablanca. "Rick's Café Américain" attracts a varied clientele, including Vichy French and German officials, refugees desperate to reach the neutral United States, and those who prey on them. Although Rick professes to be neutral in all matters, he had run guns to Ethiopia during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War and fought on the Republican (loyalist) side in the Spanish Civil War.

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

Then the reason for Rick's cynical nature—former lover Ilsa Lund—enters his establishment. Spotting Rick's friend and house pianist, Sam, Ilsa asks him to play "As Time Goes By". Rick storms over, furious that Sam 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 fails.

When Laszlo makes inquiries, Ferrari, a major underworld figure and Rick's friendly business rival, divulges his suspicion that Rick has the letters. Privately, 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 ("The Watch on the Rhine"). 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. Strasser demands Renault close the club, which he does on the pretext of suddenly discovering there is gambling on the premises.

Bogart and Bergman

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. While preparing to flee with Rick from the imminent fall of the city during the Battle of France, she learned 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 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 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 Laszlo, 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 and Rick shoots him when he tries to intervene. As the police arrive, Renault pauses, then orders them to "round up the usual suspects". He suggests to Rick that they join the Free French in Brazzaville. As they walk away into the fog, Rick says, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship".

Cast
Greenstreet and Bogart

The play's cast consisted of 16 speaking parts and several extras; the film script enlarged it to 22 speaking parts and hundreds of extras.[16] The cast is notably international: only three of the credited actors were born in the United States (Bogart, Dooley Wilson, and Joy Page). The top-billed actors are:[17]

  • Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine. Rick was Bogart's first true romantic role.
  • Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund. Bergman's official website calls Ilsa her "most famous and enduring role".[18] The Swedish actress's Hollywood debut in Intermezzo had been well received, but her subsequent films were not major successes until Casablanca. Film critic Roger Ebert called her "luminous", and commented on the chemistry between her and Bogart: "she paints his face with her eyes".[19] Other actresses considered for the role of Ilsa included Ann Sheridan, Hedy Lamarr, Luise Rainer, and Michèle Morgan. Producer Hal Wallis obtained the services of Bergman, who was contracted to David O. Selznick, by lending Olivia de Havilland in exchange.[20]
  • Paul Henreid as Victor Laszlo. Henreid, an Austrian actor who had emigrated in 1935, was reluctant to take the role (it "set [him] as a stiff forever", according to Pauline Kael[21]), until he was promised top billing along with Bogart and Bergman. Henreid did not get on well with his fellow actors; he considered Bogart "a mediocre actor"; Bergman called Henreid a "prima donna".[22]

The second-billed actors are:

  • Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault. Rains was an English actor born in London. He had previously worked with Michael Curtiz on The Adventures of Robin Hood. He later played the villain in Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious, with Ingrid Bergman.
  • Conrad Veidt as Major Heinrich Strasser. He was a refugee German actor who had appeared in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. He fled the Nazis but was frequently cast as a Nazi in American films. A star in German cinema before the Nazi era, he was the highest paid member of the cast despite his second billing.[23]
  • Sydney Greenstreet as Signor Ferrari. Another Englishman, Greenstreet had previously starred with Lorre and Bogart in his film debut in The Maltese Falcon.
  • Peter Lorre as Signor Ugarte. Born in Austria-Hungary, Lorre fled Nazi Germany in 1933 after starring in Fritz Lang's first sound movie, M (1931). Greenstreet and Lorre appeared in several films together over the next few years, although they did not share a scene in Casablanca.

Also credited are:

  • Curt Bois as the pickpocket. Bois was a Jewish-German actor and refugee. He had one of the longest careers in film, making his first appearance in 1907 and his last in 1987.
  • Leonid Kinskey as Sascha, the Russian bartender infatuated with Yvonne. He was born into a Jewish family in Russia and had migrated to the United States. He told Aljean Harmetz, author of Round Up the Usual Suspects: The Making of Casablanca, that he was cast because he was Bogart's drinking buddy.[24] He was not the first choice for the role; he replaced Leo Mostovoy, who was deemed not funny enough.[24]
  • Madeleine Lebeau as Yvonne, Rick's soon-discarded girlfriend. The French actress was married to fellow Casablanca performer Marcel Dalio until their divorce in 1942. She was the last surviving cast member at her death on May 1, 2016.[25]
  • Joy Page as Annina Brandel, the young Bulgarian refugee. The third credited American, she was the stepdaughter of Jack L. Warner, the studio head.
  • John Qualen as Berger, Laszlo's Resistance contact. He was born in Canada but grew up in the United States. He appeared in many of John Ford's films.
  • S. Z. Sakall (credited as S. K. Sakall) as Carl, the waiter. The Jewish-Hungarian actor fled Germany in 1939. His three sisters and his niece later died in a concentration camp.
  • Dooley Wilson as Sam. He was one of the few American-born members of the cast. A drummer, he had to fake playing the piano. Even after shooting had been completed, producer Wallis considered dubbing over Wilson's voice for the songs.[26][27] He had originally considered changing the character to a woman and casting singers Hazel Scott, Lena Horne, or Ella Fitzgerald.

Notable uncredited actors are:

  • Marcel Dalio as Emil the croupier. He had been a star in French cinema, appearing in Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion and La Règle du Jeu. He divorced his first wife, Jany Holt, just months before the Nazi occupation of France; while he fled to bit parts in Hollywood, she remarried, kept acting in French Cinema, and won the Croix de Guerre for her part in the French Resistance.[28] Dalio had a key role as "Frenchy" in another of Bogart's films, To Have and Have Not.
  • Helmut Dantine as Jan Brandel, the Bulgarian roulette player married to Annina Brandel. Another Austrian, he was involved in Vienna's anti-Nazi movement and spent time in a concentration camp after the Anschluss, but his parents obtained his release and immediately sent him to California.
  • Gregory Gaye as the German banker who is refused entry to the casino by Rick. Gaye was a Russian-born actor who immigrated to the United States in 1917 after the Russian Revolution. He was the uncle of actor George Gaynes.
  • Torben Meyer as the Dutch banker who runs "the second largest banking house in Amsterdam". Meyer was a Danish actor.
  • Corinna Mura as the guitar player who sings "Tango Delle Rose" (or "Tango de la Rosa") while Laszlo is consulting with Berger and later accompanies the crowd on "La Marseillaise"
  • Frank Puglia as a Moroccan rug merchant
  • Richard Ryen as Colonel Heinze, Strasser's aide
  • Dan Seymour as Abdul the doorman. He was an American actor who often played villains, including the principal one in To Have and Have Not and one of the secondary ones in Key Largo, both opposite Bogart.
  • Gerald Oliver Smith as the Englishman whose wallet is stolen. Smith was an English actor.
  • Norma Varden as the Englishwoman whose husband has his wallet stolen. She was a famous English character actress.

Much of the emotional impact of the film, for the audience in 1942, has been attributed to the large proportion of European exiles and refugees who were extras or played minor roles (in addition to leading actors Paul Henreid, Conrad Veidt and Peter Lorre): such as Louis V. Arco, Trude Berliner, Ilka Grünig, Ludwig Stössel, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, and Wolfgang Zilzer. A witness to the filming of the "duel of the anthems" sequence said he saw many of the actors crying and "realized that they were all real refugees".[29] Harmetz argues that they "brought to a dozen small roles in Casablanca an understanding and a desperation that could never have come from Central Casting".[30] Even though many were Jewish or refugees from the Nazis (or both), they were frequently cast as Nazis in various war films, because of their accents.

Jack Benny may have appeared in an unbilled cameo, as was claimed by a contemporary newspaper advertisement and in the Casablanca press book.[31][32][33] When asked in his column "Movie Answer Man", critic Roger Ebert first replied, "It looks something like him. That's all I can say."[32] In a later column, he responded to a follow-up commenter, "I think you're right. The Jack Benny Fan Club can feel vindicated".[34]

Production
Bogart in the airport scene

The film was based on Murray Burnett and Joan Alison's unproduced play Everybody Comes to Rick's.[35] The Warner Bros. story analyst who read the play, Stephen Karnot, called it (approvingly) "sophisticated hokum"[36] and story editor Irene Diamond, who had discovered the script on a trip to New York in 1941, convinced Hal Wallis to buy the rights in January 1942 for $20,000,[37] the most anyone in Hollywood had ever paid for an unproduced play.[38] The project was renamed Casablanca, apparently in imitation of the 1938 hit Algiers.[39] Although an initial filming date was selected for April 10, 1942, delays led to production starting on May 25.[40] Filming was completed on August 3, at a cost of $1,039,000 ($75,000 over budget),[41] above average for the time.[42] Unusually, the film was shot in sequence, mainly because only the first half of the script was ready when filming began.[43]

The entire picture was shot in the studio, except for the sequence showing Strasser's arrival, which was filmed at Van Nuys Airport, and a few short clips of stock footage views of Paris.[44] The street used for the exterior shots had recently been built for another film, The Desert Song,[45] and redressed for the Paris flashbacks.

The background of the final scene, which shows a Lockheed Model 12 Electra Junior airplane with personnel walking around it, was staged using little person extras and a proportionate cardboard plane.[46] Fog was used to mask the model's unconvincing appearance.[47] Nevertheless, the Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park in Orlando, Florida, purchased a Lockheed 12A for its Great Movie Ride attraction, and initially claimed that it was the actual plane used in the film.[48]

Film critic Roger Ebert called Wallis the "key creative force" for his attention to the details of production (down to insisting on a real parrot in the Blue Parrot bar).[19]

The difference between Bergman's and Bogart's height caused some problems. She was two inches (5 cm) taller than Bogart, and claimed Curtiz had Bogart stand on blocks or sit on cushions in their scenes together.[49]

Later, there were plans for a further scene, showing Rick, Renault and a detachment of Free French soldiers on a ship, to incorporate the Allies' 1942 invasion of North Africa. It proved too difficult to get Claude Rains for the shoot, and the scene was finally abandoned after David O. Selznick judged "it would be a terrible mistake to change the ending."[50][23]

Writing
The Cross of Lorraine, emblem of the Free French Forces

The original play was inspired by a trip to Europe made by Murray Burnett and his wife in 1938, during which they visited Vienna shortly after the Anschluss and were affected by the antisemitism they saw. In the south of France, they went to a nightclub that had a multinational clientele, among them many exiles and refugees, and the prototype of Sam.[51][52] In The Guardian, Paul Fairclough writes that Cinema Vox in Tangier "was Africa's biggest when it opened in 1935, with 2,000 seats and a retractable roof. As Tangier was in Spanish territory [sic], the theatre's wartime bar heaved with spies, refugees and underworld hoods, securing its place in cinematic history as the inspiration for Rick's Cafe in Casablanca."[53][54] The scene of the singing of "La Marseillaise" in the bar is attributed by the film scholar Julian Jackson as an adaptation of a similar scene from Jean Renoir's film La Grande Illusion five years prior.[55]

The first writers assigned to the script were twins Julius and Philip Epstein who, against the wishes of Warner Bros., left at Frank Capra's request early in 1942 to work on the Why We Fight series in Washington, D.C.[56][57] While they were gone, the other credited writer, Howard Koch, was assigned; he produced thirty to forty pages.[57] When the Epstein brothers returned after about a month, they were reassigned to Casablanca and—contrary to what Koch claimed in two published books—his work was not used.[57] The Epstein brothers and Koch never worked in the same room at the same time during the writing of the script. In the final budget for the film, the Epsteins were paid $30,416, and Koch earned $4,200.[58]

In the play, the Ilsa character is an American named Lois Meredith; she does not meet Laszlo until after her relationship with Rick in Paris has ended. Rick is a lawyer. The play (set entirely in the cafe) ends with Rick sending Lois and Laszlo to the airport. To make Rick's motivation more believable, Wallis, Curtiz, and the screenwriters decided to set the film before the attack on Pearl Harbor.[59]

The possibility was discussed of Laszlo being killed in Casablanca, allowing Rick and Ilsa to leave together, but as Casey Robinson wrote to Wallis before filming began, the ending of the film "set up for a swell twist when Rick sends her away on the plane with Laszlo. For now, in doing so, he is not just solving a love triangle. He is forcing the girl to live up to the idealism of her nature, forcing her to carry on with the work that in these days is far more important than the love of two little people."[60] It was certainly impossible for Ilsa to leave Laszlo for Rick, as the Motion Picture Production Code forbade showing a woman leaving her husband for another man. The concern was not whether Ilsa would leave with Laszlo, but how this outcome would be engineered.[61] The problem was solved when the Epstein brothers were driving down Sunset Boulevard and stopped for the light at Beverly Glen. At that instant the identical twins turned to each other and simultaneously cried out, "Round up the usual suspects!"[62] By the time they had driven past Fairfax and the Cahuenga Pass and through the Warner Brothers studio's portals at Burbank, in the words of Julius Epstein, "the idea for the farewell scene between a tearful Bergman and a suddenly noble Bogart" had been formed and all the problems of the ending had been solved.[63]

The uncredited Casey Robinson assisted with three weeks of rewrites, including contributing the series of meetings between Rick and Ilsa in the cafe.[64][65] Koch highlighted the political and melodramatic elements,[66][67] and Curtiz seems to have favored the romantic parts, insisting on retaining the Paris flashbacks.[68]

In a telegram to film editor Owen Marks on August 7, 1942, Wallis suggested two possible final lines of dialogue for Rick: "Louis, I might have known you'd mix your patriotism with a little larceny" or "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."[69] Two weeks later, Wallis settled on the latter, which Bogart was recalled to dub a month after shooting had finished.[68]

Bogart's line "Here's looking at you, kid", said four times, was not in the draft screenplays, but has been attributed to a comment he made to Bergman as he taught her poker between takes.[70]

Despite the many writers, the film has what Ebert describes as a "wonderfully unified and consistent" script. Koch later claimed it was the tension between his own approach and Curtiz's which accounted for this: "Surprisingly, these disparate approaches somehow meshed, and perhaps it was partly this tug of war between Curtiz and me that gave the film a certain balance."[71] Julius Epstein would later note the screenplay contained "more corn than in the states of Kansas and Iowa combined. But when corn works, there's nothing better."[72]

The film ran into some trouble with Joseph Breen of the Production Code Administration (the Hollywood self-censorship body), who opposed the suggestions that Captain Renault extorted sexual favors from his supplicants, and that Rick and Ilsa had slept together.[73][74] Extensive changes were made, with several lines of dialogue removed or altered. All direct references to sex were deleted; Renault's selling of visas for sex, and Rick and Ilsa's previous sexual relationship were implied elliptically rather than referenced explicitly.[75] Also, in the original script, when Sam plays "As Time Goes By", Rick remarks, "What the —— are you playing?" This line was altered to: "Sam, I told you never to play..." to conform to Breen's objection to an implied swear word.[76]

Direction

Wallis's first choice for director was William Wyler, but he was unavailable, so Wallis turned to his close friend Michael Curtiz.[77][23] Curtiz was a Hungarian Jewish émigré; he had come to the U.S. in 1926, but some of his family were refugees from Nazi Europe.

Roger Ebert has commented that in Casablanca "very few shots ... are memorable as shots," as Curtiz wanted images to express the story rather than to stand alone.[19] He contributed relatively little to development of the plot. Casey Robinson said Curtiz "knew nothing whatever about story ... he saw it in pictures, and you supplied the stories."[78]

Critic Andrew Sarris called the film "the most decisive exception to the auteur theory",[79] of which Sarris was the most prominent proponent in the United States. Aljean Harmetz has responded, "nearly every Warner Bros. picture was an exception to the auteur theory".[77] Other critics give more credit to Curtiz. Sidney Rosenzweig, in his study of the director's work, sees the film as a typical example of Curtiz's highlighting of moral dilemmas.[80]

The second unit montages, such as the opening sequence of the refugee trail and the invasion of France, were directed by Don Siegel.[81]

Cinematography

The cinematographer was Arthur Edeson, a veteran who had previously shot The Maltese Falcon and Frankenstein. Particular attention was paid to photographing Bergman. She was shot mainly from her preferred left side, often with a softening gauze filter and with catch lights to make her eyes sparkle; the whole effect was designed to make her face seem "ineffably sad and tender and nostalgic".[19] Bars of shadow across the characters and in the background variously imply imprisonment, the crucifix, the symbol of the Free French Forces and emotional turmoil.[19] Dark film noir and expressionist lighting was used in several scenes, particularly towards the end of the picture. Rosenzweig argues these shadow and lighting effects are classic elements of the Curtiz style, along with the fluid camera work and the use of the environment as a framing device.[82]

Soundtrack
Casablanca
Soundtrack album
ReleasedOctober 14, 1997
RecordedMay–September 1942
Length64:29
LabelRhino Records
Producer
  • George Feltenstein
  • Bradley Flanagan

The music was written by Max Steiner, who was best known for the score for Gone with the Wind. The song "As Time Goes By" by Herman Hupfeld had been part of the story from the original play; Steiner wanted to write his own composition to replace it, but Bergman had already cut her hair short for her next role (María in For Whom the Bell Tolls) and could not re-shoot the scenes which incorporated the song,[83] so Steiner based the entire score on it and "La Marseillaise", the French national anthem, transforming them as leitmotifs to reflect changing moods.[84] Even though Steiner disliked "As Time Goes By", he admitted in a 1943 interview that it "must have had something to attract so much attention."[85] The "piano player" Dooley Wilson was actually a drummer, not a trained pianist, so the piano music for the film was played offscreen by Jean Plummer and dubbed.[86]

Particularly memorable is the "duel of the anthems" between Strasser and Laszlo at Rick's cafe.[23] In the soundtrack, "La Marseillaise" is played by a full orchestra. Originally, the opposing piece for this iconic sequence was to be the "Horst Wessel Lied", a Nazi anthem, but this was still under international copyright in non-Allied countries. Instead "Die Wacht am Rhein" was used.[87] The "Deutschlandlied", the national anthem of Germany, is used several times in minor mode as a leitmotif for the German threat, i.e. in the scene in Paris as it is announced that the German army will reach Paris the next day. It features in the final scene, in which it gives way to "La Marseillaise" after Strasser is shot.[88][23]

Other songs include:

Very few films in the early 1940s had portions of the soundtrack released on 78 rpm records, and Casablanca was no exception. In 1997, almost 55 years after the film's premiere, Turner Entertainment in collaboration with Rhino Records issued the film's first original soundtrack album for release on compact disc, including original songs and music, spoken dialogue, and alternate takes.[89]

The piano featured in the Paris flashback sequences was sold in New York City on December 14, 2012, at Sotheby's for more than $600,000 to an anonymous bidder.[90] The piano Sam "plays" in Rick's Café Américain, put up for auction with other film memorabilia by Turner Classic Movies at Bonhams in New York in November 2014, sold for $3.4 million.[91][92]

Release

Although an initial release date was anticipated for early 1943,[93] the film premiered at the Hollywood Theater in New York City on November 26, 1942, to coincide with the Allied invasion of North Africa and the capture of Casablanca.[8][94] It went into general release on January 23, 1943, to take advantage of the Casablanca Conference, a high-level meeting in the city between British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and American President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Office of War Information prevented screening of the film to troops in North Africa, believing it would cause resentment among Vichy supporters in the region.[95]

Irish and German cuts

On March 19, 1943, the film was banned in Ireland for infringing on the Emergency Powers Order preserving wartime neutrality, by portraying Vichy France and Nazi Germany in a "sinister light". It was passed with cuts on June 15, 1945, shortly after the EPO was lifted. The cuts were made to dialogue between Rick and Ilsa referring to their love affair.[96] A version with only one scene cut was passed on July 16, 1974. RTÉ inquired about showing the film on TV – it still required a dialogue cut to Ilsa expressing her love for Rick.[97]

Warner Brothers released a heavily-edited version of Casablanca in West Germany in 1952. All scenes with Nazis were removed, along with most references to World War II. Important plot points were altered when the dialogue was dubbed into German. Victor Laszlo was no longer a Resistance fighter who escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. Instead, he became a Norwegian atomic physicist who was being pursued by Interpol after he "broke out of jail." The West German version was 25 minutes shorter than the original cut. A German version of Casablanca with the original plot was not released until 1975.[98]

Reception

Initial response

Casablanca received "consistently good reviews".[99] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote, "The Warners ... have a picture which makes the spine tingle and the heart take a leap." He applauded the combination of "sentiment, humor and pathos with taut melodrama and bristling intrigue". Crowther noted its "devious convolutions of the plot", and praised the screenplay quality as "of the best" and the cast's performances as "all of the first order".[100]

The trade paper Variety commended the film's "combination of fine performances, engrossing story and neat direction" and the "variety of moods, action, suspense, comedy and drama that makes Casablanca an A-1 entry at the b.o."[101] "Film is splendid anti-Axis propaganda, particularly inasmuch as the propaganda is strictly a by-product of the principal action and contributes to it instead of getting in the way."[101] The review also applauded the performances of Bergman and Henreid and noted that "Bogart, as might be expected, is more at ease as the bitter and cynical operator of a joint than as a lover, but handles both assignments with superb finesse."[101]

Some other reviews were less enthusiastic. The New Yorker rated it only "pretty tolerable" and said it was "not quite up to Across the Pacific, Bogart's last spyfest".[102]

In the 1,500-seat Hollywood Theater, the film grossed $255,000 over ten weeks.[103] In its initial U.S. release, it was a substantial but not spectacular box-office success, taking in $3.7 million[103][104], making it the sixth highest-grossing film of 1943.

According to Warner Bros. records, the film earned $3,398,000 domestically and $3,461,000 in foreign markets.[4]

Lasting influence

In the seven decades since its production, the film has grown in popularity. Murray Burnett called it "true yesterday, true today, true tomorrow".[105] By 1955, the film had brought in $6.8 million, making it the third most successful of Warners' wartime movies (behind Shine On, Harvest Moon and This Is the Army).[106] On April 21, 1957, the Brattle Theater of Cambridge, Massachusetts, showed the film as part of a season of old movies. It was so popular that it began a tradition of screening Casablanca during the week of final exams at Harvard University, which continues to the present day. Other colleges have adopted the tradition. Todd Gitlin, a professor of sociology who had attended one of these screenings, has said that the experience was "the acting out of my own personal rite of passage".[107] The tradition helped the movie remain popular while other films famous in the 1940s have faded from popular memory. By 1977, Casablanca was the most frequently broadcast film on American television.[108]

On the film's 50th anniversary, the Los Angeles Times called Casablanca's great strength "the purity of its Golden Age Hollywoodness [and] the enduring craftsmanship of its resonantly hokey dialogue". Bob Strauss wrote in the newspaper that the film achieved a "near-perfect entertainment balance" of comedy, romance, and suspense.[109]

According to Roger Ebert, Casablanca is "probably on more lists of the greatest films of all time than any other single title, including Citizen Kane" because of its wider appeal. Ebert opined that Citizen Kane is generally considered to be a "greater" film, but Casablanca "is more loved."[19] In his opinion, the film is popular because "the people in it are all so good", and it is "a wonderful gem".[19] Ebert said that he has never heard of a negative review of the film, even though individual elements can be criticized, citing unrealistic special effects and the stiff character/portrayal of Laszlo.[78]

Critic Leonard Maltin considers Casablanca "the best Hollywood movie of all time."[110]

Rick, according to Rudy Behlmer, is "not a hero ... not a bad guy": he does what is necessary to get along with the authorities and "sticks his neck out for nobody". The other characters, in Behlmer's words, are "not cut and dried" and come into their goodness over the course of the film. Renault begins as a collaborator with the Nazis who extorts sexual favors from refugees and has Ugarte killed. Even Ilsa, the least active of the main characters, is "caught in the emotional struggle" over which man she really loves. By the end, however, "everybody is sacrificing."[78] Behlmer also emphasized the variety in the picture: "it's a blend of drama, melodrama, comedy [and] intrigue".[78]

A remembrance written for the 75th anniversary published by The Washington Free Beacon said, "It is no exaggeration to say Casablanca is one of the greatest films ever made," making special note of the "intellectual nature of the film" and saying that "while the first time around you might pay attention to only the superficial love story, by the second and third and fourth viewings the sub-textual politics [of communitarianism and anti-isolationism] have moved to the fore."[111]

A few reviewers have had reservations. To Pauline Kael, "It's far from a great film, but it has a special appealingly schlocky romanticism ..."[112] Umberto Eco wrote that "by any strict critical standards ... Casablanca is a very mediocre film." He viewed the changes the characters undergo as inconsistent rather than complex: "It is a comic strip, a hotchpotch, low on psychological credibility, and with little continuity in its dramatic effects." However, he added that due to the presence of multiple archetypes which allow "the power of Narrative in its natural state without Art intervening to discipline it", it is a movie reaching "Homeric depths" as a "phenomenon worthy of awe."[113] 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."[114] On Metacritic, the film has a perfect score of 100 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[115] It is one of only eight films in the site's history to achieve a perfect aggregate score.[116]

In the November/December 1982 issue of Film Comment, Chuck Ross claimed that he retyped the screenplay to Casablanca, changing the title back to Everybody Comes to Rick's and the name of the piano player to Dooley Wilson, and submitted it to 217 agencies. Eighty-five of them read it; of those, thirty-eight rejected it outright, thirty-three generally recognized it (but only eight specifically as Casablanca), three declared it commercially viable, and one suggested turning it into a novel.[117][118][119]

Influence on later works

Many subsequent films have drawn on elements of Casablanca. Passage to Marseille (1944) reunited actors Bogart, Rains, Greenstreet, Lorre and director Curtiz in 1944,[120] and there are similarities between Casablanca and another later Bogart film, To Have and Have Not (also 1944).[121]

Parodies have included the Marx Brothers' A Night in Casablanca (1946), Neil Simon's The Cheap Detective (1978), and Out Cold (2001). Indirectly, it provided the title for the 1995 neo-noir film The Usual Suspects.[122] Woody Allen's Play It Again, Sam (1972) appropriated Bogart's Casablanca persona as the fantasy mentor for Allen's character.[123]

The film Casablanca was a plot device in the science-fiction television movie Overdrawn at the Memory Bank (1983), based on John Varley's story. It was referred to in Terry Gilliam's dystopian Brazil (1985). Warner Bros. produced its own parody in the homage Carrotblanca, a 1995 Bugs Bunny cartoon.[124] Film critic Roger Ebert pointed out the plot of the film Barb Wire (1996) was identical to that of Casablanca.[125] In Casablanca, a novella by Argentine writer Edgar Brau, the protagonist somehow wanders into Rick's Café Américain and listens to a strange tale related by Sam.[126] The 2016 musical film La La Land contains multiple allusions to Casablanca in the imagery, dialogue, and plot.[127] Robert Zemeckis, director of Allied (2016), which is also set in 1942 Casablanca, studied the film to capture the city's elegance.[128]

Awards and honors

Because of its November 1942 release, the New York Film Critics decided to include the film in its 1942 award season for best picture. Casablanca lost to In Which We Serve.[103] However, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences stated that since the film went into national release in the beginning of 1943, it would be included in that year's nominations.[129] Casablanca was nominated for eight Academy Awards, and won three.

Award Category Nominee Result
16th Academy Awards Outstanding Motion Picture Warner Bros. (Hal B. Wallis, Producer) Won
Best Director Michael Curtiz Won
Best Actor Humphrey Bogart Nominated
Best Supporting Actor Claude Rains Nominated
Best Writing, Screenplay Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, and Howard Koch Won
Best Cinematography Arthur Edeson Nominated
Best Film Editing Owen Marks Nominated
Best Music (Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture) Max Steiner Nominated

As Bogart stepped out of his car at the awards ceremony, "the crowd surged forward, almost engulfing him and his wife, Mayo Methot. It took 12 police officers to rescue the two, and a red-faced, startled, yet smiling Bogart heard a chorus of cries of 'good luck' and 'here's looking at you, kid' as he was rushed into the theater."[130]

When the award for Best Picture was announced, producer Hal B. Wallis got up to accept, but studio head Jack L. Warner rushed up to the stage "with a broad, flashing smile and a look of great self-satisfaction," Wallis later recalled. "I couldn't believe it was happening. Casablanca had been my creation; Jack had absolutely nothing to do with it. As the audience gasped, I tried to get out of the row of seats and into the aisle, but the entire Warner family sat blocking me. I had no alternative but to sit down again, humiliated and furious ... Almost forty years later, I still haven't recovered from the shock."[130] This incident would lead Wallis to leave Warner Bros. in April.[131]

In 1989, the film was one of the first 25 films selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[132][133] In 2005, it was named one of the 100 greatest films of the last 80 years by Time magazine (the selected films were not ranked).[134] Bright Lights Film Journal stated in 2007, "It is one of those rare films from Hollywood’s Golden Age which has managed to transcend its era to entertain generations of moviegoers...". The film also ranked at number 28 on Empire's list of the 100 Greatest Movies of All Time, which stated: "Love, honour, thrills, wisecracks and a hit tune are among the attractions, which also include a perfect supporting cast of villains, sneaks, thieves, refugees and bar staff. But it's Bogart and Bergman's show, entering immortality as screen lovers reunited only to part. The irrefutible [sic] proof that great movies are accidents."[135] Screenwriting teacher Robert McKee maintains that the script is "the greatest screenplay of all time".[20] In 2006, the Writers Guild of America, West agreed, voting it the best ever in its list of the 101 greatest screenplays.[136]

The film has been selected by the American Film Institute for many of their lists of important American films:

Year Category Rank
1998 AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies 2
2001 AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills 37
2002 AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions 1
2003 AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains 4: Rick Blaine (hero)
2004 AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs 2: "As Time Goes By"
2005 AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes 5: "Here's looking at you, kid."
20: "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
28: "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By'."
32: "Round up the usual suspects."
43: "We'll always have Paris."
67: "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."
These six lines were the most of any film (Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz tied for second with three apiece). Also nominated for the list was "Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but 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."[137]
2006 AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers 32
2007 AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) 3

Interpretation

Casablanca has been subjected to many readings; Semioticians account for the film's popularity by claiming that its inclusion of stereotypes paradoxically strengthens the film.[138][139][140][141] Umberto Eco wrote:

Thus Casablanca is not just one film. It is many films, an anthology. Made haphazardly, it probably made itself, if not actually against the will of its authors and actors, then at least beyond their control. And this is the reason it works, in spite of aesthetic theories and theories of film making. For in it there unfolds with almost telluric force the power of Narrative in its natural state, without Art intervening to discipline it ... When all the archetypes burst in shamelessly, we reach Homeric depths. Two clichés make us laugh. A hundred clichés move us. For we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, and celebrating a reunion.[142][143]

Eco also singled out sacrifice as a theme, "the myth of sacrifice runs through the whole film".[144] It was this theme which resonated with a wartime audience that was reassured by the idea that painful sacrifice and going off to war could be romantic gestures done for the greater good.[145]

Koch also considered the film a political allegory. Rick is compared to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who gambled "on the odds of going to war until circumstance and his own submerged nobility force him to close his casino (partisan politics) and commit himself—first by financing the Side of Right and then by fighting for it". The connection is reinforced by the film's title, which means "white house".[146]

Harvey Greenberg presents a Freudian reading in his The Movies on Your Mind, in which the transgressions which prevent Rick from returning to the United States constitute an Oedipus complex, which is resolved only when Rick begins to identify with the father figure of Laszlo and the cause which he represents.[147] Sidney Rosenzweig argues that such readings are reductive and that the most important aspect of the film is its ambiguity, above all in the central character of Rick; he cites the different names which each character gives Rick (Richard, Ricky, Mr. Rick, Herr Rick and boss) as evidence of the different meanings which he has for each person.[148]

Home media releases

Casablanca was initially released on Betamax and VHS by Magnetic Video and later by CBS/Fox Video (as United Artists owned the rights at the time). It was next released on laserdisc in 1991, and on VHS in 1992—both from MGM/UA Home Entertainment (distributing for Turner Entertainment Co.), which at the time was distributed by Warner Home Video. It was first released on DVD in 1998 by MGM, containing the trailer and a making-of featurette (Warner Home Video reissued the DVD in 2000). A subsequent two-disc special edition, containing audio commentaries, documentaries, and a newly remastered visual and audio presentation, was released in 2003.[149]

An HD DVD was released on November 14, 2006, containing the same special features as the 2003 DVD.[150] Reviewers were impressed with the new high-definition transfer of the film.[151]

A Blu-ray release with new special features came out on December 2, 2008; it is also available on DVD.[152] The Blu-ray was initially only released as an expensive gift set with a booklet, a luggage tag and other assorted gift-type items. It was eventually released as a stand-alone Blu-ray in September 2009. On March 27, 2012, Warner released a new 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition Blu-ray/DVD combo set. It includes a brand-new 4K restoration and new bonus material.[153][154]

Cancelled sequels

Almost from the moment Casablanca became a hit, talk began of producing a sequel. One titled Brazzaville (in the final scene, Renault recommends fleeing to that Free French-held city) was planned, but never produced.[155] (A newspaper article at the time mentions that Bogart and Greenstreet "will continue their characterizations from the first film, and it's likely that Geraldine Fitzgerald will have an important role".[156]). Since then, no studio has seriously considered filming a sequel or outright remake. François Truffaut refused an invitation to remake the film in 1974, citing its cult status among American students as his reason.[157] Attempts to recapture the magic of Casablanca in other settings, such as Caboblanco (1980), "a South American-set retooling of Casablanca",[158] and Havana (1990)[159] have been poorly received.

Stories of a Casablanca remake or sequel nonetheless persist. In 2008, the Daily Mail reported that Madonna was pursuing a remake set in modern-day Iraq.[160] In 2012, both The Daily Telegraph and Entertainment Weekly reported on efforts by Cass Warner, granddaughter of Harry Warner and friend of the late Howard Koch, to produce a sequel featuring the search by Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lund's illegitimate son for the whereabouts of his biological father.[161][162]

Adaptations

The novel As Time Goes By, written by Michael Walsh and published in 1998, was authorized by Warner.[163][164] The novel picks up where the film leaves off, and also tells of Rick's mysterious past in America. The book met with little success.[165] David Thomson provided an unofficial sequel in his 1985 novel Suspects.[166]

There have been two short-lived television series based upon Casablanca, both sharing the title. The first, which aired on ABC as part of the wheel series Warner Bros. Presents in hour-long episodes from 1955 to 1956, is a Cold War espionage program set contemporaneously with its production, and starred Charles McGraw as Rick and Marcel Dalio, who played Emil the croupier in the movie, as the police chief.[167] The second series, briefly broadcast on NBC in April 1983, starred David Soul as Rick and was canceled after three weeks.[157]

There were several radio adaptations of the film. The two best-known were a thirty-minute adaptation on The Screen Guild Theater on April 26, 1943, starring Bogart, Bergman, and Henreid, and an hour-long version on the Lux Radio Theater on January 24, 1944, featuring Alan Ladd as Rick, Hedy Lamarr as Ilsa, and John Loder as Victor Laszlo. Two other thirty-minute adaptations were aired, one on Philip Morris Playhouse on September 3, 1943, and the other on Theater of Romance on December 19, 1944, in which Dooley Wilson reprised his role as Sam.[168]

Julius Epstein made two attempts to turn the film into a Broadway musical, in 1951 and 1967, but neither made it to the stage.[169] The original play, Everybody Comes to Rick's, was produced in Newport, Rhode Island, in August 1946, and again in London in April 1991, but met with no success.[170] The film was adapted into a musical by the Takarazuka Revue, an all-female Japanese musical theater company, and ran from November 2009 through February 2010.[171]

Colorization
Stills from the controversial colorized version

Casablanca was part of the film colorization controversy of the 1980s,[172] when a colorized version aired on the television network WTBS. In 1984, MGM/UA hired Color Systems Technology to colorize the film for $180,000.[173] When Ted Turner of Turner Broadcasting System purchased MGM/UA's film library two years later, he canceled the request, before contracting American Film Technologies (AFT) in 1988. AFT completed the colorization in two months at a cost of $450,000.[173] Turner later reacted to the criticism of the colorization, saying, "[Casablanca] is one of a handful of films that really doesn't have to be colorized. I did it because I wanted to. All I'm trying to do is protect my investment."[173]

The Library of Congress deemed that the color change differed so much from the original film that it gave a new copyright to Turner Entertainment. When the colorized film debuted on WTBS, it was watched by three million viewers, not making the top-ten viewed cable shows for the week. Although Jack Matthews of the Los Angeles Times called the finished product "state of the art", it was mostly met with negative critical reception.[173] It was briefly available on home video. Gary Edgerton, writing for the Journal of Popular Film & Television criticized the colorization, "... Casablanca in color ended up being much blander in appearance and, overall, much less visually interesting than its 1942 predecessor."[173] Bogart's son Stephen said, "if you're going to colorize Casablanca, why not put arms on the Venus de Milo?"[157]

Inaccuracies and a misquote

Several unfounded rumors and misconceptions have grown up around the film, one being that Ronald Reagan was originally chosen to play Rick. This originated in a press release issued by the studio early on in the film's development, but by that time the studio already knew that he was going into the Army, and he was never seriously considered.[174] George Raft claimed that he had turned down the lead role. Studio records make clear that Wallis was committed to Bogart from the start.[175]

Another story is that the actors did not know until the last day of shooting how the film was to end. Koch later acknowledged:

When we began, we didn't have a finished script ... Ingrid Bergman came to me and said, 'Which man should I love more...?' I said to her, 'I don't know ... play them both evenly.' You see we didn't have an ending, so we didn't know what was going to happen![176]

However, while rewrites did occur during filming, Aljean Harmetz's examination of the scripts has shown that many of the key scenes were shot after Bergman knew how the film would end; any confusion was, according to critic Roger Ebert, "emotional", not "factual".[19]

The film has several logical flaws, one being the two "letters of transit" that enable their bearers to leave Vichy French territory. According to the audio , Ugarte says the letters had been signed by (depending on the listener) either Vichy General Weygand or Free French General de Gaulle. The French subtitles on the official DVD read Weygand; the English ones specify de Gaulle. Weygand had been the Vichy delegate-general for the North African colonies until November 1941, a month before the film is set. But de Gaulle was the head of the Free French government in exile, so a letter signed by him would have provided no benefit.[41] The letters were invented as a MacGuffin by Joan Alison for the original play and never questioned.[177]

In the same vein, though Laszlo asserts that the Nazis cannot arrest him, saying, "This is still unoccupied France; any violation of neutrality would reflect on Captain Renault," Ebert points out, "It makes no sense that he could walk around freely. ... He would be arrested on sight."[19] In addition, no uniformed German troops were stationed in Casablanca during World War II, and neither American nor French troops occupied Berlin in 1918.[41]

According to Harmetz, the usual route out of Germany, at least for people in the film industry, was not via Morocco and Lisbon but via Vienna, Prague, Paris and England. Only the film's technical adviser, Robert Aisner, traced the path to Morocco shown in the film's opening scene.[178]

A line closely associated with Casablanca—"Play it again, Sam"—is not spoken in the film.[179][180] When Ilsa first enters the Café Americain, she spots Sam and asks him to "Play it once, Sam, for old times' sake." After he feigns ignorance, she responds, "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By'." Later that night, alone with Sam, Rick says, "You played it for her, you can play it for me," and "If she can stand it, I can! Play it!"

gollark: > but you can at least build arbitrary pure expressions using the free variable button and bindingYou can?
gollark: I am in fact FINE with the monadoforms!
gollark: Not even that! It just doesn't seem to be able to even have, well, any cool combinators.
gollark: Some offense.
gollark: Anyway, this is not a great game and not λ-calculusy thus I do not like it.

References

Notes

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  2. "Casablanca (U)". Warner Bros. British Board of Film Classification. December 17, 1942. Archived from the original on September 21, 2013. Retrieved September 20, 2013.
  3. Thomas Schatz, Boom and Bust: American Cinema in the 1940s Uni of California Press, 1999 p. 218
  4. Warner Bros financial information in "The William Shaefer Ledger". See Appendix 1, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television (1995) 15:sup 1, 1–31 p. 23 doi:10.1080/01439689508604551
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