Occupied French Morocco. Stolen letters of transit. A smoky café. An airport shrouded in fog. Everybody comes to Rick’s.
This Valentine’s Day, curl up with Casablanca, one of the most beloved and (mis)quoted films of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Its plot is deceptively simple. Relentlessly cynical Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) presides over ‘Rick’s Café Americain’, Casablanca’s premiere nightspot. Here, refugees fleeing war-torn Europe drink, gamble and desperately jostle on the black market for exit visas to the United States.
Rick himself is a world-weary pragmatist who “sticks [his] neck out for nobody”, maintaining a cordial relationship with the acerbic, amoral Vichy Captain of Police, Louis Renault (Claude Rains). Amid the flood of fugitives are Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) and Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman), forcing Rick to choose between his sense of duty and the love of his life.
Casablanca’s tortuous production is now the stuff of legend. Humphrey Bogart was not the first choice for what was to become his signature role. It took six writers to convert Murray Burnett and Joan Alison’s unproduced Broadway play Everybody Comes to Rick’s into a film script, with screenwriters Julius and Philip Epstein writing new dialogue almost until the final day of shooting.
Even Bergman didn’t know whether Ilsa would stay with Rick or leave with Laszlo.
That none of the behind-the-scenes turmoil appears onscreen is nothing short of miraculous. Director Michael Curtiz unfolds the narrative with confidence and economy—viewers accustomed to the two hours-plus running time of contemporary American features might be surprised by this film’s comparative brevity.
A pristine example of classical Hollywood’s ‘invisible style’, Casablanca combines lush black and white photography and chiaroscuro lighting with seamless editing, constructing an entirely credible milieu for Rick and Ilsa’s story.
Yet the true joy of the picture lies in its superb performances. A luminous Bergman provides the perfect foil for Bogart’s charismatic loner, guilt-stricken, insecure and thoroughly captivating. Paul Henreid enlivens the somewhat bland role of the courageous, crusading Victor, leading a rousing rendition of La Marseillaise that has become cinematic shorthand for resistance. Curtiz and producer Hal B. Wallis filled the cast with some of Warner Bros.’ finest character actors: Conrad Veidt as the villainous Major Strasse, Sydney Greenstreet as racketeer Ferrari and a dastardly Peter Lorre as Ugarte. But the real scene stealer is Claude Rains, whose mellifluous, dry delivery perfectly complements the Epsteins’ caustic wit.
Winning three Academy Awards in 1943 (Best Adapted Screenplay, Director and Film), Casablanca is an enduring classic, influencing everything from The Usual Suspects to the Loony Toons. The world will always welcome lovers, as time goes by.
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