MOVIE OF THE WEEK: CASABLANCA

Casablanca (Not Rated)

1942

102 Minutes

Fullscreen: 1.33:1

Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) is a café owner in the Moroccan town of Casablanca. The club is packed with refugees, soldiers, gamblers, and more. Some are trying to escape Europe, while others are simply having a good time in the jazzy atmosphere. Although surrounded much misfortune, Rick will stick his neck out for no one. He remains resentful and although nobody knows why, most are afraid to ask.

One night, a man named Ugarte (Peter Lorre) comes into the bar with two valuable letters of transit. With one of these magic envelopes, a person can travel all around Europe with no questions asked by the Nazis. Ugarte killed two Germans to get the priceless passes and his plan is to auction them off at the club to a couple of people who have yet to arrive. But before he can sell, he’s arrested by the double-dealing Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains) of the Vichy officials in charge of the local police. None of them realize, however, that Ugarte handed the letters to Rick for safekeeping.

As the letter purchasers arrive at the club later, Rick’s past comes back to haunt him. Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) was Rick’s former girlfriend from Paris. They loved each other and as the war started, she was to meet him at a train station to evacuate. But she didn’t and she left him a “Dear John” letter. Ever since, he’s lived his days sullenly at the club. But now that she’s back, Rick learns the truth. Ilsa had a husband when they met, but she thought he’d been murdered at a concentration camp. Before she could leave Paris with Rick, she discovered that he was alive and they left quietly for fear Rick might blow their escape.

Ilsa and her husband, Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), had been in the Czech Resistance as they are now and they desperately need the letters to continue their fight. But what should Rick do? With Ilsa here, he could continue his life with her, send Laszlo over, and use the letters to get them both out of Casablanca. Or should he do the honorable thing and give them the passes?

Hidden Valley, the salad dressing company, has a slogan that reads “It’s the way ranch is supposed to taste.” It can also be said that “Casablanca” is the way movies are supposed to be. That’s right. I just made a segue from salad dressing to one of the greatest movies of all time. So sue me. But anyways, “Casablanca” has earned its #3 position on the AFI Top 100 List for a reason. With its superb acting, crackling dialogue, memorable characters, and excellent score by Max Steiner, it just has a classic feel. But before it won Best Picture in 1943, it went through several production problems.

Murray Burnett is the genius behind it all. While visiting Vienna in the late 1930s to help their Jewish family, he and his wife discovered the carnage and depression created by the Nazis. Afterwards, they went to a small town in France with a nightclub inhabited by French citizens, Nazis, and refugees. While the previous environment had been horrible, this place was happy and a black man was playing jazz for everyone. Burnett decided to write a play based on it, but none of the New York theaters were interested. So he, and his writing partner Joan Alison, sold their script, “Everybody Comes to Rick’s,” to Warner Brothers.

The movie was filmed during 1942 at a time when the studios were cranking out a new film every week. Nobody expected it to be anything special, but the finest detail went into the production of the screenplay. The title was changed to the more manageable “Casablanca” and the screenwriters shifted the script around so much that it was still unfinished during production. Changes were also applied to simple lines such as “here’s looking at you kid.” It was originally “here’s good luck to you.”

Casting is amazing in this film. Humphrey Bogart, who was just starting his career on the A list, plays a leading man you love to watch. Ingrid Bergman is a sweet and salty heroine. But Claude Rains is the stand out as the corrupt Louis Renault whose rules are more guidelines than anything else.

But after everything was finished, a masterpiece was amazingly born. And it will remain loved and celebrated no matter what the future brings, as time goes by.

Grade: A

And that's why "Casablanca" is the Movie of the Week.

P.S. Here's the film's trailer.