My Favorite Films: Casablanca (1942)

It's still the same old story

A fight for love and glory

A case of do or die

The world will always welcome lovers

As time goes by...

     We're 10 minutes into Casablanca before we meet the film's protagonist, Humphrey Bogart's Rick Blaine. In the meantime the film has established the world of Casablanca itself, a dangerous hive of villainy and murder and a crossroads for refugees trying to escape to the neutral United States. They are preyed upon by opportunistic criminals, like Peter Lorre's Ugarte, a petty thief whose theft of two letters of transit from German officials sets the plot in motion, and by the local authorities like Claude Rains Captain Renault, the leader of the local Vichy French police who is not adverse to using his position to take advantage of desperate refugees of the young feminine variety. As a group of immigrants watch a plane departing overhead a young Bulgarian refugee, played by Joy Page, tells her lover "Perhaps tomorrow we'll be on the plane."

     The setting of Casablanca is just as important to its success as its story is. From the smoky, dimly lit interior of Rick's Café Americain, to the airport, the symbol of escape for so many of the refugees, to the dangerous, exotic streets of Casablanca itself, the film creates a unique world where one's life or death is left to the winds of chance. As Conrad Veidt's Major Strasser says later in the film "Perhaps you have already observed that in Casablanca human life is cheap." One has to wonder what kind of person would choose to live in a place like this willingly.

     Rick Blaine is an enigma. He doesn't drink with his customers and he neglects his mistress Yvonne. His only concern, seemingly, is to manage his bar in peace. He treats his employees with respect and dignity and tries to keep his customers happy. We find out that he is a former mercenary, having run guns to Ethiopia during its war with Italy and having fought against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War. He also criticizes Ugarte for taking advantage of the refugees by charging them too much for their visas. It seems he was once a man of conviction but then we see him stand by while Ugarte is arrested despite his asking Rick for help. "I stick my neck out for nobody" he says. As the film goes on, more and more layers to his character are revealed.

     First we meet Ingrid Berman's Ilsa, a mysterious woman from his past, the memory of whom is bitter to Rick. She is now married to Paul Henreid's Victor Laszlo, a fugitive Czech Resistance leader. Her reappearance greatly unsettles Rick who begins to reflect on his past. It is revealed, through flashback, that Rick and Ilsa were once lovers who met in Paris shortly before the Nazi occupation. When the Germans invaded France Rick was forced to flee and Ilsa abandoned him leaving only a note saying, "I cannot go with you or ever see you again. You must not ask why. Just believe that I love you." We now see what made Rick into the bitter, apathetic man he has become and when Ilsa comes to the bar to explain why she left him he rudely rebuffs her, even making a veiled suggestion that she's a whore.

"Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine."

     After he recovers from his state of drunken despondency we see that Ilsa's arrival has reawakened in Rick a sense of justice and fair play. When Joy Page's Annina comes to him to ask his advice in dealing with Captain Renault, who has promised her and her husband an exit visa in exchange for certain favors, he arranges for her husband to win at the his roulette table so they can pay for their visa. He has aided them despite the personal cost to him and his bar. Convinced that she will eventually come back to him, Rick begins to pursue Ilsa again but, resentful of the way he treated her the night before, she spurns his advances. However, she and Victor need Rick, as he is in possession the letters of transit that Ugarte was carrying when he was captured. When he refuses to sell them to Laszlo, she tries to take them from him at gunpoint, only to break down and confess that she is still in love with him.

     Ilsa, we learn, met Laszlo when she was quite young and became impassioned by his cause and inspired by his noble sense of idealism. The two fell in love. When she met Rick in Paris she had already been married to Laszlo for many years but believed that he had died in a concentration camp. When she learned that he was still alive she decided to withhold the truth from Rick, fearing that he would try to stay in Paris to help her and then be arrested by the Nazis. Instead she left him without any explanation. This event took an emotional toll on both Ilsa and Rick, and neither person has recovered.

     Ilsa tells Rick that she can no longer bear to be separated from him and begs him to help Victor escape. So Rick is faced with a few choices. Should he help Laszlo escape and rekindle his relationship with Ilsa or should he let her go with him? We are kept in suspense about this until the final moments of the film, where Rick, having tricked Captain Renault into aiding Lazlo's escape, tells Ilsa that she must go with him because he needs her in order to continue his work and "the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." Their sacrifice, set against the backdrop of the then still waging Second World War, is one of the great moments in cinema. However, this is not the end for Rick but rather a new beginning, as Captain Renault decides to cover up what his part in Lazlo's escape and the two men set off away from Casablanca to the Free French Garrison at Brazzaville.

     Like most big budget Hollywood films Casablanca was largely a collaborative effort, rather then the work of a single visionary or auteur, and every aspect of the film, from the conceptualization to the writing, the casting, the direction, the scoring and editing came together perfectly. Impressed by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison's unproduced play, Everybody Comes to Rick's, Warner Brother's story editor Irene Diamond convinced producer Hal B. Wallis to buy the script early in 1942.

     Julius and Philip Epstein were the first writers assigned to the film and they brought to it a great sense of wit. It's thanks to them that we have such quotable lines as "Remember, this gun is pointed right at your heart." "…That is my least vulnerable spot" and "I like to think you killed a man. It’s the Romantic in me…" The Epsteins left the screenplay unfinished early in 1942 to work on the Frank Capra's Why We Fight. In their absence Howard Koch was assigned to replace them. Koch put more emphasis on the political and dramatic aspects of the story, fleshing out Rick's background as a freedom fighter and placing more emphasis on his relationship with Renault. Finally, Casey Robinson was brought on to do rewrites and he contributed many of the film's romantic scenes, including the scene where Rick and Ilsa  meet again for the first time. With all these disparate visions for the screenplay it's a wonder that the final result, a brilliant fusion of biting wit and heartfelt sentimentality, is so cohesive.

     This is largely thanks to Hal Wallis, who was the script's final editor. He wrote the iconic closing line, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship," after the production had wrapped and Bogart was called in to dub it. Wallis is often credited as the one unifying creative force behind Casablanca and his contributions cannot be overlooked, particularly when it comes to the film's casting. 

     A good script, or even a great one, is nothing without talented actors to perform it and Casablanca was perfectly cast. Humphrey Bogart's Rick Blaine and Ingrid Bergman's Ilsa Lund have become so ingrained into the popular collective consciousness that it is difficult to separate their performances from their characters. Bogart is Rick and Bergman is Ilsa. Yet, when the film was in preproduction neither were the studio's first choice. They wanted George Raft as Rick and Ann Sheridan as Ilsa. But, watching the film, it is impossible to imagine anyone else in their roles. Bogart makes Rick's sense of loss and despair palpable. His naturalistic acting is perfect for the role. Watching his performance before he loses Ilsa in the flashback, he seems almost like a different person. Similarly Bergman adds another layer of depth to her character. There's is no indication, in the screenplay, of when Ilsa discovers that Lazlo is still alive but by watching her performance it becomes immediately apparent. Her interactions with Rick become much more guarded, her glances furtive.

     Dooley Wilson is also great as Rick's best friend and confidante Sam. In many ways he is the bridge between Rick and Ilsa and Wilson's subtle performance betrays a depth of friendship that is apparent almost immediately. Wilson, a vaudeville performer since the age of 12, sings the films signature tune along with most of the music in Rick's bar, contributing greatly to the film's sense of atmosphere. Paul Henreid, though not as charismatic as his costars, provides the film with its moral center as Victor Lazlo, a completely selfless man and charismatic leader, who pursues his cause with total conviction. Claude Rains on the other hand, provides the film with a great deal of levity and moral ambiguity. He perfectly captures Captain Renault's sarcastic wit and sense of irony. His conversations with Rick are brilliantly guarded. Though they never say it out loud, it's clear that both men have a mutual dislike of the political situation in Casablanca, one which they reluctantly cooperate with.

     The supporting cast is made up of experienced character actors, all of whom absolutely inhabit their roles. Conrad Veidt, is practically dripping with arrogant menace as the film's antagonist Major Strasser. Peter Lorre is his usual slimy yet strangely compelling self in his few minutes of screentime as Ugarte. Sydney Greenstreet's brings his intimidating physical presence fully to bear as the duplicitous Signor Ferrari. S. Z. Sakall brings his typical warmth and tenderness to the role of Carl, the waiter at Rick's who is also involved in smuggling émigrés out of Casablanca. The film is also filled with smaller, bit players. From Joy Page and Helmut Dantine's starry eyed immigrant lovers, to Madeleine LeBeau's kept woman Yvonne, to the pickpocket played by Curt Bois, everyone in Casablanca seems to have a story of there own, their own thoughts and desires. Many of these actors, including Bergman and Henreid, were themselves refugees from the war, adding a very personal touch to their performances. This helps to make the world of the film feel more fully realized.

     Casablanca was directed by Michael Curtiz, one of Hollywood's most prolific directors, but one without a really distinct artistic voice. His approach to directing was wonderfully minimalistic. In a Curtiz picture, the shot composition is always motivated by the demands of the story. Thus we see Ilsa and Rick framed in opposition to one another in the scene where she first comes to him to try and explain why she left, with Bogart in shadow on the right representing his intransigence in the scene and Ilsa under the light on the right, representing her position of open entreaty. His use of fluid camera movement is particularly impressive. In a many scenes the camera will effortlessly track from one character to another or from a medium shot to a wide within a single take. This kind of one shot really invites the viewer into the environment. The film was photographed by veteran cinematographer Arthur Edeson, who previous credits included All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) and The Maltese Falcon (1941). Edeson's use of light and shadow gives the film a distinct visual flavor, with many scenes having an expressionistic quality typical of film noir. Once again, Hal B. Wallis made significant contributions to the film here, insisting on all kinds of period details, including the live parrot seen at Ferrari's place. He also suggested the lower, more realistic lighting of Rick's Café.

     The musical score, by the legendary Max Steiner (who also composed the scores for King Kong (1933), Gone with the Wind (1939), The Searchers (1956) just to name a few), makes brilliant use of leitmotif. The three main musical themes in the score are based around the French national anthem, "La Marseillaise", the German patriotic anthem, the "Die Wacht am Rhein" (which Steiner also used in Sergeant York a year before) and of course Herman Hupfeld's "As Time Goes By", the use of which carried over from Burnett's play. In one of the film's most stirringly patriotic moments "La Marseillaise" is sung by the people in Rick's bar to defy the German's, who are singing "Wacht am Rhein". Throughout, Steiner uses these melodies to represent the Nazis and the forces of freedom and liberation, respectively. "As Time Goes By" is used to represent the relationship between Rick and Ilsa. This was the last song the two lovers heard in Paris before they were separated and, when Ilsa recognizes Sam in Rick's bar she asks him to it play again "for old times sake" in one of the most misquoted lines in movie history (Bergman never actually utters the line "play it again Sam"). Steiner was reluctant to use this song initially, preferring to write his own tune which he could then profit from, but it turned out to be a perfect encapsulation of the film's bittersweet love story.

     A perfect confluence of writing, directing and acting Casablanca is about as flawless as movies come. It's an eminently entertaining mix of adventure, intrigue and romance that has something for everybody, no matter your age or taste. They really don't make them like this anymore. The film just has this sense of class and elegance that have made it endure over the past 75 years. As time goes by Casablanca remains the quintessential Hollywood picture.