| Collector's Corner June 2002
 Casablanca
- Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman,
Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre
- Directed by: Michael Curtiz
- Theatrical release: 1942
- DVD release: 2000
- Video: Original Aspect Ratio (1.33:1)
- Sound: Dolby Digital (mono)
We'll always have Paris.
-- Rick
It’s World War II. The Nazis are running rampant over
Europe and North Africa. People are trying to escape, many seeking the U.S. through
Casablanca. Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) owns Rick’s Café Américain, the hot spot
in Casablanca for drinking, gambling, and forged exit visas. In the first fifteen minutes,
we learn that Rick is cynical, attractive to women, and seemingly a-political. "I
stick my neck out for nobody," he tells Captain Renault (Claude Rains). The Captain
demurs: "I suspect that under that cynical shell, you are, at heart, a
sentimentalist." We’ll find out soon because Ilsa Lund Laszlo (Ingrid Bergman)
and her Nazi-fighting husband, Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) show up at Rick’s trying
to escape the Germans. The one hitch: during a period when Victor was in a concentration
camp, Ilsa had thought he was dead. She met Rick in Paris and they fell in love. When she
found out her husband was alive, she left Rick, a bitter and brokenhearted shell of his
former self. Rick’s rage at being abandoned leads him to refuse help to Ilsa and
Victor. How will they escape? Will Rick finally help them?
When Casablanca premiered on November 26, 1942, the
U.S. was embroiled in WWII. Bogart, at age 43, was a rising star, having appeared in High
Sierra and The Maltese Falcon. Hungarian director Michael Curtiz had won
plaudits for his expert work on a number of westerns, costume dramas, and swashbucklers,
notably, Dodge City, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, and The
Adventures of Robin Hood. He had a style of using shadows and darkness that was
totally European, similar to fellow Austro-Hungarian Billy Wilder (Double Indemnity)
and Englishman James Whale (The Bride of Frankenstein). Most interesting for the
hormonally charged GIs of the day, Ingrid Bergman was not only a foxy 27-year-old Swedish
beauty; she was a stellar actress that could reduce the toughest to tears. The U.S. was
embroiled in a struggle both noble and dangerous, so a movie about nobility and danger was
bound to tug at the ticket-buying public’s emotions. And anyway, we all love a
romance. No one, including the producers, crew, or stars, had an inkling they were
producing one of the world’s favorite movies.
Casablanca was made on the cheap with no
expectations. We now think of these actors as icons. True, they had hits, but Bogart was
closer to the level Hugh Jackman enjoys today; Bergman had similar star power to Reese
Witherspoon. Both were stars, no doubt. But they didn’t carry the resonance or the
weighted preconceptions that they hold for modern viewers. "Here’s looking at
you, kid." "We’ll always have Paris." "Play it, Sam. Play
‘As Time Goes By’." All these lines are part of our vernacular. In 1942,
they were just lines in a script.
People call the twenty years ending in 1948 the Golden Age
of Hollywood because even a cheap film with no expectations could have a spectacular cast,
brilliant writing, symphonic-scale music, artful photography, and perfect direction. Casablanca
may not have the personal stamp of an auteur-ized sixties flick, but it does have a
deep sense of professionalism and craftsmanship. Scenes are set up perfectly, the flow is
natural, and each act leads naturally to the next. You feel as though this crew could have
made a reading of the Casablanca phone book fascinating. In my eyes, the cut-rate
production pays striking dividends. Without the budget for a cast of thousands or the time
to shoot each scene from dozens of angles, the crew had to work in an economical style.
Dialogue had to be tight and powerful. There wasn’t time or money for hundreds of
locations. Cardboard airplanes and painted backdrops don’t detract one iota from the
power. If anything, they lend Casablanca even more of a sense of timelessness.
One place the Warner brothers didn’t skimp was on
actors. In an extravagant display of their payroll, the cream of Hollywood’s
character actors, Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet, and Dooley Wilson parade through in
short roles. Claude Rains (Now, Voyager; Lawrence of Arabia) nearly pilfers
the picture as the cunning Captain Renault. With his hand in every till in town, a
well-developed network of graft, and his playful scoffing at the law, he brings both
comedy and capriciousness to the role. Clearly addicted to the women, he seems almost
equally smitten with Rick. At one point, he describes Rick to Ilsa: "Well,
mademoiselle, he’s the kind of man that, well, if I were a woman and I (points to
himself) were not around, I should be in love with Rick." For those of you who
remember the ending, that line carries some significance.
Bogart was always cynically self-deprecating. When
complimented on his acting in Casablanca, he replied that, "If a face like
Ingrid Bergman's looks at you as though you're adorable, everybody does. You don't have to
act very much." Yet the power he brings to the role is stunning. Listen to his
sarcastic jargon and imagine any other actor being able to deliver those lines and
still seem both sympathetic and serious. Yet, when he is overtaken by love lost, we
believe his anguish. In chapter 15, Rick hits the table and chokes, "Of all the gin
joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." He looks on the verge
of losing it. Later, Ilsa walks in and he turns as cold and mean as the bastard offspring
of a black widow and a rattlesnake. We know he’s been hurt, deeply, but he’s not
afraid of pain. He stares it in the face and shakes his fist at it.
As the cause of all this pain, Ingrid Bergman brings a ripe
vulnerability, both of the stand-by-my-man type and the earnestly broken-hearted variety.
The camera clearly loves her. Shot in every conceivable type of shadow, with her clear
eyes welling up with water, Bergman ascends to the stature of one of film’s all-time
great beauties. She is a character to be both devotedly loved and obsessively safeguarded.
As, of course, both men do. Curtiz helped her immeasurably by being coy with her. She
didn’t know whether she would end up with Rick or Victor until the last day of
filming. When she asked Curtiz how to play it, he told her to "play it
in-between."
The last twelve minutes of the film (chapters 33-35)
constitute one of Hollywood’s finest endings: poignant, thrilling, romantic, and
funny. As a reminder, remember this scene, as Rick is saying goodbye to Ilsa:
Rick: Last night we said a great many
things. You said I was to do the thinking for both of us. Well, I've done a lot of it
since then, and it all adds up to one thing: you're getting on that plane with Victor
where you belong.
Ilsa: But, Richard, no, I . . . I . . .
Rick: Now, you've got to listen to me! You have any idea what you'd
have to look forward to if you stayed here? Nine chances out of ten, we'd both wind up in
a concentration camp. Isn't that true, Louie?
Captain Renault: I'm afraid Major Strasser would insist.
Ilsa: You're saying this only to make me go.
Rick: I'm saying it because it's true. Inside of us, we both know you
belong with Victor. You're part of his work, the thing that keeps him going. If that plane
leaves the ground and you're not with him, you'll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not
tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.
Ilsa: But what about us?
Rick: We'll always have Paris. We didn't have. We . . . we lost it
until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.
Ilsa: When I said I would never leave you.
Rick: And you never will. But I've got a job to do, too. Where I'm
going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of. 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. Someday you'll understand that. (She
starts to cry) Now, now . . . (He gently touches her chin and raises her face. She smiles
bravely through her tears. He gives her an uncharacteristically tender look.) Here's
looking at you kid.
The movie ends with all of the loose ends neatly tied and a
sense of hope for all involved. As I finished watching Casablanca for probably the
tenth time in my life, I was struck by the fact that it is one of the few films I know of
that actually gets better every single time I watch it, which makes it the perfect
candidate for purchase on DVD. Thankfully, Warner Home Video has done a good job on the
mastering. The shadows are dark and the timeless black and white photography is reproduced
probably better than you would have seen it in the theater upon release. There is also a
good documentary narrated by Mrs. Bogart (Lauren Bacall) that includes interviews with a
few of the crew (most are deceased) and lots of fascinating talking heads. My personal
favorite is Henry Mancini talking about the magnificent score by Max Steiner. There is
also a trailer as well as eight other trailers from Bogie movies. Warner saw fit to
release two versions. One is a big box set with lots of toys for Casablanca
fanatics. But $80 is too much on a humble writer’s salary. I opted instead for the
cheaper standard version at $24.99 list (I paid $19.99). Either way, you get the same
disc. The important thing is to get it. This is classic Hollywood.
...Wes Marshall
wesm@hometheatersound.com |
