It goes without saying that Casablanca is a film that all movie fans should see. And for those who have seen it before, it is certainly worth revisiting. The film is commonly ranked among the best of movies and deals with issues that far transcend cinematic art. Many of its images and lines of dialogue are iconic, and in its acting, directing, cinematography, and script there really isn't a single weak link.
Starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, Casablanca began production in May of 1942, less than six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor and American entry into World War II. The world situation was dire. Much of Europe and Asia were under the control of fascists or communists and the outcome of the war was hardly certain. The film brilliantly captures the danger and uncertainty of a war time atmosphere.
Set in late 1941, Humphrey Bogart portrays Rick Blaine, an ex-patriot American who, for reasons never revealed, cannot return to the United States. Rick opens a popular saloon in Casablanca, Morocco. The city, under the control of the Vichy and Nazi regimes, is a destination for many escaping Europe and desperate to obtain exit-visas to America.
Unexpectedly Ilsa Lund (played by a radiant Bergman) and her husband, Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), visit Rick's saloon. Rick is taken aback because he had an intense affair with Ilsa while they were both in Paris and where he was under the impression that she was not married. Rick and Ilsa were to have left Paris on the last train leaving the city before the Nazi's occupied it. However, standing in the station as the train begins to depart, Rick receives a note from Ilsa stating that for reasons she cannot disclose she cannot join him. The experience has left Rick deeply wounded and cynical.
Ilsa's husband is a world renowned Resistance leader who has escaped from a German concentration camp. Rick has come into possession of two exit visas signed by no less than Charles de Gaulle. The central point of tension in the movie is whether Rick will overcome his bitterness at Ilsa and give her and Laszlo the exit visas which would allow Laszlo to continue his work in the U.S. Or perhaps Rick will decide to use the exit visas for Ilsa and himself, leaving Laszlo in the clutches of the Vichy French and Nazis.
Casablanca won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1943. In addition to Bogart and Bergman, the movie has a superlative supporting cast including Peter Lorre, Claude Rains, Dooley Wilson, Conrad Veidt and Sydney Greenstreet. Veidt makes a particularly chilling and reptilian villain as Nazi Major Heinrich Strasser. Veidt, whose wife was Jewish, was himself a refugee from Nazi Germany. Veidt also had a prominent role in the 1920 German film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari which is, of course, considered one of the most important silent films.
Casablanca is expertly directed by Michael Curtiz and the screenplay by Howard Koch, Philip Epstein and Julius Epstein is pithy and at times quite eloquent. Life apparently imitated art during the course of the production as the actors did not know until the final scene was shot how the movie would end. I think it is commonly assumed that none involved with the movie realized during the production how truly remarkable the film would ultimately be.
Casablanca demonstrates that movies can act as a moral force. Much of the film has a cynical, ambiguous tone which is only shed in its final minutes. The ultimate message of the movie is that there are times when a person has to emerge from a moral haze and make a decision whether to do - or not do - the right thing. And in a world that is consumed with "Me" and self-advancement, Casablanca also demonstrates that moral acts often involve an element of self-sacrifice, and sometimes great self-sacrifice. It is a message and a film that is well worth visiting and regularly re-visiting.
- Paul Hansen