The Movie Book (Big Ideas Simply Explained) (2016)

IN CONTEXT

GENRE

Romantic drama

DIRECTOR

Michael Curtiz

WRITERS

J. J. and P. G. Epstein, Howard E. Koch, Casey Robinson

STARS

Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid

BEFORE

1938 Algiers, a romantic thriller starring Hedy Lamarr, is set in North Africa.

1941 The Maltese Falcon makes Humphrey Bogart a star.

AFTER

1944 In To Have and Have Not, Bogart and Lauren Bacall star in another Resistance story.

Made at the height of World War II, Casablanca is a romance set in neutral Morocco, just as the fighting is getting uncomfortably close.

Few of those working on the production thought they were making a great movie. Ingrid Bergman, who had not been the producers’ first choice, was anxious to move on to For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943); and by all accounts, there was no love lost between Humphrey Bogart and Paul Henreid, who played his rival for Bergman’s heart. And yet the movie was an instant success.

At the end of the movie, Bogart’s character Rick says, “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.” Casablanca manages to make its audience feel that the problems of these people are the most important thing they can imagine. As we discover part way through the movie, Rick, the cynical, hard-drinking owner of Rick’s Café Américain, an upmarket nightclub, has been stung in Paris by the sudden desertion of his lover, Ilsa (Bergman), as the Germans were invading. Hurt, he has retreated to Casablanca, a town full of spies, Nazi collaborators, Resistance fighters, and desperate refugees.

Warner Bros. promoted the movie as a typical romance of its time, little thinking that it would become one of the most popular movies ever made.

“Play it, Sam. Play As Time Goes By.”

Ilsa Lund / Casablanca

Sam, the pianist at Rick’s Café (center), was played by Dooley Wilson. He was a band leader and a drummer, but not a piano player, and had to mime.

The shadow of war

“I stick my neck out for nobody,” says Rick. In reply to Major Strasser’s question, “What is your nationality?” Rick’s reply is, “I’m a drunkard.” But in a telling parallel with the real war, such a neutral stance proves impossible. In his bar, different factions end an evening competing with their national anthems, and Rick must choose sides. He allows the band to play the Marseillaise to drown out the Germans. At the very time Casablanca was being filmed, a previously neutral US joined the fight against Germany and Japan, and, as it premiered in New York in November 1942, the Allies were advancing on the Axis powers to capture Casablanca for real.

When Ilsa arrives at his club, Rick is decidedly cool toward her, commenting wryly: “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” But Ilsa still loves Rick. Her Resistance-fighter husband, Victor Laszlo (Henreid), turned up alive when she believed him to be dead, and that is why she abandoned Rick. When Rick discovers that Ilsa and Laszlo need his help, he is forced to make a choice. Does he keep the papers they need, and so keep Ilsa, or does he let her go? In the end, Rick does the noble thing, and puts Ilsa on a plane to freedom with Laszlo. In a heartrending parting, as they stand by the plane, he explains why she would regret it if she stayed with him: “Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.” It’s a deeply poignant moment. While the audience longs for the romance to endure, it recognizes that nobility must win the day.

Rick tells Ilsa at the airport that she must get on the plane with her Resistance-fighter husband, Victor Laszlo.

"It is a movie to play again, and again."

Sheila Johnston
The Daily Telegraph, 2014

Enduring appeal

When Rick tells Ilsa, “You’re getting on that plane with Victor where you belong,” the audience vicariously shares his heroism and her self-denial—basking in the reflected glory of renouncing romantic love for the greater good. Clearly a powerful message at the time of the movie’s release, it has not lost any of its power over the years. Indeed, audiences today may be tempted to look back on a better, albeit fictional, world, in which personal gratification appeared less likely to prevail over the common cause, while the on-screen chemistry of the movie’s stars enhances the viewer’s pleasure at identifying with them.

However, the movie’s appeal does not lie in the passion and selflessness of its leads alone. It has a strong cast of minor characters, including a black-marketeer played by Peter Lorre and a police chief by Claude Rains. Both play morally ambiguous roles in a corrupt world, yet are ultimately redeemed along with cynical, hard-drinking Rick.

“You’re getting on that plane with Victor where you belong.”

Rick / Casablanca

Actors Henreid, Bogart, and Bergman did not know, until the final day of shooting, who would get on the plane. This uncertainty contributed to the emotional ambivalence of Bergman’s performance.

"It is about a man and a woman who are in love, and who sacrifice love for a higher purpose."

Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times, 1996

Humphrey Bogart was renowned for playing world-weary outsiders with a noble streak. Born on Christmas Day 1899 to a wealthy New York family, he had a privileged, if lonely, childhood. He served in the US Navy during World War I, after which he struggled for a decade to establish his acting career before finally making a name for himself playing gangsters and villains in Hollywood B-movies. His big breakthrough came when he played the damaged hero in The Maltese Falcon. A string of great movie roles followed, including To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, and Key Largo (1944), with his wife Lauren Bacall. The African Queen won Bogart his only Academy Award, for Best Actor, in 1951. He appeared in more than 75 movies over a 30-year career and died, at 57, in 1957.

1941 The Maltese Falcon

1944 To Have and Have Not

1946 The Big Sleep

1951 The African Queen

What else to watch: Only Angels Have Wings (1938) ✵ The Maltese Falcon (1941) ✵ To Have and Have Not (1944) ✵ Brief Encounter (1945) ✵ Notorious (1946) ✵ Key Largo (1948) ✵ Charade (1963) ✵ Play It Again, Sam (1972)