Posted on 02/17/2023 9:37:25 PM PST by Saije
When Warner Brothers’ movie, “Casablanca,” was released nationally on Jan. 23, 1943, to coincide with a war-time meeting of President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the same city, New York Times critic Bosley Crowther wrote that “The Warners . . . have a picture that makes the spine tingle and the heart take a leap.” After 80 years, the iconic film remains a masterpiece and, in my totally subjective estimation, simply the greatest movie ever made.
I can still remember when I was in law school the Vogue Theater in St. Matthews showing “Casablanca” like it was a first-run movie. The packed house, as in earlier generations, was held spellbound by this compelling, World War II-era good-versus-evil saga with dozens of unforgettable characters with a red-hot romance as an extra “added attraction.” People around me sang out loud the soaring “Le Marseillaise,” spontaneously begun on screen by Resistance leader Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) to drown out the Germans’ “Die Wacht am Rhein” after the Nazis had commandeered a piano at Rick’s Café Americain. If you’re not moved by perhaps the most riveting single scene in any American film, well, you might need to go see a good cardiologist.
“Casablanca” won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1943, along with Oscars for Best Director (Michael Curtiz) and Best Screenplay (Julius and Philip Epstein and Howard Koch). That nominees Humphrey Bogart (“Rick”) and Claude Rains (“Captain Renault”) didn’t win Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively, is still shockingly unfathomable.
(Excerpt) Read more at kentucky.com ...
its def in the top 3..any movie that makes you feel like you are “there”...captures the “feel” of the era the movie is set in....very few do that. The year Casablanca was made...the subject matter...the cast and crew just nailed it..
Casablanca is one of those movie that I’ve always wanted to see but somehow never got around to it. I want to remedy that thanks to this article. Appreciate your posting it :-)
Touch of Evil is a close second.
Take that back.... Touch of Evil freaking Rocks Balls , not sorry
I finally watched Casablanca last week for the first time. It’s a pretty good movie.
Thanks for the recommendation. I just found it on Bitchute and watching now.
Check out Touch of Evil sometime. It’s better. Orson Wells, crazy mother effer. Greatness.
If today's Hollywood were to remake the old classic "Casablanca" they would stick a Joe Biden like character into the film in an unsympathetic role...
Here's Joe as quintessential rat and grifter as he sells out Rick Blaine and keeps the letters of transit for himself..
Citizen kaine
Opening scene is the longest pan-shot in history. Orson was crazy genius.
He was something else
I recently came across the DVD of Zulu while packing for a move. Once it appears as we unbox, I’ll have to watch it. That movie really helped get a young Michael Caine’s career rolling, as I understand it. And will add Casablanca and Breaker Morant to the watch list.
Wow. Waaaay late to the party
I was born and raised in Jimmy Stewart's hometown of Indiana, PA. When I was a little kid back in the '70s, there were two older movie theaters in town. When "the mall," opened on the outskirts of town around 1980 or 1981 with its 4-plex, it was just a matter of time before the downtown theaters folded. One of them burnt down, but the other was on the ground floor of a multi-floor office building, so it was basically mothballed with the old ticket booth and marquis sign and lights staying in place.
Probably around 1985 or 1986, somebody recognized the nostalgic value of the old-school theater and leased it out for a showing of Casablanca on a big screen. I was a healthy teen male with pretensions of sophistication and took a date. Every male was dressed in suits or dinner jackets and the ladies in dresses and fancy gowns to watch "Casablanca," as it was meant to be seen, on a big screen in a classic old theater that still had a stage below the screen, theater seats with cast iron art deco aisle end caps, and a recessed orchestra pit.
If you're familiar with the movie you know there is some time taken at the beginning to set the atmosphere in Casablanca, and establish the notoriety of Rick's Café. The first time Bogart appears on screen, he's seated confidently behind his desk in his inner sanctum at the club, and the camera turns to reveal him in his immaculate white dinner jacket.
At that moment in the film, EVERY woman in that theater, my date included, let out a brief, almost imperceptible gasp, however, due to the collective and simultaneous nature of all those gasps in near perfect unison, it was quite noticeable.
It made quite the impression on me as a 16 year old male with aspirations of someday having that kind of effect on women, but to answer your question as to, "what Ilsa ever saw in Rick," I would simply answer:
"The same thing every other woman did."
I was 10 at the time and my brother & I only paid 10 cents to see the latest Captain Midnight chapter...
Casablanca didn’t interest me until 15 years later when I went to see it (in a drive-in theatre) with the girl who (a couple of years later) became my wife (and still is)...
Have watched it many, many times since then...
A reminder of what true acting used to be all about...
I thought ugh they were going to say citizen Kane
Casablanca. Ya it’s a good one
Interesting - thanks for sharing.
It got to the end and we both looked at each other. “Huh? That's it!? I don't get it.”
Later I learned (on FR) that it is such a “great” film due to the cinematography and use of black and white or something. I never bothered trying to watch it again to see what they were talking about.
Citizen Kane used many techniques for the first time that became standard stuff for filming later.
So many movies... Dr. Zhivago. Roman Holiday. Impossible to choose.
Like picking the best guitarist. (Hint: Tommy Emmanual)
Rick is such a grumpy, grouchy loser. What did Isla ever see in him?
The flashback shows him very much otherwise...and why Ilsa was with him...
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