As a bonus, it has GREAT music and the special effects are quite extraordinary considering it was made in the 60s.
I mean, what are the metrics?
Casablanca and Master & Commander are tied for my favorite.
Just picked up the 4K of Casablanca. Highly recommended.
I saw Casablanceafor the first time they way it should be seen. During the summer in a old theater in Blowing Rock NC with a broken heart.
Someday I suppose I should see it however.
A Communist is the hero in Casablanca. The movie takes a detour to cast Rick as a communist who fought with the Soviets in Spain.
The time frame of that movie is when the left in the US was urging America’s involvement in the war because Hitler had turned on Stalin.
The unions had been supporting Stalin/Hitler by going on strike. When that alliance parted ways, the unions also supported war.
As a bonus, it has GREAT music and the special effects are quite extraordinary considering it was made in the 60s.
Not a Francophile, necessarily, but when the Nazis are drowned out by the singing of The Marseillaise I still tear up. The editing in just that one scene is a marvel.
It’s an enjoyable movie but not even in my top 20.
The Godfather and The Godfather II is the best movie.
The old movie that has best stood the test of time is Dr. Strangelove.
It is as relevant today as the day it was released.
Casablanca is a great movie. It’s a bit dated at this time. The Godfather is the greatest movie of all time almost tied with Godfather 2.
Casablanca was the singularly most boring movie I have ever had the displeasure of viewing. I honestly can’t image how people think otherwise.
Since wen are throwing out movie names, In my top dozen which change rankings as time passes, I include in no particular order with Casablanca the following:
The Natural
Dr. Strangelove
The Flight of the Phoenix
Pride and Prejudice (’05)
Best movie?
No doubt about it IMHO that Casablanca is at least #2, but the best of the best of the best (sir!) is, undoubtedly, the highly underrated and misunderstood real-life documentary “Killer Klowns from Outer Space.”
I’ve already worn out ten videocassettes and 3 DVD’s as that movie plays continuously on the big screen in my basement home theater 24/7/365.
Discuss among yourselves.
Best exchange in Casablanca:
Captain Renault: I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
[a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
Croupier: Your winnings, sir ...
I’d vote for the Thief of Bagdad (1940) just as good or probably better.
Nope. Battle of Algiers is the greatest war movie ever made and better than Casablanca which is sort of a war movie. I like Casablanca (huge Bogart fan actually) but find the national anthem singing scene to be corny.
To me, another example of “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. I feel like I am constantly the kid shouting that the emperor has no clothes. Not a great movie at all to me. Watchable, but full of that unrealistic line delivery of its time period. Bogart is not a great specimen, and to me carries no romantic “oomph” necessary to make the backstory of their relationship believable. I give it a C.
Better than the absolutely unwatchable garbage, The Maltese Falcon though! I watched that in near shock that it was considered a classic.
So many “classic” movies are so far superior to Casablanca, as to be on a different level altogether.
Dr. Zhivago
Zulu
Lawrence of Arabia
Gone With The Wind
The Godfather
2001 A Space Odyssey
To Kill a Mockingbird
Are a few that come to mind.
Was having a root canal done, the dentist gave me a list of movies I could watch so I asked them to put on Casablanca. Got to the scene where they are singing La Marseillaise. Tears start coming down my eyes as it always does at that part, the dentist said, do you need more pain killer? I shook my head no and pointed to the TV scene.
My dad gave me a 50th anniversary of the movie for Christmas, one of his last gifts to me.
I don’t know if Casablanca is the best movie ever made, but if being able to watch a movie dozens of times and still be entertained is key, then my vote is for “The Burbs”. Tim Conway’s “The Longshot” is a close second.
129 posts and not one mention of the song made Casablanca, Casablanca. As time goes by was written by Herman Hupfeld in 1931 and used in a play called “Everybody’s Welcome”.
In the early 1990s I did some extensive reseach on the life of Herman Hupfeld. It started because a piano player friend of mine when asked what else did he write, retorted that he never wrote anything else.
Hupfeld was not a prolifc song writer, but wrote some gems of the 1930s and 1940s.
Below is my draft of the bio relating to “As Time Goes By”.
One of the songs he wrote in the period has gone on to be one of the most performed songs of all time as recognized by ASCAP. Written for the show Everybody’s Welcome (1931) “As Time Goes By” was accidentally revived in eleven years later. Murray Burnett and Joan Allison in writing the play, “Everybody Comes To Ricks”, on which “Casablanca” (1942) is based, included the song in their script. Warner Brothers and Max Steiner, who wrote the music for “Casablanca”, intended to take the song out and replace it with one Steiner was going to write. When filming finished, Mr. Steiner was busy with other projects and by the time they got around to doing some thing about it, Ingrid Bergman had changed her hair in preparation for her next picture (and the scene could not be refilmed). Thus “As Time Goes By” stayed in the film and went on to become a number one song on “Your Hit Parade” for the longest period of any song as of that time.
In 1943 Herman recounted for The New Yorker magazine the early days of this now timeless melody “As Time Goes By”: He took it first to Beatrice Lillie, who told him it wasn’t just her sort of thing, but that she liked it so well she’d advance him hundred dollars on it. “Then the most farcical circumstances happened,” he recalled. “I happened to play it for Harold Arlen*, and he nearly fainted. He said, ‘It’s exactly what we need for Frances Williams — we’ve got to, got to, got have it!’ So I rushed back to Bea, and she was sweet as cream. She said, But darling of course take it back.’ So I returned the hundred and the song went into ‘Everbody’s Welcome’ and stopped the show every night. They hollered and screamed. They just simply hollered and screamed, and it stopped the show. “Everybody’s Welcome” lasted for 31 performances and but the Shubert Organization into bankruptcy in 1931.
* Harold Arlen wrote the music for Judy Garland’s “Over The Rainbow”.