Why America Fell for Casablanca, and Why the Classic Film Is Losing its Hold on Movie Lovers.

Why America fell for Casablanca, and why the classic film is losing its hold on movie lovers.

In 1957, the Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square kicked off its Humphrey Bogart series with the 1942 classic Casablanca.* Bogart himself had just died, and the response to the film was rapturous. By the fourth or fifth screening, “the audience began to chant the lines,” the theater’s then-manager told Noah Isenberg, author of We’ll Always Have Casablanca: The Life, Legend and Afterlife of Hollywood’s Most Beloved Movie. It was the dawn of the art-house era, the moment when film was beginning to be taken seriously as an art form by college students who flocked to theaters like the Brattle to see the work of Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, and Michelangelo Antonioni. Casablanca didn’t exactly rank among those auteurist masterpieces—even the movie’s most ardent champions have always described Casablanca, directed by Michael Curtiz and credited to screenwriters Howard Koch and Julius and Philip Epstein, as the quintessential product of the Hollywood studio system. But it nevertheless became a cult object for a generation or two of cinephiles, particularly young men, over the next several decades.

Allen Felix, the fictional film-critic hero of Play It Again, Sam, Woody Allen’s 1969 play and 1972 film, epitomizes that breed of young man. The film begins with the closing scene of Casablanca, in which Rick Blaine (Bogart) nobly parts from Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) on a misty North African tarmac. Then the camera cuts to Woody Allen’s rapt face, his mouth gaping, as he inhales the movie’s glossy, yearning romance. Felix lives in an apartment wallpapered with movie posters, most of them featuring Bogart, and as he bumbles his way through a largely unsuccessful love life, the phantom of the movie star in his trademark

You should see Everybody Comes to Rick’s (the actual basis for Casablanca), or at the very least read its script. It’s better, and I can definitely confirm that him running guns for Ethiopia or his involvement in the Spanish Civil War was NEVER in the play at all and was exclusive to the film. In the play’s equivalent to that scene, Rinaldo simply mentioned Rick’s full name, Richard Blaine, his nationality, his age (which was given discreetly), that he was formerly a successful attorney in Paris, was formerly married to the daughter of Alexander Kirby, had two children with her, had left Paris in 1937 for undisclosed reasons (whatever caused him to leave was apparently serious enough that Rick tensed up at Rinaldo even mentioning the event he left Paris in passing, causing him to wisely skip over that), and that he ended up divorcing his wife at Reno, with the latter keeping custody of his children (Rinaldo’s “shall I go on” after that suggests there’s more to it that was unrevealed). Most likely, the Spain bit and Ethiopia was added in by that screen writer you alluded to, Howard Koch, as a subtle attempt at promoting solidarity with the Communists.

If you don’t believe me, you can see for yourself: http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~ina22/splaylib/Screenplay-Everybody_Comes_to_Rick’s.pdf I will warn you that Page I-17 is unfortunately largely obscured.

It was purely anti-Nazi, with Communism not even being a factor into it (and good thing too, because I have respect for those who are both anti-Nazi and anti-Communist, and do not like people who condemn Nazism yet promote Communism, or for that matter people who condemn Communism yet promote Nazism.).

I do wonder what you mean by the Marx Brothers having a huge following with 60s college radicals, though. Other than their sharing the same last name as Karl Marx, I fail to see what ties them in to student radicals. They’re just a comedy group, and don’t seem to have any ties to socialism or communism or anything like that (at most, they might have a passing tie to the New Deal).

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.