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.
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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.
its all subjective...to each their own...i myself have no desire to watch a film about the Holocaust..i know what happened. As for Casablanca, i think most men can identify with Rick at some point in their lives...who hasn’t at some point gotten so fed up and would love to just chuck it all and go far away...open a cafe in a tropical resort where no one knows you...and live out the rest of your days by fishing and running a saloon...i know i have...
“Rick is such a grumpy, grouchy loser. What did Isla ever see in him? “
Why do girls go for outlaw biker bad boys? Same thing.
I love that movie.
It may be better than Casablanca.
L
odd you found the anthem singing “corny”,,since the film was made in 1942 and the wars outcome was far from certain...and France was occupied by Nazi Germany at the time...but w/e...
“Rick is such a grumpy, grouchy loser. What did Isla ever see in him? Her husband was a much better catch.”
Maybe she had a yen for the bad boys?
That really is a thing. Bad boys be banging boundless booty!
“The Best Years of Our Lives” is my all-time favorite movie.
The themes in that movie are timeless.
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.
That’s a great movie.
The “Marseillaise” scene from “Casablanca” is brilliant on so many levels.
I can watch the opening scene of touch of evil all by itself.
Same here. I can’t see why Citizen Kane is so hyped.
I agree.
Isla seemed to be attracted to the man willing to take risks....much like her attraction to Laslo.
Ultimate cool.
I watched a youtube of a singer performing the song with English subtitles.
It's a call to arms.
***“Breaker Morant” and “Zulu” for starters and both were great.***
I just watched those again in the last few weeks. Great Movies!
“I am shocked! Shocked I say.” Most quoted line in movie history.
Next is...Alfonso Bedoya. “Badges? We ain’t got no badges! I don’t got to show you no stinking badges!”
Then there is ...”The stuff that dreams are made of.”
Something similar in all three of these great movies but I can’t place my finger on it...(wink wink)
Given what we know today about the atrocities of the left in Spain’s civil war, that hasn’t aged well; movies like this one, “Sahara”, and “For Whom the Bell Tolls” were war propaganda movies that all included noble Westerners who had helped or fought for the Spanish Republic - which now we know oversaw the murder of 8,000 Catholic priests (including a dozen bishops), 400 nuns, and countless faithful lay people - who continue to be declared martyrs by Popes (and will be for decades to come).
Rick was complicit in that...
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