You have to view “Casablanca” and other movies from that era as what they were: Propaganda movies designed to make entry into the European war palatable to an American public that was about to lose countless sons in a struggle between two evils (Hitler and Stalin). As part of that, Stalin was transformed into “Uncle Joe” (and our government and media continued to collude in hiding his mass murder in Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic states).
“African Queen” was OK, it had content.