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Casablanca
After avoiding it for the longest time, the time came for this reviewer to experience the Oscar winning Best Picture of 1942 that is one of the first films serious cinephiles apply to the word adjective "classic"....the wartime romance that left similar films in the dust and for very good reason. Talking about Casablanca.
For those who have been living under a rock for the past 60 or 70 years, Humphrey Bogart, in the performance of his career, plays Rick Blaine, the owner of his own nightclub in Morocco, who has put a lot of effort into his neutrality regarding the war. He is informed by Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains) that a fugitive soldier named Victor Lazlo (Paul Henreid) is headed this way and that he has orders to keep Lazlo prisoner in Morocco. Rick is floored when Lazlo arrives with his wife, Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), a woman with whom he had a passionate romance with in Paris many years ago that ended when she disappeared without explanation. It turns out that Rick has the power to help Victor and Ilsa escape Morocco; however that would mean never seeing Ilsa again, which Rick is not sure he can deal with,,,again.
The story is actually based on a play called Everybody Comes to Rick's by Murray burnett and Joan Alison wrote in 1940; however, they were unable to get anyone to agree to produce the play on Broadway, so they sold the rights to Warner Brothers for $20,000 (an unprecedented amount in the 1940's). The actual play did make it to the stage in 1991 but nobody really noticed. Julius J Epstein, Philip G Epstein, and Howard Koch won Oscars for the screenplay they crafted, which apparently went through several other hands, but what finally ended up on the screen was an intoxicating, slightly confusing, but riveting look at the ugliness of war that still managed to take a backseat to one of the most enchanting star-crossed romances to ever hit the screen. Ironically, neither Bogart or Bergman liked the original script and several re-writes were employed to get them to reconsider and they did, thank God.
The story unfolds slowly and doesn't telegraph everything we're about to see. The first clue we get to what might be going on here is when Ilsa recognizes Sam (Dooley Wilson) the piano player at the bar and Sam dodges all of Ilsa's questions about Rick. Love when Rick hears Sam playing "As Time Goes By" and blows his stack right before he sees Ilsa. The nest thing that happens is Sam gets out of there as quickly as he could...this was a laugh out loud moment for me. BTW, just to set the record straight, Rick never says "Play it again, Sam", he says "You played it for her, you can play it for me...play it." Every moment Dooley Wilson has onscreen is gold.
But it's the burn-a-hole-through-the screen chemistry between Bogart and Bergman that makes this film sparkle. The flashbacks to their Paris romance are a joy to watch as is the heartbreaking moment Rick realizes that Ilsa is not going to make the train they planned to take together. Rick and Ilsa both make serious mistakes in this relationship, but we know they love each other and we're on their side from the moment they lay eyes on each other again.
After four previous nominations, Michael Curtiz finally took home the Oscar for Best Director for his moody and elegant work here Haven't seen a lot of his work, but I have never enjoyed Bogart onscreen more and think he was robbed of the Best Actor Oscar. I have never seen the Best Actor winner that year, Paul Lukas for Watch on the Rhine, but I have seen the film that did win Bogart an Oscar, The African Queen and that award had to be a consolation prize for not being honored for his tortured Rick Blaine. Bergman is luminous, as always, though I have to admit that Notorious is still my favorite Bergman performance. She is also the undisputed queen of one of my favorite acting techniques...no one in the history of cinema had the ability to fill her eyes with water and not drop a tear the way Bergman did. My heart melted every time she did it, God, the camera loved her. Also have to give a tip of the hat to Claude Rains, who provided unexpected comic relief as Captain Renault, resulting from his inability to keep his head straight whenever he was within 20 feet of Ilsa, a performance that earned him a supporting actor nomination. Anyway you slice it, a classic that more than lived up to its reputation.
After avoiding it for the longest time, the time came for this reviewer to experience the Oscar winning Best Picture of 1942 that is one of the first films serious cinephiles apply to the word adjective "classic"....the wartime romance that left similar films in the dust and for very good reason. Talking about Casablanca.
For those who have been living under a rock for the past 60 or 70 years, Humphrey Bogart, in the performance of his career, plays Rick Blaine, the owner of his own nightclub in Morocco, who has put a lot of effort into his neutrality regarding the war. He is informed by Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains) that a fugitive soldier named Victor Lazlo (Paul Henreid) is headed this way and that he has orders to keep Lazlo prisoner in Morocco. Rick is floored when Lazlo arrives with his wife, Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), a woman with whom he had a passionate romance with in Paris many years ago that ended when she disappeared without explanation. It turns out that Rick has the power to help Victor and Ilsa escape Morocco; however that would mean never seeing Ilsa again, which Rick is not sure he can deal with,,,again.
The story is actually based on a play called Everybody Comes to Rick's by Murray burnett and Joan Alison wrote in 1940; however, they were unable to get anyone to agree to produce the play on Broadway, so they sold the rights to Warner Brothers for $20,000 (an unprecedented amount in the 1940's). The actual play did make it to the stage in 1991 but nobody really noticed. Julius J Epstein, Philip G Epstein, and Howard Koch won Oscars for the screenplay they crafted, which apparently went through several other hands, but what finally ended up on the screen was an intoxicating, slightly confusing, but riveting look at the ugliness of war that still managed to take a backseat to one of the most enchanting star-crossed romances to ever hit the screen. Ironically, neither Bogart or Bergman liked the original script and several re-writes were employed to get them to reconsider and they did, thank God.
The story unfolds slowly and doesn't telegraph everything we're about to see. The first clue we get to what might be going on here is when Ilsa recognizes Sam (Dooley Wilson) the piano player at the bar and Sam dodges all of Ilsa's questions about Rick. Love when Rick hears Sam playing "As Time Goes By" and blows his stack right before he sees Ilsa. The nest thing that happens is Sam gets out of there as quickly as he could...this was a laugh out loud moment for me. BTW, just to set the record straight, Rick never says "Play it again, Sam", he says "You played it for her, you can play it for me...play it." Every moment Dooley Wilson has onscreen is gold.
But it's the burn-a-hole-through-the screen chemistry between Bogart and Bergman that makes this film sparkle. The flashbacks to their Paris romance are a joy to watch as is the heartbreaking moment Rick realizes that Ilsa is not going to make the train they planned to take together. Rick and Ilsa both make serious mistakes in this relationship, but we know they love each other and we're on their side from the moment they lay eyes on each other again.
After four previous nominations, Michael Curtiz finally took home the Oscar for Best Director for his moody and elegant work here Haven't seen a lot of his work, but I have never enjoyed Bogart onscreen more and think he was robbed of the Best Actor Oscar. I have never seen the Best Actor winner that year, Paul Lukas for Watch on the Rhine, but I have seen the film that did win Bogart an Oscar, The African Queen and that award had to be a consolation prize for not being honored for his tortured Rick Blaine. Bergman is luminous, as always, though I have to admit that Notorious is still my favorite Bergman performance. She is also the undisputed queen of one of my favorite acting techniques...no one in the history of cinema had the ability to fill her eyes with water and not drop a tear the way Bergman did. My heart melted every time she did it, God, the camera loved her. Also have to give a tip of the hat to Claude Rains, who provided unexpected comic relief as Captain Renault, resulting from his inability to keep his head straight whenever he was within 20 feet of Ilsa, a performance that earned him a supporting actor nomination. Anyway you slice it, a classic that more than lived up to its reputation.