Casablanca ***** (1942, Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Conrad Veidt, Peter Lorre, S Z Sakall, Dooley Wilson, Leonid Kinskey, Marcel Dalio, Madeleine Lebeau) – Classic Movie Review 1

Casablanca is arguably the world’s best-loved film, a perfect piece of cinematic escapism and a timeless classic, celebrated for its witty, playful script, memorable dialogue, and the magnetic chemistry between Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.

You must remember this: arguably, the world’s best loved film and most perfect piece of cinema escapism. It didn’t look like it would amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world when Warner Brothers announced in 1941 that they’d cast their B-list stock players Ronald Reagan and Ann Sheridan to star in a version of Murray Burnett and Joan Alison’s unproduced play called Everybody Comes to Rick’s. Later, and still unpromisingly, George Raft and Michèle Morgan were other possible stars.

Even when Casablanca was finally recast as a romantic vehicle for Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman at their peak, it didn’t look like things would turn out that well as they understandably hated working in the dark, uneasily acting with a constantly rewritten script that contained only each day’s lines. Screenwriter Howard Koch was with the production throughout filming, writing new dialogue and scenes.

Nobody had worked out where the storylines were heading and how the film was going to end. Personally there was trouble too. Convinced an affair was raging, Bogart’s wife Mayo Methot was wildly jealous of Bergman, upsetting and angering Bogart, who hardly spoke to Bergman, who was still learning English.

But, eighty years on, it is one of those few films so perfect that there is nothing you would want to change. After all the heartache and hard work, it all seems effortlessly smooth, adding up to the rarest piece of elusive screen magic that comes from 90 per cent consummate professionalism and 10 per cent good luck.

It’s North Africa at the start of World War Two, and everybody comes to cynical old American Rick (Bogart)’s bar, including his old flame from Paris, Ilsa (Bergman), with her current flame, the Resistance leader Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), who together desperately need two letters of safe transit to America. ‘Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine!’ says Bogart.

The fundamental things still apply: (1) a witty, playful script that cleverly balances cynical lines, tense drama, smouldering romance and heart-tugging moments (2) the sizzling star chemistry and great acting, backed up by the magnetic performances of the entire ensemble of great Warner Bros studio contract players and (3) cunning director Michael Curtiz’s wily handling, in turns sensitive, imaginative and astute.

Magic as Bogart and Bergman are, Casablanca wouldn’t weave its spell at all without the backup team, the best in business in 1942, maybe the best ever. Claude Rains is wonderfully silky as the poor corrupt official Captain Renault (‘I stick my neck out for nobody’). Sydney Greenstreet is splendidly sweaty as black-marketeer and rival bar owner Signor Ferrari. Peter Lorre is marvellously shifty as racketeer Ugarte. Conrad Veidt is suitably sinister as the German Major Strasser.

All the while non-pianist Dooley Wilson indelibly pretends to tinkle the ivories as piano player Sam who sings Herman Hupfeld’s 1931 Broadway show Everybody’s Welcome song As Time Goes By for Bogart (‘You played it for her, you can play it for me… play it Sam, play As Time Goes By’). And Leonid Kinskey plays the role he is fondly remembered for – Sascha the ‘crazy Russian’, the ingratiating barman at Rick’s Café Americain.

Casablanca was a critical and box-office sensation and an instant classic, winning 1943 Oscars for best picture, director and screenplay with five other Oscar nominations for best actor (Bogart), support actor (Rains), cinematography, editing and music. And as time goes by, it just seems to get better and better with age and more and more popular.

Is there any movie that has a more heart-rending climax than this? Does any movie have more quoted lines than this? Still the perfect date movie, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship. Here’s looking at you, kid!

Rains finished work on Now, Voyager on June 3 1942 and filmed his first scene on Casablanca at 10:30 the next morning.

Dooley Wilson was a drummer so his piano playing is performed by Jean Plummer. The piano he ‘plays’ in Rick’s Café Américain was auctioned with other film memorabilia by Turner Classic Movies at Bonhams in New York on 24 November 2014 and fetched $3.4 million.

Paul Henreid considered Bogart ‘a mediocre actor’. Bergman called Henreid a ‘prima donna’.

When asked by Captain Renault why he came to Casablanca, Rick Blaine replies: ‘I came to Casablanca for the waters.’ Renault, surprised, responds: ‘Waters?! We’re in a desert!’ Rick then delivers the classic deadpan line: ‘I was misinformed’.

Everybody Comes to Rick’s

Ingrid Bergman said in 1974: ‘Adapted from a play? Casablanca? I don’t think so.’

Warner Bros bought the unproduced American play Everybody Comes to Rick’s for a then record figure of $20,000 for an unproduced play. It was written in 1940 by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison, who failed to find a Broadway producer and sold the rights after Warner Bros story editor Irene Diamond read the manuscript in New York and recommended it to her boss, producer Hal B Wallis, as ‘sophisticated hokum’.

Julius J Epstein, Philip G Epstein and Howard Koch received an Academy Award for best screenplay in 1943, but little recognition was given to Burnett and Alison, though the film’s opening credits say ‘Based on a Play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison’. Screenwriter Casey Robinson had initially worked on the romantic pairing of Rick and Ilsa, Julius and Philip Epstein worked on the overall structure and dialogue, and Howard Koch worked on the politics.

Under their threat not to renew the agreement when the copyright was due to revert to them in 1997, Warner Bros gave them each $100,000 and the right to produce the original play, and it was staged in 1991 at the Whitehall Theatre in London after its February 26, 1991 premiere at the Churchill Theatre in Bromley, Kent.

However, the original unproduced play is said by film critic Phillip Bergson to have had its world premiere as an Oxford University undergraduate production long ago, in an Oxford University Trinity term marquee in balmy 1974, directed by Alex Cox.

The 1931 song ‘As Time Goes By’, written by Herman Hupfeld, came from the play and had been Burnett’s favourite as a student at Cornell. ‘As Time Goes By’ was first performed by Frances Williams in the musical comedy Everybody’s Welcome, which ran on Broadway from October 1931 to February 1932.

The cast

The cast are Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine, Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund, Paul Henreid as Victor Laszlo., Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault, Sydney Greenstreet as Signor Ferrari, Conrad Veidt as Major Heinrich Strasser, Peter Lorre  as Signor Ugarte, S Z Sakall, Dooley Wilson, Curt Bois as the pickpocket, Leonid Kinskey as Sascha, Madeleine Lebeau as Yvonne, Joy Page as Annina Brandel, John Qualen as Berger, S Z Sakall as Carl the head waiter, Dooley Wilson as Sam, Marcel Dalio as Emil the croupier, Helmut Dantine as Jan Brandel, the Bulgarian roulette player married to Annina Brandel, Gregory Gaye as the German banker, Torben Meyer as the Dutch banker, Corinna Mura as the guitar player, Frank Puglia as a Moroccan rug merchant, Richard Ryen as Colonel Heinze, Dan Seymour as Abdul the doorman, Gerald Oliver Smith as the Englishman, Norma Varden as the Englishwoman, Ludwig Stossel, Helmut Dantine, Monte Blue, Ilka Gruning, Louis V Arco, Leon Belasco, Trude Berliner, Oliver Blake, Gino Corrado, Franco Corsaro, George Dee, Jean Del Val, William Edmunds, Martin Garralaga, Gregory Gaye, Creighton Hale, Olaf Hytten, Charles La Torre, George J Lewis, Michael Mark, George Meeker, Louis Mercier, Torben Meyer, Alberto Morin, Leo Mostovoy, Corina Mura, Lotte Palfi Andor, Paul Porcasi, Frank Puglia, Georges Renavent, Dewey Robinson, Henry Rowland, Richard Ryen, Dan Seymour, Gerald Oliver Smith, Norma Varden, Hane Heinrich von Twardowski, Leo White and Wolfgang Zilzer.

Madeleine Lebeau

Madeleine Lebeau.

The last surviving credited cast member Madeleine Lebeau died on 1 May 2016 in Spain. She plays Bogart’s jilted mistress Yvonne, who gets teary when La Marseillaise is played and shouts ‘Viva la France!’. She also starred as Madeleine, the French actress, in Fellini’s 8½ [Otto e Mezzo] (1963).

LeBeau was among several Casablanca cast members who were actually refugees from the German occupation. She fled Paris for Portugal and eventually the US with her actor husband Marcel Dalio, who plays Emil the croupier. He filed for divorce during the production.

Humphrey DeForest Bogart.

Remembering the great hardboiled Humphrey DeForest Bogart (25 December 1899–14 January 1957).

Casablanca, as time goes by.

Casablanca turned 75 on 23 January 2017.

Bill Gold

Bill Gold’s US theatrical release poster for Casablanca (1942).

American graphic designer Bill Gold (January 3, 1921 – May 20, 2018) created the famous US theatrical release poster for Casablanca and was involved in the creation of more than 2,000 posters from Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) to J Edgar (2011).

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© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Movie Review 1

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