it took you two a while to get over the black and white movie concept...you were born in another time and era. You spent much time critiquing or guessing the color of suit jackets the first 20 minutes or so. Finally you got into the story and characters. By the end of the movie you were sold on it. Yes, this was the era of black and white movies with some exceptions ...making a color movie was quite expensive back then, color was very new. And financial cuts were made during WWII. Your respect though, of Bogart and the others as actors shines through. It was impressive you knew 2 or 3 of the iconic lines, and one of you actually knew the song It Had to Be You. And in regards to Sam, the piano player, there's an old saying: "Don't Shoot Me, I'm Just the Piano Player" lol
@@TheMovieJourney Funny I grew up watching both black and white and color movies and never questioned the difference. Certain movies seem "right" in B&W. After all, movies are just shadows on a screen.
One of the first -- and very expensive -- major color films was the excellent "Adventures of Robin Hood," with Erroll Flynn, of 1938. But another B&W from 1941-42 is James Cagney's "Yankee Doodle Dandy," about flag-waving musical playwright George M. Cohan -- have you heard the song "Over There" about WW II? -- "We won't be back until it's over over there". Know Cagney as gangster? -- he was a terrific "hoofer" -- dancer. And singer. GREAT film from the lead in to WW II by the US. (WW II began for China in 1937, when Japan invaded. It also began in Europe in the 1930s.)
The bottle at the end was "Vichy Water" and Vichy France replaced Paris as the capital from 1940-44, they threw in with the Nazis in order to have a sort of "self rule", the Germans used this example in France to send a message, if you bend to our will and don't resist we will allow self-rule, but in essence it was the Nazis ruling. So, there was the Vichy France movement, and the Free France movement. When he threw the Vichy water in the trash can that symbolized he was turning over a new leaf so to speak.
The guy who played Strausser only agreed to play a Nazi if he was completely despicable. Conrad Veidt fled germany when the Nazis seized power and had many Jewish friends. And when they sang the French anthem, a lot of the people had real tears in their eyes as a lot of them were war refugees from France. This movie had genuine feelings from those impacted by the war.
The ring shown to Victor Laslow and his wife bears the symbol of the Free French during the war, the Cross of Lorraine by revealing the ring the restaurant telling the couple "your among friends or Allies."
As others have commented, the bottle at the end that Claude Rains threw in the garbage can was vichy water, and Vichy was the capital of collaborationist France (which known to English speakers as Vichy France). Pretty much everyone watching the movie in 1942 would have known that.
When Renault throsws the water bottle in the trash at the airport, it's actually Vichy Water; a final dig at the Nazis; the Vichy government was the Nazi government over occupied France. All the reactions to Casablanca have not picked up on this point, but it was not lost on contemporaneous audiences.
There is one line in here that always cracks me up. When Strasser describes Rick as "Just another blundering American" and Renault comes back with "I was with them in 1918 when they blundered into Berlin." Laugh every time I hear it. Great writing and great delivery.
Of course, the Allies got nowhere near Berlin in the First World War. The Germans sued for an armistice before their borders were crossed by the Allies.
Btw, in the 1940's, 99% of every evening jacket worn by men was black or white (which made it easy on the filmmakers of that era!). Any other color except possibly a very light beige would set the wearer out as extremely extravagant if not outright weird. Fashions change for men too. Even today, most tuxedos are black. Men look good in black, sets them out and hides a variety of flaws.
The bottle drop at the end is Vichy Water, a mineral water bottled in France. I always felt sorry for little Vichy, a resort town in southwestern France. After the French surrendered to Germany, the Germans took the coastlines of France and important industrial areas but as part of the surrender, the French were allowed to maintain control over about a third of mainland France as a "neutral" nation. The government set up shop in Vichy and was known as Vichy France, as opposed to several areas outside the mainland and in several French Colonies. Casablanca and many of the French controlled cities in North Africa were nominally under Vichy control, but Free French pockets were all over. Poor little town of Vichy got tarred with the charge of collaborationists and the term "Vichy" became a synonym for treason.
The cinematographer on this film purposely lit Ilsa with that soft lighting and even gave her those lights in her eyes. This was to represent how Rick sees her.
‘Casablanca’ is renowned and is justly acknowledged as one of the most romantic films of all time but it is much more than the tale of a love triangle. Of course, it shows that the power of love can affect the human psyche, as demonstrated by Rick’s metamorphosis. This film has so many levels to it that it takes many viewings to appreciate them. The main theme is not romance but self-sacrifice as the film’s message to the world at war is to give up the personal agenda for the common cause. It reminds wartime audiences, many of whom have loved ones fighting abroad, that their situation is the same as that of Rick, Ilsa and Victor. The screenplay is so intelligently written. It is a masterpiece of complexity, containing subliminal political opinions and messages all carried along on a thrilling plot with brilliant one-liners, comedic elements, and contemporary, social commentaries. Basically, the film is politically motivated because it is a plea to America to join the war. Please note that the action takes place in December, 1941. This is the the first non-musical movie to use music almost as an another protagonist, (which Tarantino does now). For example, ‘As Time Goes By’ is a valuable recurring theme and, in Paris, Rick and Ilsa dance to ‘Perfidia’ which means untrustworthiness. Michael Curtiz’s direction is multi-faceted: Documentary, Film Noir, German Expressionism, Flashback etc. He is the master of creating the plot via seamlessly connecting a series of rapid-fire vignettes. POINTS OF INTEREST AND NOTES FOR SUBSEQUENT VIEWINGS. Rick’s initial selfishness, (I stick my neck out for nobody’), is a metaphor for USA indifference. It must be remembered that the events and politics are hard to comprehend and put into perspective for modem audiences than in the actual time when the film was made. The script is a 'State of the Union' address, both for home and foreign policies. There are references to Civil Rights as embodied in Sam and, of course, the debate about America’s involvement in the conflict. Each character represents a country e.g. Two Japanese plotting . The Italian on the tail of the German. American indifference. French collaborators, the British robbed by foreign policy. Even the Balkans are mentioned via the Bulgarian couple. Rick’s actions symbolise the USA in its change in policy from isolationism to participation and ‘….the beginning of a beautiful friendship…’ is the USA and Europe joining forces to fight Nazism. There is subtle direction. For example, Ilsa wears black and white clothes and is cast in shadows and in a mirror which portrays the ambiguity of her role. The ‘La Marseillaise’ scene is the pivotal moment in which both Ilsa and Rick realise that saving Victor is more important than their own personal relationship. It also comes in just as Rick and Victor are about to argue over Ilsa but both drop the issue when they hear the music. This scene is rousing now but imagine how it must have felt for audiences right in the middle of the war when Germany seemed invincible and we need to put it in perspective in terms of world events full of Nazi domination. The facial close-ups used throughout the film speak a thousand words: but particularly note Ilsa during ‘La Marseillaise’ when her expressions show her admiration of Victor’s power and her realisation that this must be preserved at all costs. In any case... there is so much alcohol!!!! POINTS TO WATCH ‘It’s December, 1941 in Casablanca: what time is it in New York?... I bet they are asleep all over America’. PEARL HARBOUR ‘Even Nazis can’t kill that fast’ CONCENTRATION CAMPS The Bulgarian couple keep appearing as symbols of hope and determination. In the bar room fight over Yvonne, Rick attacks the German only and not the Frenchman. Just one example of the excellent and complex scriptwriting occurs immediately after the roulette scene. The girl thanks Rick for letting her husband win and Rick replies, ‘He’s just a lucky guy’, which, on the face of it, refers to the gambling, but, in Rick’s mind, means that the husband is ‘lucky’ because his partner truly loves him.
Dooley Wilson (Sam) was a musician, but he played the drums. When he got the part he teamed up with a piano player he knew and they worked out ways for him to fake it well enough to get by. Another point about Wilson, he was only one of three native born Americans who played a credited part in this film. The other two were Humphrey Bogart and Joy Reid (who played the dark haired newlywed from Bulgaria.) Almost every actor who played a credited role in this film was from another nation, most of them fleeing Europe to evade the Nazis. Even Conrad Veidt who played the head Nazi, Major Strassar, was a rabid Nazi hater...he fled Germany because his wife was Jewish. The gorgeous blonde in the opening scenes (Yvonne) was French. Her name was Madeleine Lebeau and she was married to the actor playing the croupier. She was the last credited actor of the film to pass away at the age of 92 on May 1, 2014.
This movie is a textbook example of how light, shade and shadow were used in black and white film. When you see Bogart, the conflicted "I stick my neck out for nobody" Rick, he's almost always shot with half his face in shadow. When Lazlo, the freedom fighter is shown, the light is direct and fully on his face; he's a totally commited man. When you see Rick and Ingrid Berman, there are almost always shadows like bars coming across them, like they're caught in a quandry they can't escape. And the young Ingrid is always glowing; she was gorgeous and made even more perfect by a Hollywood film trick used before CGI. The beautiful actresses were often filmed with a gauze filter over the lens...it softened their looks, helped cover any defect in their skin so they could use less makeup and look more natural. The filmmakers of the 30's and 40's knew their trade well and did so with great skill.
That line about how Rick left a note in his hotel so the Gestapo would know where to find him was inspired by Conrad Viedt. When he left Germany with his Jewish wife, he DID leave a really insulting letter behind for the Gestapo, telling them why he was leaving (he was a well known actor in Germany) exactly what he thought of them and essentially where they could shove the note afterwards. Sadly he died of a heart attack shortly after Casablanca was released.
The symbol in Berger's ring was the Cross of Lorraine, the symbol picked by the French Resistence to identify Free France as opposed to the collaborating Vichy government. Berger identifies as Norwegian but was played by the character actor John Qualen who appeared in dozens of historically important films, including The Grapes of Wrath, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, The Searchers, Anatomy of a Murder, a ton of John Wayne movies too many to list. He often played Scandinavian roles, but was actually born in Canada and raised in Illinois. If you were a film buff of the 1940's through 60's you would recognize him instantly even if you never remembered his name.
Something needs to be said about the cinematography of this movie. Arthur Edeson also lensed the Original "Frankenstein" in 1931 and when I watched this (91 Year old!) Movie a couple of weeks ago, I was stuck how good it looked. Same with "Casablanca". It still holds up on the visual front.
The man you called Marlon Brando was Sydney Greenstreet. He made his movie debut in "The Maltese Falcon", which starred Bogart, and featured Peter Lorre (pronounced "LORE-ee"). Lorre and Greenstreet formed a sort of informal popular acting team, and appeared in several movies together. It's interesting to note that Sam is getting any share of at all of Rick's Cafe: a man of color at this time wasn't often able to make this kind of profit. He's also a creative man who, remember, is playing "something of his own" while Rick wallows in drunken self-pity. I've sometimes thought that the whole idea of the cafe was Sam's to begin with. It's true Dooley Wilson didn't play the piano, but it doesn't matter: he can sing! One of the songs he sings you can hear in full in this clip from "Cabin in the Sky": th-cam.com/video/AOGymrTjS0A/w-d-xo.html
The Ring had the signet of the Cross of Lorraine or the French Cross a symbol of the French Resistance. Thomas Magnum of MAGNUM P.I. and his buddies had a similar ring to symbolize a military ‘Fraternity’ they belonged to.
This movie came out in 1943, during WWII. When the actors sang the French natl anthem in Rick's, and that lady was crying? They didn't know how the war would end, and France was still occupied. That was not Brando. Brando was about 20 in '43. I was a kid in the 70s. Adults smoked everywhere! Airplanes, hospitals, teacher lounges, cars with the windows up, restaurants, movie theaters. Everywhere. The antismoking attempts took hold in the 80s, increasing til what we have now.
I call this the greatest "good" movie of all time! Warner Brothers churned out flicks like this, often with much of the same cast (Bogart, Lorre, Greenstreet).....but lightning struck with this particular film. Fantastic dialog and great acting, ie: giving a great actor great dialog is way more gratifying than putting a great actor in an exploding helicopter, or in front of a green screen. Bogart and Bergman's faces is more than enough landscape for me to look at! Hope you continue to hit silver screen stuff from time to time; some of the greatest of the greats are from back then. Would love to see you hit Hitchcock!
Thank you for commenting this great movie : but too bad you skipped the Marseillaise ! If you liked Claude Rains (Captain Renault) and Paul Henreid (Victor Lazlo), you ought to watch « Now Voyager » in witch they both play with Bette Davis, the film was shot the same year by Irving Rapper. Rains plays a decent and gentle doctor, showing his great versatility, I guarantee you won’t be disappointed. Excuse my writing, I am a French elder woman 🇫🇷 PS : There is a looney tunes cartoon called « carrotblanca » where Rick is played by Bunny…
Isham Jones and Gus Kahn wrote "It Had to Be You" in 1924. Neckties have gotten longer over time. If you watch a lot of old movies you'll see that they often reached only to about mid-chest in those days. One thing you didn't comment on was that men's trousers had higher waistlines back then, often several inches about the navel. I guess you cut the singing of "La Marseillaise" because of potential copyright problems. TH-cam is very fussy about music. Too bad-it's the most significant scene in the movie. At the end, Captain Renaud threw a bottle of Vichy Water into the trash, not a bottle of German wine. During the war, Germany had taken over France and divided it in two. Part of it was completely taken over by the German government and military, while in the other part the Germans installed a puppet government under collaborator Marshall Pétain and headquartered in the town of Vichy. Casablanca was under the control of the Vichy government, for whom Renaud worked. By throwing the Vichy Water in the wastebasket, he was symbolically renouncing his allegiance to the puppet regime.
When Renault says Round up the usual suspects, it inspired a writer to pen The Usual Suspects decades later. It's a heist film and the cops did just that and try to figure out who did it.
They had to use model planes in flight because of WWII restrictions. West coast airports could not be used. The nighttime scenes all had to be done on sound stages because of black out rules. There was still fear of Japanese air attacks on the U.S. west coast and the east coast by the Germans.
What a witty reaction! I loved all the black and white running gags. 17:49 “You will find him over there at The Blue Parrot.” “Doesn’t look blue to me.”
The best reaction I've ever seen! Because you two saw through all the Hollywooding of the story and you laughed at it. Ultimately the end of the movie is beyond any laughing about untill about 2100.
Thank you for reaction. It was enjoyable. The line "Round up the usual suspects" became the title for the film "The Usual Suspects". It's a more modern movie about a robbery with the suspects arrested and questioned. Their stories are engaging during the interrogations until the end.
Many people forget this was an anti Nazi movie filmed and released (1939) before we had entered World War II (against Germany, Italy and Japan in 1941). When Disney was building the Great Moivie Ride for its Florida MGM Movie Park they went on a search for a Plane just like the one in Casablanca. They had Audio Animatronic figures of Ric and Elsa doing their scene at the Plane. The Plane they eventually found turned out to be the very Plane from the movie. Since the great Movie Ride no longer exists I wonder what happened to the Plane.
They were still writing scenes for this movie even while it was being filmed. At one point Bergman went to the director and asked him point blank "Who am I supposed to be in love with, Rick or Victor?" The director told her to "play it in between" because at that point even he didn't know exactly how the movie would end. After filming wrapped, they decided they didn't like the last line and called Bogart back to dub in the classic "beautiful friendship" line. They wanted to reshoot some scenes with Ingrid Bergman too but they couldn't. Bergman really didn't want to play this part and she was loaned out to do so. The only reason she agreed (aside from the reality that actors at this time were contract slaves to their studios) was because she was promised the lead role in the upcoming Gary Cooper movie "For Whom The Bell Tolls" which she thought would be a better part. When they asked her to come back, she had already cut her hair for the part of Maria, the Spanish guerilla fighter in that film.
The makeup and costumes had to be carefully chosen to produce a certain look for Black & White film - for example Red shows up as very dark gray to black and Green as pale or white so makeup for Black & White was quite startling in person. Until Panchromatic Film was invented and then the makeup could be more natural but amplified.
I'd probably watch your reaction s to comedies, but would refrain from doing so for serious classic films. I'd be fearful of seeing a Schindler's List reaction, also in black and white.
Great reactions!!! Requests: The Yellow Rolls Royce (Ingrid Bergman, Omar Sharif) Marnie (Sean Connery) To catch a thief (Cary grant, Grace Kelly) The African Queen (Humphrey bogart, Kathryn Hepburn) Dr Zhivago (Omar sharif) The Thornbirds The Far Pavilions
at the very end when he drops the wine bottle, if you look at the label it is actually water. To cut down on getting sick while invading areas the Germans would put water into various bottles to drink so they would not have to use local water. Once he saw it was just water in the bottle he threw it away.
Not at all. "Vichy" water is mineral water bottles at the French city of Vichy. Vichy was also the seat of the French collaboration government led by Marshal Phillipe Petain. The term "Vichy" meant the French government working with Germany, as opposed to de Gaulle's Free French government in exile in England. Up to this point, Renault, as a French official, worked for Vichy. And in that moment, he had determined to leave and join a Free French battalion with Rick. Dropping the Vichy water bottle expresses his disgust for the collaboration government he will now fight against. Setting the film in Casablanca offered a unique opportunity to play upon the tensions of a part of Franch now allied with Germany and technically not occupied where Germany also had to foster the fiction that France was allowed to remain free. That's why Lazlo can tweak the German's nose, but only up to a point. The film was a specific anti-German theme, for all that it was a classic story and a definite A-List film from the director to celebrated actors. So anti-German that, bizarrely it seems today, the version released in West Germany in 1952 had all the Nazi and concentration camp references removed. The cold war needed Germany on the right side of the Iron Curtain.
@@geraldclough1099 The problem was that post-war _German law_ barred depictions of Nazi stuff. The plot description of the edited version sounds wild: 'All scenes with Nazis were removed, along with most references to World War II. Important plot points were altered when the dialogue was dubbed into German. Victor Laszlo was no longer a Resistance fighter who escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. Instead, he became a Norwegian atomic physicist who was being pursued by Interpol after he "broke out of jail".' en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casablanca_(film)#Irish_and_German_cuts
No one ever says those exact words. Rick actually says, "You played it for her, you can play it for me." Ilsa said, "Play it once, Sam. For old times’ sake."
You shouldn’t treat these people like animals in a zoo. Would you go to another country and act so shocked bc their culture is different. Just be quiet and experience the social and cultural differences of people from the past
I did not at all appreciate the extreme cuss words and irreverent tone of these reactors. 1942's "Casablanca" is a revered close to perfect classic film masterpiece in every detail.
To the guy on the right hand side of the screen: You are not nearly as funny as you seem to think you are. In fact, I think you're rather obnoxious. This is one of the greatest films of all time and I, for one, would like to hear the dialog and not your uninformed comments. Show some respect to this great movie.
If you want to hear the dialogue, go and watch the movie. If you don't want to hear our uninformed comments, then don't watch our reaction to the movie.
I understand that this is a reaction channel but talking over every scene, ever segment with conversation is just not necessary and is clearly evident in the low amount of subscribers....moving on. Many reaction channels are the same...where they appear to be a platform for the channel owners to be in the spotlight rather than the the movie being reviewed. The successful channels are focused on the content rather than them selves.
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it took you two a while to get over the black and white movie concept...you were born in another time and era. You spent much time critiquing or guessing the color of suit jackets the first 20 minutes or so. Finally you got into the story and characters. By the end of the movie you were sold on it. Yes, this was the era of black and white movies with some exceptions ...making a color movie was quite expensive back then, color was very new. And financial cuts were made during WWII. Your respect though, of Bogart and the others as actors shines through. It was impressive you knew 2 or 3 of the iconic lines, and one of you actually knew the song It Had to Be You. And in regards to Sam, the piano player, there's an old saying: "Don't Shoot Me, I'm Just the Piano Player" lol
Thank you 👍🏼 it really is a solid movie, one we enjoyed watching and would most definitely watch again.
@@TheMovieJourney Funny I grew up watching both black and white and color movies and never questioned the difference. Certain movies seem "right" in B&W. After all, movies are just shadows on a screen.
One of the first -- and very expensive -- major color films was the excellent "Adventures of Robin Hood," with Erroll Flynn, of 1938.
But another B&W from 1941-42 is James Cagney's "Yankee Doodle Dandy," about flag-waving musical playwright George M. Cohan -- have you heard the song "Over There" about WW II? -- "We won't be back until it's over over there".
Know Cagney as gangster? -- he was a terrific "hoofer" -- dancer. And singer.
GREAT film from the lead in to WW II by the US. (WW II began for China in 1937, when Japan invaded. It also began in Europe in the 1930s.)
@@jnagarya519 Same Director, both movies, Casablanca & Yankee Doodle Dandy Michael Curtiz
@@fanny5105 YES!
The bottle at the end was "Vichy Water" and Vichy France replaced Paris as the capital from 1940-44, they threw in with the Nazis in order to have a sort of "self rule", the Germans used this example in France to send a message, if you bend to our will and don't resist we will allow self-rule, but in essence it was the Nazis ruling. So, there was the Vichy France movement, and the Free France movement. When he threw the Vichy water in the trash can that symbolized he was turning over a new leaf so to speak.
By the ribbons on his uniform he was a decorated WW I Veteran. He most likely needed no urging to hate the Germans!
The guy who played Strausser only agreed to play a Nazi if he was completely despicable. Conrad Veidt fled germany when the Nazis seized power and had many Jewish friends. And when they sang the French anthem, a lot of the people had real tears in their eyes as a lot of them were war refugees from France. This movie had genuine feelings from those impacted by the war.
Conrad Veidt was married to a Jewish woman and fled the Nazis. He also befriended Paul Henried when he fled and came to England!
Also, his wife was Jewish.
The wonderful, too-soon-departed Conrad Veidt. Here's a TCM tribute to him: th-cam.com/video/EvVJIMwVZ_Q/w-d-xo.html
This film was made in 1942 -- during WW II. It is actually a SERIOUS film. The snark is obnoxious -- juvenile.
The ring shown to Victor Laslow and his wife bears the symbol of the Free French during the war, the Cross of Lorraine by revealing the ring the restaurant telling the couple "your among friends or Allies."
As others have commented, the bottle at the end that Claude Rains threw in the garbage can was vichy water, and Vichy was the capital of collaborationist France (which known to English speakers as Vichy France). Pretty much everyone watching the movie in 1942 would have known that.
When Renault throsws the water bottle in the trash at the airport, it's actually Vichy Water; a final dig at the Nazis; the Vichy government was the Nazi government over occupied France. All the reactions to Casablanca have not picked up on this point, but it was not lost on contemporaneous audiences.
There is one line in here that always cracks me up. When Strasser describes Rick as "Just another blundering American" and Renault comes back with "I was with them in 1918 when they blundered into Berlin." Laugh every time I hear it. Great writing and great delivery.
Of course, the Allies got nowhere near Berlin in the First World War. The Germans sued for an armistice before their borders were crossed by the Allies.
Btw, in the 1940's, 99% of every evening jacket worn by men was black or white (which made it easy on the filmmakers of that era!). Any other color except possibly a very light beige would set the wearer out as extremely extravagant if not outright weird. Fashions change for men too. Even today, most tuxedos are black. Men look good in black, sets them out and hides a variety of flaws.
The dialogue in this film is next level.
The bottle drop at the end is Vichy Water, a mineral water bottled in France. I always felt sorry for little Vichy, a resort town in southwestern France. After the French surrendered to Germany, the Germans took the coastlines of France and important industrial areas but as part of the surrender, the French were allowed to maintain control over about a third of mainland France as a "neutral" nation. The government set up shop in Vichy and was known as Vichy France, as opposed to several areas outside the mainland and in several French Colonies. Casablanca and many of the French controlled cities in North Africa were nominally under Vichy control, but Free French pockets were all over. Poor little town of Vichy got tarred with the charge of collaborationists and the term "Vichy" became a synonym for treason.
This is actually a SERIOUS film.
The cinematographer on this film purposely lit Ilsa with that soft lighting and even gave her those lights in her eyes. This was to represent how Rick sees her.
It definitely works!
‘Casablanca’ is renowned and is justly acknowledged as one of the most romantic films of all time but it is much more than the tale of a love triangle. Of course, it shows that the power of love can affect the human psyche, as demonstrated by Rick’s metamorphosis.
This film has so many levels to it that it takes many viewings to appreciate them. The main theme is not romance but self-sacrifice as the film’s message to the world at war is to give up the personal agenda for the common cause. It reminds wartime audiences, many of whom have loved ones fighting abroad, that their situation is the same as that of Rick, Ilsa and Victor.
The screenplay is so intelligently written. It is a masterpiece of complexity, containing subliminal political opinions and messages all carried along on a thrilling plot with brilliant one-liners, comedic elements, and contemporary, social commentaries. Basically, the film is politically motivated because it is a plea to America to join the war. Please note that the action takes place in December, 1941.
This is the the first non-musical movie to use music almost as an another protagonist, (which Tarantino does now). For example, ‘As Time Goes By’ is a valuable recurring theme and, in Paris, Rick and Ilsa dance to ‘Perfidia’ which means untrustworthiness.
Michael Curtiz’s direction is multi-faceted: Documentary, Film Noir, German Expressionism, Flashback etc. He is the master of creating the plot via seamlessly connecting a series of rapid-fire vignettes.
POINTS OF INTEREST AND NOTES FOR SUBSEQUENT VIEWINGS.
Rick’s initial selfishness, (I stick my neck out for nobody’), is a metaphor for USA indifference. It must be remembered that the events and politics are hard to comprehend and put into perspective for modem audiences than in the actual time when the film was made. The script is a 'State of the Union' address, both for home and foreign policies. There are references to Civil Rights as embodied in Sam and, of course, the debate about America’s involvement in the conflict.
Each character represents a country e.g. Two Japanese plotting . The Italian on the tail of the German. American indifference. French collaborators, the British robbed by foreign policy. Even the Balkans are mentioned via the Bulgarian couple. Rick’s actions symbolise the USA in its change in policy from isolationism to participation and ‘….the beginning of a beautiful friendship…’ is the USA and Europe joining forces to fight Nazism.
There is subtle direction. For example, Ilsa wears black and white clothes and is cast in shadows and in a mirror which portrays the ambiguity of her role.
The ‘La Marseillaise’ scene is the pivotal moment in which both Ilsa and Rick realise that saving Victor is more important than their own personal relationship. It also comes in just as Rick and Victor are about to argue over Ilsa but both drop the issue when they hear the music. This scene is rousing now but imagine how it must have felt for audiences right in the middle of the war when Germany seemed invincible and we need to put it in perspective in terms of world events full of Nazi domination.
The facial close-ups used throughout the film speak a thousand words: but particularly note Ilsa during ‘La Marseillaise’ when her expressions show her admiration of Victor’s power and her realisation that this must be preserved at all costs.
In any case... there is so much alcohol!!!!
POINTS TO WATCH
‘It’s December, 1941 in Casablanca: what time is it in New York?...
I bet they are asleep all over America’. PEARL HARBOUR
‘Even Nazis can’t kill that fast’
CONCENTRATION CAMPS
The Bulgarian couple keep appearing as symbols of hope and determination.
In the bar room fight over Yvonne, Rick attacks the German only and not the Frenchman.
Just one example of the excellent and complex scriptwriting occurs immediately after the roulette scene. The girl thanks Rick for letting her husband win and Rick replies, ‘He’s just a lucky guy’, which, on the face of it, refers to the gambling, but, in Rick’s mind, means that the husband is ‘lucky’ because his partner truly loves him.
Dooley Wilson (Sam) was a musician, but he played the drums. When he got the part he teamed up with a piano player he knew and they worked out ways for him to fake it well enough to get by. Another point about Wilson, he was only one of three native born Americans who played a credited part in this film. The other two were Humphrey Bogart and Joy Reid (who played the dark haired newlywed from Bulgaria.) Almost every actor who played a credited role in this film was from another nation, most of them fleeing Europe to evade the Nazis. Even Conrad Veidt who played the head Nazi, Major Strassar, was a rabid Nazi hater...he fled Germany because his wife was Jewish. The gorgeous blonde in the opening scenes (Yvonne) was French. Her name was Madeleine Lebeau and she was married to the actor playing the croupier. She was the last credited actor of the film to pass away at the age of 92 on May 1, 2014.
This movie is a textbook example of how light, shade and shadow were used in black and white film. When you see Bogart, the conflicted "I stick my neck out for nobody" Rick, he's almost always shot with half his face in shadow. When Lazlo, the freedom fighter is shown, the light is direct and fully on his face; he's a totally commited man. When you see Rick and Ingrid Berman, there are almost always shadows like bars coming across them, like they're caught in a quandry they can't escape. And the young Ingrid is always glowing; she was gorgeous and made even more perfect by a Hollywood film trick used before CGI. The beautiful actresses were often filmed with a gauze filter over the lens...it softened their looks, helped cover any defect in their skin so they could use less makeup and look more natural. The filmmakers of the 30's and 40's knew their trade well and did so with great skill.
That line about how Rick left a note in his hotel so the Gestapo would know where to find him was inspired by Conrad Viedt. When he left Germany with his Jewish wife, he DID leave a really insulting letter behind for the Gestapo, telling them why he was leaving (he was a well known actor in Germany) exactly what he thought of them and essentially where they could shove the note afterwards. Sadly he died of a heart attack shortly after Casablanca was released.
The symbol in Berger's ring was the Cross of Lorraine, the symbol picked by the French Resistence to identify Free France as opposed to the collaborating Vichy government. Berger identifies as Norwegian but was played by the character actor John Qualen who appeared in dozens of historically important films, including The Grapes of Wrath, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, The Searchers, Anatomy of a Murder, a ton of John Wayne movies too many to list. He often played Scandinavian roles, but was actually born in Canada and raised in Illinois. If you were a film buff of the 1940's through 60's you would recognize him instantly even if you never remembered his name.
Something needs to be said about the cinematography of this movie. Arthur Edeson also lensed the Original "Frankenstein" in 1931 and when I watched this (91 Year old!) Movie a couple of weeks ago, I was stuck how good it looked. Same with "Casablanca". It still holds up on the visual front.
The man you called Marlon Brando was Sydney Greenstreet. He made his movie debut in "The Maltese Falcon", which starred Bogart, and featured Peter Lorre (pronounced "LORE-ee"). Lorre and Greenstreet formed a sort of informal popular acting team, and appeared in several movies together.
It's interesting to note that Sam is getting any share of at all of Rick's Cafe: a man of color at this time wasn't often able to make this kind of profit. He's also a creative man who, remember, is playing "something of his own" while Rick wallows in drunken self-pity. I've sometimes thought that the whole idea of the cafe was Sam's to begin with. It's true Dooley Wilson didn't play the piano, but it doesn't matter: he can sing! One of the songs he sings you can hear in full in this clip from "Cabin in the Sky": th-cam.com/video/AOGymrTjS0A/w-d-xo.html
Also, the bottle said 'Vichy' on it, which was the capitol of the collaborationist French state during the German occupation.
The Ring had the signet of the Cross of Lorraine or the French Cross a symbol of the French Resistance. Thomas Magnum of MAGNUM P.I. and his buddies had a similar ring to symbolize a military ‘Fraternity’ they belonged to.
This movie is only behind the works of Shakespeare in terms of the number of common phrases it's inserted into the English language.
This movie came out in 1943, during WWII. When the actors sang the French natl anthem in Rick's, and that lady was crying? They didn't know how the war would end, and France was still occupied.
That was not Brando. Brando was about 20 in '43.
I was a kid in the 70s. Adults smoked everywhere! Airplanes, hospitals, teacher lounges, cars with the windows up, restaurants, movie theaters. Everywhere. The antismoking attempts took hold in the 80s, increasing til what we have now.
Just thought I'd clear it up that we knew it wasn't Brando
All the tears in this movie are real and had real refugees in it with real emotions.
Absolute classic and a personal favorite. What a great script and timeless story.
Glad you love the movie so much!
I call this the greatest "good" movie of all time! Warner Brothers churned out flicks like this, often with much of the same cast (Bogart, Lorre, Greenstreet).....but lightning struck with this particular film. Fantastic dialog and great acting, ie: giving a great actor great dialog is way more gratifying than putting a great actor in an exploding helicopter, or in front of a green screen. Bogart and Bergman's faces is more than enough landscape for me to look at! Hope you continue to hit silver screen stuff from time to time; some of the greatest of the greats are from back then. Would love to see you hit Hitchcock!
There's a bunch of hitchcock we would love to do!
Bergman, not Hepburn.
@@sparky6086 How could I make such a stupid mistake? I rightly stand corrected! I just watched "Sabrina" recently, obviously it was still on my brain!
Claude Raines steals the show. Which is hard to do with this cast.
Thank you for commenting this great movie : but too bad you skipped the Marseillaise !
If you liked Claude Rains (Captain Renault) and Paul Henreid (Victor Lazlo), you ought to watch « Now Voyager » in witch they both play with Bette Davis, the film was shot the same year by Irving Rapper.
Rains plays a decent and gentle doctor, showing his great versatility, I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.
Excuse my writing, I am a French elder woman 🇫🇷
PS : There is a looney tunes cartoon called « carrotblanca » where Rick is played by Bunny…
The young Ingrid Bergman never wore makeup in films. She looked better without it.
I read that in her autobiography.
Great movie probably the best of all time .
7:00
Sorry, I laughed at "Buongiorno!" Good cross reference.
Thank you!
One of the best movies of all time.
not one of, the greatest movie ever made.
@@AddSerious A bold statement, but I have to agree, because if I were to be allowed to only ever see one film again, it would be Casablanca.
Glad you love the film so much!
Isham Jones and Gus Kahn wrote "It Had to Be You" in 1924.
Neckties have gotten longer over time. If you watch a lot of old movies you'll see that they often reached only to about mid-chest in those days. One thing you didn't comment on was that men's trousers had higher waistlines back then, often several inches about the navel.
I guess you cut the singing of "La Marseillaise" because of potential copyright problems. TH-cam is very fussy about music. Too bad-it's the most significant scene in the movie.
At the end, Captain Renaud threw a bottle of Vichy Water into the trash, not a bottle of German wine. During the war, Germany had taken over France and divided it in two. Part of it was completely taken over by the German government and military, while in the other part the Germans installed a puppet government under collaborator Marshall Pétain and headquartered in the town of Vichy. Casablanca was under the control of the Vichy government, for whom Renaud worked. By throwing the Vichy Water in the wastebasket, he was symbolically renouncing his allegiance to the puppet regime.
All excellent pieces of trivia!
When Renault says Round up the usual suspects, it inspired a writer to pen The Usual Suspects decades later. It's a heist film and the cops did just that and try to figure out who did it.
They had to use model planes in flight because of WWII restrictions. West coast airports could not be used. The nighttime scenes all had to be done on sound stages because of black out rules. There was still fear of Japanese air attacks on the U.S. west coast and the east coast by the Germans.
Interesting!
This is why I read the comments. You learn something new all the time!
Annoying banter undermines the charm of the movie.
German officer slaps with open hand and the frenchman comes back immediately with a closed fist....i love that scene.
What, nothing about what you already know and no thoughts at the end? Color me disappoint.
We have all of that over on our podcast themoviejourney.podbean.com/
Yes! I'm always so glad when people react to the classics. More old/classics, please.
We've got a bunch on the watch list! Expect more coming up 😁
What a witty reaction! I loved all the black and white running gags.
17:49 “You will find him over there at The Blue Parrot.”
“Doesn’t look blue to me.”
The best reaction I've ever seen! Because you two saw through all the Hollywooding of the story and you laughed at it. Ultimately the end of the movie is beyond any laughing about untill about 2100.
Thank you for reaction. It was enjoyable. The line "Round up the usual suspects" became the title for the film "The Usual Suspects". It's a more modern movie about a robbery with the suspects arrested and questioned. Their stories are engaging during the interrogations until the end.
"...a dentist." 😂😂
How badly do you think I now want you two to do The Score, lol.
It's on the list now!
Many people forget this was an anti Nazi movie filmed and released (1939) before we had entered World War II (against Germany, Italy and Japan in 1941). When Disney was building the Great Moivie Ride for its Florida MGM Movie Park they went on a search for a Plane just like the one in Casablanca. They had Audio Animatronic figures of Ric and Elsa doing their scene at the Plane. The Plane they eventually found turned out to be the very Plane from the movie. Since the great Movie Ride no longer exists I wonder what happened to the Plane.
Regarding the final scene: It was French wine with the imprint of the Vichy French regime colluding with Nazi Germany.
They used to put a fine mesh filter over the lens when filming main women in those old films.
They were still writing scenes for this movie even while it was being filmed. At one point Bergman went to the director and asked him point blank "Who am I supposed to be in love with, Rick or Victor?" The director told her to "play it in between" because at that point even he didn't know exactly how the movie would end. After filming wrapped, they decided they didn't like the last line and called Bogart back to dub in the classic "beautiful friendship" line. They wanted to reshoot some scenes with Ingrid Bergman too but they couldn't. Bergman really didn't want to play this part and she was loaned out to do so. The only reason she agreed (aside from the reality that actors at this time were contract slaves to their studios) was because she was promised the lead role in the upcoming Gary Cooper movie "For Whom The Bell Tolls" which she thought would be a better part. When they asked her to come back, she had already cut her hair for the part of Maria, the Spanish guerilla fighter in that film.
They used to put a very fine gauze over the lens for the leading ladies. It made them glisten.
The makeup and costumes had to be carefully chosen to produce a certain look for Black & White film - for example Red shows up as very dark gray to black and Green as pale or white so makeup for Black & White was quite startling in person. Until Panchromatic Film was invented and then the makeup could be more natural but amplified.
I'd probably watch your reaction s to comedies, but would refrain from doing so for serious classic films. I'd be fearful of seeing a Schindler's List reaction, also in black and white.
Bogart was born in 1899. Wow. When I hear the classic music I think of As Time Goes By the UK comedy from the 90s :)
Hard to believe how long ago it was now
Bogart was born on Christmas Day. Just putting this out there.
Best movie ever candidate. A tragic tale of love, honor, and nobility.
Lazlo is the perfect human being
He's pretty great!
I wish you would do a few comments at end to discuss your overall thoughts instead of just ending it.
We do a full review over on our podcast themoviejourney.podbean.com/
Would have been nice if you guys would have talked to us after the movie was over, and told us how you liked it, what you liked about it, etc.
We do a full review over on our podcast themoviejourney.podbean.com/
Favorite movie of all time.
The actor who played Sam was a drummer. He had to fake playing the piano.
Great reaction, I have watched a few. You have a great comment for many crucial parts, well done!
Thank you so much!
Great reactions!!!
Requests:
The Yellow Rolls Royce (Ingrid Bergman, Omar Sharif)
Marnie (Sean Connery)
To catch a thief (Cary grant, Grace Kelly)
The African Queen (Humphrey bogart, Kathryn Hepburn)
Dr Zhivago (Omar sharif)
The Thornbirds
The Far Pavilions
We'll throw them on the watchlist! Thanks for the suggestions 👍🏼
Watch the commentary video for Casablanca. It’s gives you the insights to it .
This was nearly a perfect combination of affectionate snark and actual appreciation for a classic film.
Thank you! We try and balance the two as best as we can 😁
I am a Redneck from Oklahoma. Love this. I am an exception. Don't come here.
27:50 - No, not German wine, Vichy France wine.
At first with the black and white, I thought Dean was going topless and this was a fan service video.
We'll get him there eventually 🤣
at the very end when he drops the wine bottle, if you look at the label it is actually water. To cut down on getting sick while invading areas the Germans would put water into various bottles to drink so they would not have to use local water. Once he saw it was just water in the bottle he threw it away.
Not at all. "Vichy" water is mineral water bottles at the French city of Vichy. Vichy was also the seat of the French collaboration government led by Marshal Phillipe Petain. The term "Vichy" meant the French government working with Germany, as opposed to de Gaulle's Free French government in exile in England. Up to this point, Renault, as a French official, worked for Vichy. And in that moment, he had determined to leave and join a Free French battalion with Rick. Dropping the Vichy water bottle expresses his disgust for the collaboration government he will now fight against.
Setting the film in Casablanca offered a unique opportunity to play upon the tensions of a part of Franch now allied with Germany and technically not occupied where Germany also had to foster the fiction that France was allowed to remain free. That's why Lazlo can tweak the German's nose, but only up to a point.
The film was a specific anti-German theme, for all that it was a classic story and a definite A-List film from the director to celebrated actors. So anti-German that, bizarrely it seems today, the version released in West Germany in 1952 had all the Nazi and concentration camp references removed. The cold war needed Germany on the right side of the Iron Curtain.
RUBBISH!!! He threw it away because it was Vichy water. The Vichy Government was the French puppet government of the Nazis. Learn some history!!!
@@geraldclough1099 The problem was that post-war _German law_ barred depictions of Nazi stuff. The plot description of the edited version sounds wild:
'All scenes with Nazis were removed, along with most references to World War II. Important plot points were altered when the dialogue was dubbed into German. Victor Laszlo was no longer a Resistance fighter who escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. Instead, he became a Norwegian atomic physicist who was being pursued by Interpol after he "broke out of jail".'
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casablanca_(film)#Irish_and_German_cuts
So many classic lines.
"Play it Sam!" Classic 👍😃
No one ever says those exact words. Rick actually says, "You played it for her, you can play it for me." Ilsa said, "Play it once, Sam. For old times’ sake."
You shouldn’t treat these people like animals in a zoo. Would you go to another country and act so shocked bc their culture is different. Just be quiet and experience the social and cultural differences of people from the past
I couldn't tell if you liked the movie or not!
We definitely liked it!
Great reaction ! Please do movies GOOD WILL HUNTING and SHAWSHANK REDEMTION and FOREST GUMP !! and SCENT OF A WOMAN
All great suggestions! We'll add them to the list 👍🏼
Love it!! And I’m ready to go to work now :)
🤣
I'd love to see you react to Total Recall and The Rock. I think you'd thoroughly enjoy both movies, especially if you haven't seen them.
I've just thrown them on the list!
Painful to watch. you guys trying too hard to be MST3K. Pissing all over a great movie.
I did not at all appreciate the extreme cuss words and irreverent tone of these reactors. 1942's "Casablanca" is a revered close to perfect classic film masterpiece in every detail.
To the guy on the right hand side of the screen: You are not nearly as funny as you seem to think you are. In fact, I think you're rather obnoxious. This is one of the greatest films of all time and I, for one, would like to hear the dialog and not your uninformed comments. Show some respect to this great movie.
If you want to hear the dialogue, go and watch the movie. If you don't want to hear our uninformed comments, then don't watch our reaction to the movie.
I understand that this is a reaction channel but talking over every scene, ever segment with conversation is just not necessary and is clearly evident in the low amount of subscribers....moving on. Many reaction channels are the same...where they appear to be a platform for the channel owners to be in the spotlight rather than the the movie being reviewed. The successful channels are focused on the content rather than them selves.
Great movie a classic...you both spend to much time mocking and laughing at your silly jokes...which are not funny!
Two very funny guys ;-)
Thank you!
Sorry fellas, but the giggle fits and snarks detract from the appreciation of the film. You're really not up to reacting to classic older films.