This is part of a series of articles reviewing the American Film Institute's Top 100 Films, as updated in 2007. Why am I doing this? Because the damned cinemas are closed and I have to review something.
(PG) ★★★★★
Director: Michael Curtiz.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Dooley Wilson, S. Z. Sakall, Leonid Kinskey, Madeliene Lebeau, Curt Bois, Joy Page, John Qualen.
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| "Play it, Sam. Play Wynona's Big Brown Beaver." |
The answer to this question (and much of Casablanca's greatness) is in the script. Unlike, say, such classic "auteur" films like Citizen Kane or 2001: A Space Odyssey, where so much of the esteem is connected to what the director was doing and their over-arching vision, Casablanca's brilliance is largely there on the paper.
It's central idea is overly simple on the surface - use a bar as a microcosm for the diaspora and desperation created by WWII. But the depth of the characters and the razor-sharp hard-boiled dialogue give it an edge that defies any potential simplicity. The people who drink at Rick's Café Américain are neither heroes nor villains - they do bad things to survive and good things against their better judgement. Some of them wrestle with the devils and angels on their shoulders, some of them just do what they do. The only truly good character is Victor Laszlo (Henreid), the resistance leader the plot revolves around, and the only truly bad character is Major Heinrich Strasser (Veidt), a typically punchable Nazi. It's no surprise these are the two least interesting characters in the film. Everyone else sits in the grey zone of morality that lies between them, and are all the more enthralling for it.
These internal struggles give the plot its push-and-pull dynamic, its will-they-won't-they mystery that drives the film. Who will Ilsa choose? What will Rick do? Whose orders will Renault follow? These questions keep you guessing right up to its perfect finale.
Casablanca is based on a then-unproduced play called Everybody Comes To Rick's, written by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison. Some credit must go to Warner Bros employees Stephen Karnot and Irene Diamond for discovering and championing an unknown script from an unperformed play. From there, twins Julius and Philip Epstein (who would later write the classic black comedy Arsenic & Old Lace) started a screenplay before Howard Koch took over, only for the Epsteins to return for the finishing touches while the film was already in production.
Others contributed to the screenplay too, including producers Hal Wallis and Casey Robinson, and this kind of "too many cooks" approach can either lead to a shambolic mess or the type of screenplay where only the best lines make the final cut. Casablanca is definitely the latter. There are iconic lines all over the place, with Bogart's Rick getting the lion's share, and the dialogue is imbued with that great mix of melodrama and poetry favoured by hardboiled detectives and noir novelists.
Take for example these absolute pearls, that no one would say in real life, but holy shit they're magical:
“Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine…”
“What is your nationality?” “…I’m a drunkard.”
“I like to think you killed a man. It’s the romantic in me…”
All gold, and all contribute to the film's noir undertones.
When these lines are delivered by the likes of Humphrey Bogart (in probably his best performance), Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, and Sydney Greenstreet, you can't lose, and that's the other weapon Casablanca has in its holster - its cast. Everyone rises to the occasion, sinking their teeth into the lines, relishing the opportunity to create such rich characters.
Lorre, despite being dispatched early, is his usual superb self as the "cut-rate parasite" Ugarte, while Greenstreet is great as the jolly amoral rival club owner Ferrari. Both men would be typecast in these kind of roles, but for good reason - they're so good in them.
Bogart and Bergman are outstanding of course, and plenty of words have been written about their chemistry and charms, but the secret stars of the show are Dooley Wilson as Sam the piano player and Rains as corrupt cop Renault.
Wilson is the quiet moral heart in the certain of Rick's Americain Cafe; he's the stoic goodness in the middle of the bar that Rick is seemingly tethered to. His only flaws are his inaction, and his unfailing commitment to Rick. (Also it bears mentioning that the moment Sam first recognise Ilsa in the bar is gold - the look on Wilson's face is perfection.)
But Rains' comic timing as Renault is something special. He's a truly despicable character who blackmails female refugees into exchanging sex for transit papers, yet Rains makes the bastard likeable and hilarious. He's a prime example of the good/evil mix that runs through every soul that lands in Casablanca, making them so fascinating.
Director Michael Curtiz's role in all this is often downplayed - critic Andrew Sarris famously offered the film the backhanded praise of being "the most decisive exception to the auteur theory". But Curtiz puts his camera in the right places, cruising around Rick's Cafe like a member of the nightly crowd. He overcooks the soft focus on Bergman and some of the rear projection is hokey, even for the time, but in the grand scheme of things Curtiz does nothing wrong. He's like a good bass player - he never stands out but he holds it all together.
Released in a time of turmoil, Casablanca is a genius blend of the macro and the micro. It's unapologetically geopolitical yet its also a small story of a broken heart. It's about what war does to people but it's also about a good old-fashioned love triangle. And through it all, the film has a noir-ish edge and a layer of cool that few films of that time had, and that many films have tried to emulate.
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