Three Themes: 1: Lost Love 2: Honor and Duty 3: Self-Sacrifice and Romance
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FROM THE WEBSITE: http://www.filmsite.org/casa.html The classic and much-loved romantic melodrama Casablanca (1942), always found on top-ten lists of films, is a masterful tale of two men vying for the same woman's love in a love triangle. The story of political and romantic espionage is set against the backdrop of the wartime conflict between democracy and totalitarianism. [The date given for the film is often given as either 1942 and 1943. That is because its limited premiere was in 1942, but the film did not play nationally, or in Los Angeles, until 1943.] With rich and smoky atmosphere, anti-Nazi propaganda, Max Steiner's superb musical score, suspense, unforgettable characters (supposedly 34 nationalities are included in its cast) and memorable lines of dialogue (e.g., "Here's lookin' at you, kid," and the inaccurately-quoted "Play it again, Sam"), it is one of the most popular, magical (and flawless) films of all time - focused on the themes of lost love, honor and duty, self-sacrifice and romance within a chaotic world. Three Themes: 1: lost love 2: honor and duty 3: self‐sacrifice and romance The classic and much-loved romantic melodrama Casablanca (1942), always found on top-ten lists of films, is a masterful tale of two men vying for the same woman's love in a love triangle. The story of political and romantic espionage is set against the backdrop of the wartime conflict between democracy and totalitarianism. [The date given for the film is often given as either 1942 and 1943. That is because its limited premiere was in 1942, but the film did not play nationally, or in Los Angeles, until 1943.] With rich and smoky atmosphere, anti-Nazi propaganda, Max Steiner's superb musical score, suspense, unforgettable characters (supposedly 34 nationalities are included in its cast) and memorable lines of dialogue (e.g., "Here's lookin' at you, kid," and the inaccurately-quoted "Play it again, Sam"), it is one of the most popular, magical (and flawless) films of all time - focused on the themes of lost love, honor and duty, self-sacrifice and romance within a chaotic world. Directed by the talented Hungarian-accented Michael Curtiz and shot almost entirely on studio sets, the film moves quickly through a surprisingly tightly constructed plot, even though the script was written from day to day as the filming progressed and no one knew how the film would end - who would use the two exit visas? [Would Ilsa, Rick's lover from a past romance in Paris, depart with him or leave with her husband Victor, the leader of the underground resistance movement?] And three weeks after shooting ended, producer Hal Wallis contributed the film's famous final line - delivered on a fog-shrouded runway. The sentimental love story, originally structured as a one-set play, was based on an unproduced play entitled Everybody Comes to Rick's by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison - the film's original title. Its collaborative screenplay was mainly the result of the efforts of Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch. In all, six writers took the play's script, and with the models of Algiers (1938) and Only Angels Have Wings (1939) to follow, they transformed the romantic tale into this quintessential classic that samples almost every film genre. Except for the initial airport sequence, the entire studio-oriented film was shot in a Warner Bros. Hollywood/Burbank studio.. Pianist Sam's role (portrayed by "Dooley" Wilson - who was actually a drummer) was originally to be taken by a female (either Hazel Scott, Lena Horne, or Ella Fitzgerald). The lead male part went to Humphrey Bogart in his first romantic lead as the tough and cynical on-the-outside, morally-principled, sentimental on-the-inside cafe owner in Casablanca, Morocco. His appearance with co-star Ingrid Bergman was their first - and last. As a hardened American expatriate, Bogart runs a bar/casino (Rick's Cafe Americain) - a way-station to freedom in WWII French- occupied Morocco, where a former lover (Bergman) who previously 'jilted' him comes back into his life. She is married to a heroic French Resistance leader (Henreid). Stubbornly isolationist, the hero is inspired to support the Resistance movement and give up personal happiness with his past love. The Hollywood fairy-tale was actually filmed during a time of US ties with Vichy France when President Roosevelt equivocated and vacillated between pro-Vichy or pro-Gaullist support. And it was rushed into general release almost three weeks after the Allied landing at the Axis-occupied, North African city of Casablanca, when Eisenhower's forces marched into the African city. Due to the military action, Warner Bros. Studios was able to capitalize on the free publicity and the nation's familiarity with the city's name when the film opened. It played first as a pre-release engagement on Thanksgiving Day, 1942 at the Hollywood Theater in New York. [On the last day of 1942, Roosevelt actually screened the film at the White House.] Its strategic timing was further enhanced at the time of its general release in early 1943 by the January 14-24, 1943 Casablanca Conference (a summit meeting in which Roosevelt broke US-Vichy relations) in the Moroccan city with Churchill, Roosevelt, and two French leaders - DeGaulle (the charismatic Free French leader) and General Henri Giraud (supportive of Marshal Petain). [Note: Stalin declined the invitation to attend the so-called 'Big Three' Conference.] The big-budget film (of slightly less than $1 million), took in box-office of slightly more than $4 million. It was considered for eight Academy Awards for the year 1943. [Actually, it should have competed against Mrs. Miniver (1942) (the Best Picture winner in the previous year), since it premiered in New York in November of that year. However, because it didn't show in Los Angeles until its general release that January, it was ineligible for awards in 1942, and competed in 1943.] The nominations included Best Actor (Humphrey Bogart), Best Supporting Actor (Claude Rains), Best B/W Cinematography (Arthur Edeson, known for The Maltese Falcon (1941)), Best Score (Max Steiner, known for Gone With the Wind (1939)), and Best Film Editing (Owen Marks). The dark-horse film won three awards (presented in early March of 1944): Best Picture (producer Hal B. Wallis), Best Director, and Best Screenplay. Bogart lost to Paul Lukas for his role in Watch on the Rhine. And Bergman wasn't even nominated for this film, but instead was nominated for Best Actress for For Whom The Bell Tolls (and she lost to Jennifer Jones in The Song of Bernadette). Bogart had made three other films in 1943: Sahara, Action in the North Atlantic, and Thank Your Lucky Stars. The Story - Analysis At the film's beginning, the credits are displayed over a political map of Africa. In the first five minutes of footage, the introductory details are succinctly communicated by a stentorian narrator. Over a crude, slowly-spinning globe and a zoom-in shot toward Western Europe, a doom-laden, ominous voice-over, similar to the March of Time newsreel narrations explains the turbulent Nazi takeover of Europe, the coming of World War II, and the frenetic stream of political refugees (superimposed over the globe) from persecution out of Hitler's besieged Europe to Vichy France and North Africa: With the coming of the Second World War, many eyes in imprisoned Europe turned hopefully or desperately toward the freedom of the Americas. Lisbon became the great embarkation point. But not everybody could get to Lisbon directly... A three-toned relief map of the land mass of Axis-occupied Europe spins into the frame, showing the opposing sides in the conflict: • Light Tone: Allied Powers: Great Britain, the British Empire, and her allies (including the Soviet Union) • Middle Tone: Neutral Nations: Sweden, Switzerland, Eire (Ireland), Spain, and Portugal. Unoccupied and neutral zones include the southern portion of France and French North Africa (Tunisia, Algeria, and French Morocco) • Dark Tone: Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, their allies (Hungary, Rumania, Slovakia, Croatia), and conquered territories (Belgium, The Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, and parts of Poland, Luxembourg, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia). Northwestern France is German occupied European refugee trails and torturous escape routes are developing - a bold line is drawn from the city of Paris to Marseilles in Vichy France. The line finally reaches to Casablanca on the coast of neutral French Morocco, the setting for the film, where refugees (unless they are wealthy or influential enough to acquire quick-exit visas) are victimized by predatory, corrupt Vichy bureaucrats: And so a torturous, round-about refugee trail sprang up. Paris to Marseilles, across the Mediterranean to Oran [in Algeria], then by train or auto or foot across the rim of Africa to Casablanca in French Morocco. Here the fortunate ones through money or influence or luck might obtain exit visas and scurry to Lisbon, and from Lisbon to the New World. But the others wait in Casablanca, and wait and wait and wait. The camera descends from a mosque into the crowded, stucco-walled coastal city of Casablanca, a way station city (an upscale concentration camp) technically ruled by neutral Unoccupied France - located out of war- torn Europe. The story is set in early December 1941 in a city (and cafe), in a dangerous, far-off locale that is a microcosm of the wartime world. More important details regarding the setting and characters are telescoped very precisely and economically - information about the theft of transit letters, the political and social situation in pro-Vichy Casablanca, the arrival of the Nazi commandant and his friendship with the self-satisfied Vichy policeman, the crucial daily flights to Lisbon, and the central importance of Rick's Cafe.