The era of classic Hollywood film was dominated by the “studio system,” a time when a handful of major players had the means for both production and distribution of films.1 The major Hollywood studios at this time kept directors, composers, actors, musicians—and all the necessary film professionals—under contract to create films for the studio. Remarkably, in the 1940s each of these studios was producing about 50 films per year—almost one every week!

It is a testament to the talent and efficiency of the studio system that, with such a high volume of production, there were quite a few first-rate films among them. Casablanca (1942), produced by Warner Bros., is a case in point. Based on an unproduced play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison, “Everybody Comes to Rick’s,” the film’s script went through a series of revisions—even as shooting was taking place. What resulted was the very timely setting of Casablanca in early December 1941 (just days before the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor), and a love story that sacrifices itself to the greater needs of a world at war, turning the protagonist, Rick Blaine, into one of the most memorable and heroic characters in all of cinematic history.

For all the uncertainty that accompanied the final script revisions—even the stars didn’t know whether Ilsa would end up with Rick or Victor—there seems in retrospect almost an inevitability that the story would take the shape it did. Indeed, as soon as the had entered the war following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hollywood had turned its efforts to making patriotic films. Casablanca premiered at the Hollywood Theater in New York City on November 26, 1942, to coincide with the Allied invasion of North Africa and the capture of Casablanca. It went into general release on January 23, 1943, to take advantage of the Casablanca conference, a high- level meeting between Churchill and Roosevelt in the city. The movie thus was very timely and, not surprisingly, it contains many elements of propaganda.

The studio system only rarely allowed the emergence of the Hollywood film director as auteur; that is, as the one whose creative decisions shape the film to conform to his or her artistic vision. In those days—with a few notable exceptions—the producer was largely responsible for a great many of those decisions, and producer Hal B. Wallis can rightly be credited with the film’s success, more so than director . Granted, Curtiz was noted for his well-paced staging; he had directed Captain Blood (1935), an exciting and popular sea adventure, as well as The Adventures of Robinhood (1938). (Recall that we previewed the opening of the latter in Lesson 4.) In both cases, though, it was Hal Wallis who had tapped Curtiz as director and paired him with Erich Korngold as composer. And for Casablanca, it was Wallis’ decision to bring in his favorite composer, .

1 The “big five” studios of the classic Hollywood era were: Paramount, Loew’s/MGM, 20th Century-Fox, Warner Bros., and RKO.

In Lesson 4 we watched the first two minutes of the film’s opening. Let’s extend that clip, and this time watch the first six-and-a-half minutes of Casablanca. Casablanca Opening

The Warner Bros. logo music (0:00 – 0:15) was composed by Max Steiner in 1937 for the film Tovarich. What do the music and images tell us about the film? First, that Warner Bros. is being “branded,” and Steiner’s music gives it import. Second, the names Humphrey Bogart, , and Paul Henreid were well known to audiences, movie stars from the A-list, signifying the studio’s highest quality. Third, the WB logo has already dissolved to a map of Africa when the three stars’ names appear, and drums have entered, beginning the process of situating us for the story that is about to unfold.

When the title “Casablanca” appears, the music takes an exotic turn toward the Middle East (0:17 – 0:57), signaled by the use of a diatonic scale containing not just one extra-large scale step (an Augmented 2nd), but two of them. As we observed in Lesson 4, scales containing this interval tend to sound exotic to Western ears. Never mind whether the music is authentically middle-eastern—it’s not! Still, the primitive drums and Arabic sounding melody succeed in situating us in a place that is foreign to American audiences, vaguely somewhere in the Middle East, and the title “Casablanca” tells us exactly where.

The music takes another geographic turn (0:57 – 1:05), this time toward France, with the quotation of the French national anthem, La Marseillaise (timed precisely with the credit of “Music by Max Steiner”). This is, after all, a movie about World War II, and Casablanca was at that time part of unoccupied France. The credits for producer and director conclude the title sequence, with director Michael Curtiz’s name coinciding with a dissonant chord that serves as a transition to the opening of the story.

The main title music, then, (0:00 to 1:11) consists of the logo music and two themes: an exotic middle-eastern theme and a western theme, La Marseillaise, which would be familiar to audiences. In a very real sense, the music has given us a broad overview of the film we’re about to see, one in which western protagonists play out their respective parts relating to a love story and a war story, against the exotic and alluring backdrop of Casablanca.

The narrated prologue (1:12 – 2:18), which opens the story, is accompanied by music (“refugee” theme) that blends traces of middle-eastern elements with Romantic idioms. There is a newsreel feel to the montage sequence, and the music clearly serves the function of providing continuity across the series of dissolves and overlays that illustrate the narration.

The prologue concludes as the map trail zeroes in on Casablanca, and we are introduced to the city from above, with the sight of a high Mosque tower, looking out across the city toward the sea. The camera finally tilts downward to view a street in Casablanca, and is then lowered by crane to street level. Diegetic sounds are heard for the first time, and at this point the underscore returns unabashedly to an exotic middle-eastern theme similar to the one we heard in the title music, now played by a reed instrument that is suggestive of an instrument of middle-eastern origin—as though we are hearing diegetic music without seeing the musicians. There is a famous saying in the world of architecture, that “form follows function.” The saying holds true for many disciplines and arts, and it is especially fitting in the case of nondiegetic film music. The music’s form will always be subordinated to the form of the narrative, because the music’s function is to support the narrative. Composers of film music learned early the value of writing short musical phrases, often making use of sequential progressions. These compositional techniques are elastic, and they allow the music to “follow” the narrative in either a literal or figurative sense.

Max Steiner was a master of writing music to “follow” the narrative. “Music should fit the picture like a glove,” he said. Consider the remainder of this opening clip (beginning at 2:23), which sets up the main elements of the narrative with remarkable concision. A dissolve takes us from the city street to the interior of military/police headquarters. Notice an almost fanfare quality to the musical transition that “announces” we are about to hear something important. (Steiner uses the first five notes of the German national anthem, “Deutschland über Alles,” set in the minor mode for this fanfare.) Notice, too, that a soft drum roll on timpani underscores the reading of the bulletin.

Casablanca Opening

Twenty seconds later (at 2:43) a dissolve carries us back out to the streets of Casablanca as police begin the roundup of suspicious characters. For the first time in the film we encounter cuts between shots (rather than dissolves and fades), which are essential to the continuity editing system. For the next minute, diegetic sounds of police whistles, sirens, and vehicles combine with Steiner’s underscore to convey—finally—temporal continuity. The action is fast, and Steiner’s score stays with it every step of the way, at least figuratively, if not literally.

A clear instance of mickey-mousing occurs after the man running from the police is shot, when he falls to the ground with a nondiegetic thud. As the police discover that the literature in his hand is from the French underground (3:47), the La Marseillaise theme returns, except now in the minor mode. This theme bridges the cut to the next scene outside police headquarters, where we see the motto of formerly free France still etched above the archway: “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.”

The scene across the street at an outdoor café, involving a couple and a pickpocket, provides a bit of comic relief, even as it continues to provide us still more information, such as the proclivities of Captain Renault, the prefect of police. Moments later, the diegetic sound of an airplane draws the attention of everyone. As we join the throngs of refugees looking longingly toward the plane, the “refugee” theme returns precisely at the moment we see the plane in the sky (4:59). We get a beforehand introduction to the Bulgarian couple, as well as to Rick’s Café Americain, before we see the plane land at the airport nearby.

At the airport we are introduced to Major Strasser and Captain Renault. Notice that the music grows quieter after the landing of the plane, concluding with a soft timpani roll, barely distinguishable from the diegetic sound of the idling engine. Both the engine and the diegetic music cease (at 5:38), cueing out amid the greetings of “Heil Hitler!” Dialogue propels the plot and prepares us for the dissolve to the next scene outside Rick’s, where the sound of diegetic music beckons us to enter.

The opening six-and-a-half minutes of Casablanca are remarkable for their economy and efficiency in situating the viewer within the diegesis and moving the plot forward. We receive a great deal of information about the world situation and about Casablanca specifically, and we are introduced to an assortment of characters that have converged on the city. Let’s watch this clip again, considering the remarkable ground covered in such a relatively short time, and taking note of the significant role of music and the details we have observed.

After the dissolve to the exterior of Rick’s (at 6:30), we as viewers are invited inside the café, joining with other patrons entering through the front door. For nearly the next half hour of screen time, the drama unfolds inside Rick’s as though in real time. The temporal continuity is largely established by the presence of diegetic music in the main room, courtesy of Sam at the piano, along with his band. Spatial continuity is also reinforced by the music, based on proximity to the musicians. For example, we can hear the music in the backroom casino when the door is open, but it is barely audible when the door is closed. Similarly, we hear the music in Rick’s office until the door is closed. The diegetic music, along with the hubbub of the crowd, creates the atmosphere of a nightclub, one that attracts everyone, including the viewer.

The most important aspect, though, of the diegetic music in Casablanca is “As Time Goes By,” a song written by Herman Hupfeld in 1931. Max Steiner had originally intended to write a new tune for the film to take its place, but critical scenes had already been filmed with Ilsa saying the title, “As Time Goes By,” and Ingrid Bergman was no longer available for retakes. It would seem to be yet another aspect of inevitability in the way Casablanca took shape.

Max Steiner was a master of orchestration and development, and he embraced Hupfeld’s tune as though it were his own. In a very real sense he makes it his own, as the tune becomes the most prominent theme of the underscore for the remainder of the film.

Let’s have a look at this pivotal point in the plot, when Ilsa asks, “Play it once, Sam, for old times’ sake,” and then, “Sing it, Sam.” The song immediately becomes invested with deep emotion, as we watch Ilsa as she listens. Her reverie is short lived, though. The moment Rick hears “As Time Goes By,” he marches over and interrupts with a harsh reprimand, “Sam, I thought I told you never to play . . .”

So the former lovers become reacquainted. Notice the emotional “stinger” that cues in the nondiegetic music, followed immediately by a “minor-ish” rendering of the opening of “As Time Goes By”—the same twelve notes that Ilsa had hummed for Sam. The melody is largely made from a sequential repetition of the six-note motive that begins the song (“You must remember this . . .”), making it easily recognizable and ideally suited to the sort of motivic manipulation that is essential to Steiner’s compositional technique. For the remainder of the scene, Steiner paints the emotional tenor of the table conversation in varying colors, drawing again and again on segments of the tune, further deepening our associations with the music. In a remarkable musical moment (2:56), Steiner gives the brass a minor-mode statement of “Deutschland über Alles,” in counterpoint against the strings’ rendering of “As Time Goes By,” beginning as Ilsa remarks, “But, of course, that was the day the Germans marched into Paris.”

As though we haven’t heard enough of “As Time Goes By”—and we haven’t—in the next scene Rick as much as demands that Sam play the tune for him (0:59), and it then becomes the gateway to his flashback. In the dialogue leading up to this, though, there are some pointedly political lines uttered by Rick—a reminder to the audience that the United States was a latecomer to the worldwide conflict. So, while “As Time Goes By” is the vehicle that travels seamlessly from diegetic to nondiegetic music— carrying us across the dissolve to Rick’s flashback—it is La Marseillaise that accompanies the establishing shot of Paris and the view of the Arc de Triumph (1:41).

Eight minutes later, in a reversal of order, the flashback’s final scene at the train station is accompanied by a minor rendition of La Marseillaise (9:34), followed by what may be the film’s most melodramatic minor representation of “As Time Goes By,” when Rick reads the letter from Ilsa (10:01). The return to the present at Rick’s is reinforced by the continuation of Sam’s diegetic performance of “As Time Goes By” (10:38).

Between these “bookends,” throughout Rick’s flashback, “As Time Goes By” accompanies the most beautiful and emotional moments for Rick and Ilsa: in the apartment before and after Ilsa tells Rick the reason there’s no longer another man in her life (3:31); at Labelle Aurora, shortly before the Germans are due to reach Paris (5:03), when we hear yet another diegetic performance of the song—and this time we hear the “bridge” of the song and the final verse, in a sense “completing” a diegetic performance of the song by Sam—followed by a handful of nondiegetic motivic statements accompanying the compelling and memorable dialogue of this scene: “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid” (6:00); “Is that cannon fire . . .” (7:10); “Strange, I know so very little about you” (7:38); “That’s too far ahead to plan” (8:17); and “I love you so much” (8:42), which ushers in one of the most sustained nondiegetic renderings of the song, continuing through the last half minute of what would be the couple’s final scene together before their separation, concluding with Ilsa’s impassioned plea, “Kiss me, kiss me as if it were the last time.”

As pivotal as Rick and Ilsa’s reunion is at the café that evening, Rick’s flashback lies at the absolute heart of the film. The stories of love and war commingle, as do the musical themes employed by Steiner. The depth of feeling that we sensed in Ilsa’s face as we watched her listening to Sam is affirmed in this back- story, and we also learn a great deal more about Rick and who he projects himself to be in Casablanca.

In an interesting twist, La Marseillaise—arguably the second most important musical theme of the film—has been heard only as nondiegetic music during the film’s first seventy minutes. When it is at last heard within the diegesis, its performance by the band and the crowd, led by Victor, is an important plot point, as well as a moving musical moment. Said playwright Murray Burnett of the scene some fifty years after the making of Casablanca, “I cried when I wrote it.” Max Steiner must have enjoyed weaving the two competing musical pieces. First, the Germans, who have taken over the piano, begin singing a patriotic German song, “Wacht am Rhein,” which we initially hear from Rick’s office. Victor will not stand idly by. He makes his way to the band and tells the musicians, “Play La Marseillaise. Play it.” Before they begin, though, they look to Rick, who gives a nod of approval.

The editing of the sound track is first-rate and refines a concept Steiner had first explored a decade earlier in Cimarron (1931), that of a sound design that highlights aurally the individual in the frame within a group setting. So, for example, after the crowd has joined in, we hear more distinctly, in turn, Yvonne, Victor, and the guitarist, as each is framed in a close-up. Like so many good film techniques, this works best when it is inconspicuous.

Let’s watch this three-minute clip of the “battle of the bands” and its aftermath.

Casablanca: Battle of the Bands

In this lesson, we have focused on the two most prominent themes of the film, “As Time Goes By” and La Marseillaise. The more closely we examine the film, though, the more readily evident it becomes that Steiner has employed, not just these two themes, but several others as well, all of them subject to treatment as leitmotifs, a compositional technique pioneered by Richard Wagner in his music dramas.

Notice, for example, after the conclusion of La Marseillaise, the masterfully “inaudible” cue-in of nondiegetic music, coinciding with a shot of a greatly displeased Major Strasser. The music perfectly amplifies the major’s malevolence, with yet another sneering brass statement in the minor mode of the opening of “Deutschland über Alles.” A timpani drum roll then underscores the conversation between Strasser and Renault. Interestingly, it’s only when we analyze this scene that we realize that Steiner’s score at this point is almost identical to what we heard underscoring the radio announcement from military/police headquarters at the beginning of the film.

Max Steiner was one of the great composers of the classic Hollywood era. He helped establish the conventions and norms of Hollywood underscoring: the “inaudibility” of the nondiegetic cue- in and cue-out, writing the music to “fit like a glove,” and the establishment of leitmotifs, or themes—and the absolute fearlessness to repeat these themes over and over.

Given what we’ve found in the music in Casablanca thus far, it comes as little surprise that the final scene again makes heavy use of the film’s two principal themes. At the airport the underscore is cued in immediately after Rick tells Renault that the names on the letters of transit will be “Mr. and Mrs. Victor Lazlo” (0:27). “As Time Goes By” enters just four seconds later, and for the next minute-and-a-half the tune permeates the underscore that accompanies the memorable and moving dialogue of Rick and Ilsa’s final conversation apart from Victor, concluding with Rick’s last iteration of, “Here’s looking at you, kid” (1:51).

Two more instances of “As Time Goes By” find their way into the underscore: first, after Rick’s final words