Reviews of Casablanca

Casablanca review

Posted : 3 weeks, 1 day ago on 8 December 2009 08:00 (A review of Casablanca)

Casablanca isn't just any ordinary classic film but it's a classic of legend with all of the quotes, the scenes and the chemistry between the characters. I can't believe how good Casablanca turned out to be. Casablanca is probably along with Gone With The Wind and It's A Wonderful Life is probably the best well-known classic even the modern times today after over 60 years. I don't think there is one single thing that is flawed in Casablanca. I honestly think Casablanca can be called a film for a family. Maybe isn't the best film to choose for kids what with the romance and that but for young adults (teenagers) with their/his/her parents. Casablanca is THE classic romantic story. Casablanca proved that romantic films and love itself doesn't just have to have a lot of sex but it is mostly how powerful the love is in relationship which is why Casablanca and Brokeback Mountain are my favourite romantic films. They both reveal what love really is and how affective it can be in not just their lives but other people around them too. Casablanca is a film even now that is earning a lot of critically acclaimed glory even after almost 70 years of when it was first released.


The two leading actors were actors who are legendary in their own kind. Humphrey Bogart delivers the performance of his career because I personally think that Rick is a very realistic business man who is in that sort of situation. Rick Blaine is probably Bogart's most famous character after all of the films he was in. Humphrey was the literally perfect actor for Rick because even of the famous quotes, they won't be best remembered without him in it. Rick is an American business man who owns a bar in Casablanca, Morocco. His life goes upside down when he sees his old flame Ilsa in his bar with her husband Victor Laszlo. Ilsa is a young woman travelling to Casablanca to flee from the Germans. She accidentally finds Rick and asks for his help despite the consequences. Ingrid Bergman's performance as Ilsa Lund was in my opinion just as good as Humphrey Bogart's because I would deeply see and feel the love between them. They both come out with such legendary and eternal lines that will never be forgotten and have become some of the best quotes in cinema history. Quotes such as "Here's looking at you, kid," "We will always have Paris," "Play it again, Sam" and "Louis, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." Humphrey and Ingrid have created a masterpiece for the ages that will pass on for generations to come. I loved Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault and Paul Henreid as Victor Laszlo. Claude was another legendary actor who has been in a lot of the classics in the past.


Michael Curtiz's direction of Casablanca totally blew me away completely. Without Curtiz, there would be no classic Casablanca. His direction was like he wanted us to feel the reality of the love between Ilsa and Rick. The script introduced those classic lines to the film which made the rest of it very effective towards Hollywood. Casablanca truly is one of those extremely rare scripts that has such classic, legendary and just simply amazing quotes within it.


Casablanca inspired me to watch classic film as did It's A Wonderful Life, Gone With The Wind, A Streetcar Named Desire and The Godfather. Casablanca features a lot of things for me: 2nd best romantic film after Brokeback Mountain, a very close contender for best film of the 1940s, a very powerful bond between two characters and most importantly, Casablanca hits my favourite films of all time without a shadow of a doubt.

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They had a date with fate in Casablanca!

Posted : 1 month, 2 weeks ago on 14 November 2009 01:47 (A review of Casablanca)

''Kiss me. Kiss me as if it were the last time.''

Set in unoccupied Africa during the early days of World War II: An American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.

Humphrey Bogart: Rick Blaine

Casablanca, what other film can evoke such powerful feelings of nostalgia, can exemplify so completely the golden period of Hollywood film-making? The year was 1942, and the world found itself in the midst of the bloodiest conflict in modern history. Unlike anything our generation could possibly imagine, citizens were faced with an incredible uncertainty about their future. The Nazis marched across Europe, an astonishing, seemingly-unstoppable enemy, and the United States watched with bated breath from across the Atlantic. Most Hollywood productions responded to such ambiguity with fully-fledged, unabashed patriotism, and war-time filmmakers became obsessed with validating audiences' beliefs that the Allied forces would inevitably win out against Germany, and, indeed, many often concluded their pictures with unnecessary epilogues in which we've apparently already won. Such propaganda, while no doubt ensuring commercial success from war-weary cinema-goers, has regularly tarnished and outdated even the most otherwise impressive contemporary WWII pictures, as the directors' willingness to simulate a happy ending strikes distinctly false from an era in which the overwhelming atmosphere was that of uncertainty and insecurity(see Billy Wilder's Five Graves to Cairo(1943).

''Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.''

This is not to say that Casablanca(1942) is not a work of American patriotism; indeed, it might just be the greatest example. The film owes its enduring legacy to how seamlessly director Michael Curtiz, and his troupe of writers and actors, was able to encapsulate the sentiment of the time in which the picture was made. The story ends with Rick and Renault strolling resolutely into the thick mist, their futures obscured by the fog of uncertainty that hovers before their faces. What will the next few turbulent years have in store for these heroes? Will they be overwhelmed by the enemy, or continue their noble fight for freedom? Following Operation Torch, the 1942 Allied invasion of North Africa, there were plans to film one of those dreaded propagandistic epilogues, showing Rick, Renault and a detachment of Free French soldiers on a ship. Owing to Claude Rains' fortuitous unavailability for filming, the original ending was left intact, and producer David O. Selznick was never more correct than when he concluded "it would be a terrible mistake to change the ending."

When Casablanca was first conceived, the filmmakers apparently had little idea they were about to produce one of cinema's best-loved pictures. A prime example of the studio-bound exotica that was popular at the time, and obviously a war-time off-shoot of Howard Hawks' Colombian aviation adventure Only Angels Have Wings(1939) – perhaps also John Cromwell's Algiers(1938), which I unfortunately haven't seen – the film reproduced the stuffy, humid climate and seedy, corrupt personalities of Morocco on the Warner Bros. sets, which ironically communicate more romantic charm than the real location could ever have provided. The film was shot by veteran cinematographer Arthur Edeson, who had previously worked on the wonderfully-atmospheric All Quiet on the Western Front(1930), Frankenstein(1931) and The Maltese Falcon(1941). His perfectly-framed photography suggests a mixture of stuffy melodrama, glamorous adventure and shadowy noir, though, interestingly, he avoids the sordidness of the latter style's successors, despite the wealth of suitably-seedy characters to be found in Casablanca. Framed through Edeson's lens, it seems that even the most squalid and repulsive of personalities can take on a curious facade of nobility.

''I love you so much. I hate war so much.''

No less than six people had a hand in the film's justly-celebrated screenplay. The story was based on a then unproduced play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison, ''Everybody Comes to Rick's'', and was adapted for the screen by Julius and Philip Epstein and Howard Koch, with uncredited input by Casey Robinson. The Epstein twins were initially keen to give the film a few comedic elements; this would, no doubt, have made for entertaining viewing, not unlike a Howard Hawks picture, but might have detracted from the story's core themes of love, loyalty, regret, moral responsibility and self-sacrifice. Koch had perhaps a clearer understanding of the director's preferences – another wonderful film from Curtiz, Angels with Dirty Faces(1938), also poses a vital moral dilemma – and chose to focus largely on the politics and melodrama of Burnett and Alison's play. That so many conflicting artistic ideas somehow melded together, not only into a cohesive narrative, but also into history's greatest screenplay, is a miracle to be credited only to the cinema gods, particularly in view of the fact that Curtiz commenced filming with an incomplete script that was updated daily.
The screenplay, in a word results in being excellent, and it also compliments the whole directing. It progresses with scenes that are just so phenomenal, so legendary and so nostalgic. It includes one of the most legendary quotes in the history of motion pictures, for example; "Play it once, Sam", "We'll always have Paris" and "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship". Even when I had never seen the movie, I just immediately recognized those sentences with a wry smile, as they are among the sentences everybody knows even if they've never seen Casablanca before. The whole plot is also surprisingly exciting, comparing to the plots nowadays it would definitely work in any movie, as it is just so thrilling from the beginning till the end and you just can't know how it ends before the last minute of the movie. The final climax is simply genius and it's actually so satisfying that I had to start clapping my hands in appreciation for the climax.

Perhaps another possible explanation for the film's unlikely legacy lies with the distinguished cast, borrowed from all over Europe. Humphrey Bogart, Dooley Wilson and Joy Page were the sole American imports, and assorted supporting talents were plundered from the United Kingdom (Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet), Sweden (Ingrid Bergman), Austria (Paul Henreid), Hungary (Peter Lorre) and even Germany (Conrad Veidt). Bogart, who had been typecast throughout the 1930s as a lowlife gangster, had been given the opportunity to show some humanity in Raoul Walsh' film noir High Sierra(1941), but it was Casablanca that proved his first genuinely romantic role, and, with several notable exceptions, the remainder of his acting career would comprise of similarly-noble yet flawed heroes. Bergman, despite having a rather passive role, was never more enchanting than as Ilsa Lund, and, photographed with a softening gauze filter and catch lights, positively sparkles with gentle compassion and a tragic sadness. Perhaps it's just the romantic in me, but Casablanca represents one of Hollywood's most unforgettable accomplishments. Even as the film draws to a majestic close, and two men forge a lifelong friendship in the fog-ridden uncertainty of War, we immediately feel like asking Sam to play it again… just for old time's sake.

''I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.''

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Casablanca

Posted : 1 year, 6 months ago on 30 June 2008 04:24 (A review of Casablanca)

Humphrey Bogart is my favorite actor. Ever. Yes, he could play some real questionable characters, but there was always an elegance and sophistication about him that made you like him. No movie better showcases that duality of rough edges and soft middle then Casablanca. And what more can be said about it anyway? This isn’t just one of the films that will keep Bogart alive and well for generations upon generations, but Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet , Conrad Viedt, Claude Rains and, of course, the luminously beautiful and incredibly talented Ingrid Bergman. Naturally, with a powerhouse cast of big name stars and contract players, Casablanca is a great example of screen acting. Bergman’s face alone while listening to Sam play “As Time Goes By” is something every modern actress should watch. Such complicated and diverging emotions are clearly and economically translated in a short matter of time and with a minimum amount of changes. It’s all in her eyes and her mouth. And when Bogart is alone after seeing her for the first time in years, drinking his pain away, he too can translate numerous emotions with, seemingly, very little effort. His eyes have it, but no one could hold a cigarette like Bogart. Even the way he smokes shows a different emotion. From the effortless cool when Rick is first introduced to the way he desperately yet stiffly smokes during scenes with Ilsa, he always found a way to make interesting choices.

And the story combines a little of everything, never remaining entirely too much of one thing to stick to one category. There’s a romance, a war backdrop, some political intrigue, and, of course, a Nazi or two. Yet it never feels overloaded or like it’s reaching too far and covering too many different tangents. The romance is sweepingly epic and heartbreaking, and the politics interesting and appropriately grimy. It is no wonder that Casablanca is an American classic. It would be a classic in any language or time period.

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Pure classic filmmaking!

Posted : 1 year, 8 months ago on 2 May 2008 07:03 (A review of Casablanca)

"Here's looking at you, kid."

It has been over 6 decades since Casablanca was first released. That totals over 60 years of movie lovers and film enthusiasts alike admiring this masterpiece with the utmost praise.

Casablanca is a magical tale of loyalty, love and radiant romance that deserves every bit of praise it still receives, and then some. Casablanca is one of the only old movies that I could watch daily for the rest of my life and never get sick of. The film is a true original Hollywood classic that will always be thought by some to be the greatest movie of all time. It will always be in my Top 10.

Casablanca has not dated one iota; it's appealing, charming, magical and a downright masterpiece. Set during World War II, the main action of this exotic tale is located in the non-occupied French Morocco city of Casablanca, logically enough. The central character is a cynical café owner named Rick Blaine (Bogart), a discontented soul who "sticks his neck out for nobody". Rick finds himself coming into possession of two letters of transit; these can guarantee safe passage out of the country to whosoever carries the letters. Rick is informed that the leader of the underground in Europe, Victor Laszlo (Henreid), has arrived in Casablanca with hopes of escaping to America. But he needs these letters of transit that Rick is presently in possession of. The twist is that Victor arrives with his wife Ilsa (Bergman). Ilsa and Rick were lovers in Paris many years ago and departed under tragic circumstances. And now a classic love triangle emerges; two letters and three people that want the letters. Rick must now decide between being selfless or selfish.

Casablanca is an unforgettable film that is still mighty appealing in this contemporary age of cinema. It is classic and timeless in every sense of the word. Many people still regard the screenplay to be the best script in existence. Do I agree? Absolutely! The script is definitely the best script ever written for the screen. It contains some gorgeous lines that we often hear parodied and quoted. ("Round up the usual suspects", "We'll always have Paris", the list goes on) If you ever do a course on writing screenplays, Casablanca will be brought up as an example. The lines cannot be faulted at all. There is never anything cheesy and never anything too corny. The film is never boring and is also the perfect length.

Both the screenplay and the directing assist in making this perfect film into a reality. It almost goes without saying that the performances are fantastic. Humphrey Bogart was in his prime when this film was released. After The Maltese Falcon he was finally given his big break. And since this film in particular, Bogart has gone on to become one of the world's most memorable actors. Bogart's performance is masterful. Every line is delivered with such precision; keeping the audience interested and enthralled in everything that is going to happen next. The final line uttered in this movie is the greatest last line in cinematic history without question or debate. And Bogart's delivery is essentially flawless.

Ingrid Bergman was an extremely talented actress when this film was made. Her performance is sublime. The romance is never cheesy, and each line delivered by either her or Bogart glistens with perfection. The song As Time Goes By is the greatest movie song of all time. It will give one goose-bumps because of its poignancy and power.

I've seen this film broken down during filmmakering classes. Everything in this movie is to perfection. People will always suggest Casablanca as an example of a perfect movie. There is little wonder or debate surrounding that statement. I've said it many times before and I'll say it again, Casablanca could be the greatest movie ever made. If you want an example of a perfect movie then watch this one. If you want a good movie to watch with your partner, watch this one. Rush out and buy the movie with hesitation. I cannot put it clearer than that.

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Casablanca review

Posted : 1 year, 11 months ago on 31 January 2008 09:34 (A review of Casablanca)

This tragic love story focuses on one man's conflict between following his heart and doing the right thing. This movie, with its rich characters and impressive screenplay, makes a strong emotional impact.

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My favorite movie of all time!

Posted : 2 years, 5 months ago on 2 August 2007 08:33 (A review of Casablanca)

Acting, writing, directing, all perfect. Claude Rains steals the show as the lovable but corrupt local police chief. It is a move about sacrifice, duty and longing.

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A must see and a classic Gem

Posted : 2 years, 9 months ago on 9 March 2007 08:25 (A review of Casablanca)

This is a movie that should have been a flop. It was rewritten till the final day of production. Instead it is a heartfelt love story to the backdrop of the war. The cast is filled with A list stars and they only make it better. The movie is a misture between laughter, romance and heartbreak. It is a movie that holds up to the test of time and even audiences of todays film goers will not be disapointed. Anyone who considers themselves serious about movies must see this film.

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