Casablanca
Short description
Set in Casablanca, Morocco, during the Second World War, the film centres on Rick Blaine, an American who runs a popular nightclub in the city. Casablanca is a waypoint for people fleeing the Nazis, easy to enter but hard to leave, and Rick's establishment becomes a place where refugees seek the papers they need to get out. Into this world come Victor Laszlo, a resistance leader wanted by the German authorities, and his wife Ilsa, whom Rick once loved. When Ilsa asks Rick to help her husband escape, he is forced to weigh his own feelings against the cause he once served.
Michael Curtiz directed the film, the sixteenth of the twenty-five features he made in chronological order, following Yankee Doodle Dandy and preceding Mildred Pierce. Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch wrote the screenplay, and Hal B. Wallis produced it for Warner Bros. Pictures. Humphrey Bogart plays Rick, with Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa, Paul Henreid as Victor Laszlo, Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault, Conrad Veidt as Major Heinrich Strasser and Sydney Greenstreet as Signor Ferrari. Around 119 performers and 51 crew members are credited.
The film runs 102 minutes and had a worldwide box office of roughly 3 million dollars. On IMDb it holds 8.5 out of 10 from about 653,000 votes, while on TMDB it has 8.1 out of 10 from some 6,224 votes. A critics' rating of 9.7 out of 10 from 136 reviews places it slightly above the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Since 1957, many cinemas began showing the film during summer exams, initially at Harvard, and then at other universities. Twenty years later, it was calculated that “Casablanca” was shown on American television more often than any other film. To further facilitate the introduction of the film to new generations of television viewers, Ted Turner financed the colorization of “Casablanca” in the 1980s. This step provoked a mixed reaction among film buffs: Bogart's son, for example, compared coloring the film to attaching hands to the Venus de Milo.
- The third screenwriter, Howard Koch, was the author of the sensational radio play “The War of the Worlds,” which caused panic among millions of Americans (who believed that Mars had attacked Earth).
- In the 80s, the script was sent to various Hollywood studios and film companies under its original title, just for laughs. Many didn't recognize it as "Casablanca" and considered the script not good enough to make a decent movie.
- Neither Bogart nor Bergman was the director's first choice. Initially, Ronald Reagan – at the height of his Hollywood fame at the time – was planned for the lead role, the future President of the United States. And the leading female role was to be played by actress Michelle Morgan, who demanded a fee of $55,000. The producer refused to pay this amount when it turned out that Ingrid Bergman agreed to half the sum.
- While working on the script, Epshteyn and Koch were in different locations.
- The Epstein brothers finished working on the script three days before filming began, which director Michael Curtiz started on May 25, 1942. Howard Koch completed his version of the script two weeks after filming began.
- The film’s premiere was timed to coincide with Casablanca appearing on the front pages of American newspapers: in November 1942, Allied forces occupied Casablanca, and in January 1943, the meeting between Roosevelt and Churchill took place there. Considering this, Warner Bros. decided not to postpone the film’s premiere. However, American soldiers in North Africa did not see it: the authorities did not want to provoke the numerous supporters of the Vichy regime in the French colonies.
- The ironic formulation “the usual suspects,” put into the mouth of Captain Renault, was used as the title of a cult film of the 1990s.
- Following the Allied landings in Africa, plans emerged to reshoot a scene with Rick and Renault, but they had to be abandoned due to the actors’ commitments to other projects. In addition, influential producer David O. Selznick opposed the new ending.
- The majority of actors who played the roles of Nazis were Jewish.
- The film's screenwriters, Julius and Philip Epstein, were identical twin brothers who had not worked together before 1938.
- Composer Max Steiner wrote the music for the film, alternating motifs from two main melodies – the romantic theme “As Time Goes By” (from the 1931 musical) and the patriotic “La Marseillaise.”
- Paul Henreid, who was cast as Laszlo, did not get along with the other actors; Ingrid Bergman considered him a “prima donna,” and Henreid himself spoke disparagingly about Humphrey Bogart’s acting abilities.
- The script was finished just three days before filming began, and the ending of the film could not be figured out until the last day of shooting. When Ingrid Bergman asked who her character was in love with, director Michael Curtiz suggested she play as if she was hesitant in her feelings between two men.
- The play arrived at the Warner Bros. story department on December 8, 1941, and on December 31, producer Hal B. Wallis, who would go on to make the film, gave it a different title—"Casablanca."
- Bogart’s famous final line, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” was written after filming was completed and voiced by Bogart approximately a month after work on the film had finished.
- According to Bergman’s recollections, due to her height, the director made the shorter Bogart stand on boxes or sit on cushions when they filmed scenes together. Immediately after filming wrapped, Bergman had her hair cut short for her next film, which made reshooting certain scenes impossible.
- They couldn't come up with the film's ending until the very end of shooting.
- In the film “Black Cat, White Cat” (dir. Emir Kusturica, 1998), the character Grga repeatedly watches the final scenes of “Casablanca” with a phrase he repeats and quotes: “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
- In 1940, playwright Murray Burnett, along with Joan Allison, wrote the play "Everybody Comes to Rick's," which served as the basis for the film. The play was never staged in the theater.
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