Casablanca (1943)

Even though it was written almost 70 years ago, Casablanca remains one of the most highly regarded American films of all time. Originally a play written by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison, it is the epitome of the classic wartime drama/romance.

Directed by Michael Curtiz and produced by Hal B. Wallis, Casablanca is set in guess where: Casablanca, Morocco during the second world war, shortly after the Nazi invasion of Paris. Humphrey Bogart perfectly depicts Rick Blaine as a terribly despondent American expatriate. Blaine operates a night club in Casablanca, where refugees come to escape Nazi occupation on their way to America. The love affair of the story comes to his club one night with her wanted activist husband, Victor Laszlo. Played by Ingrid Bergman, Ilsa Lund met Rick in Paris shortly before the Nazis invaded the city. At the time she was married to Victor Laszlo, but he had been reported as killed in a concentration camp, so in her loneliness, she fell in love with Rick. They had plans to leave Paris and marry, but Ilsa never showed up for the train to leave with Rick—instead, all he got was a note explaining that for some reason she couldn’t go with him. Later in the film we find out that she had just learned a day earlier that Victor was still alive. It was by chance that they ended up in Rick’s club as they stayed in Casablanca looking for the papers that would set them free. In the end, Victor and Ilsa fly to America together safely, while Rick stays behind, resolved to return to his old ways and help in the fight against the Nazis.

Casablanca is a masterpiece of writing. Originally inspired by a trip to Europe in 1938 by Murray Burnett, it was a play based on Burnett’s experience of seeing the uneasy coexistence between Nazis and refugees in the south coast of France. The first main writers of the film, Julius and Philip Epstein, made a few changes to character backgrounds, including Rick’s occupation as a club-owner where he was a lawyer in the play. Howard Koch and Casey Robinson also made contributions to the script, though Robinson is not credited. There was some tension between Koch and Curtiz on questions of emphasis (Koch highlighted politics and melodramatics while Curtiz preferred romance) but Koch credits this as the reason the script turned out so well.

The writing of Casablanca I believe is what makes it so great, but cinematographer Arthur Edeson made a valuable contribution as well. An interesting fact I found involved the careful photography of Ingrid Bergman. She was shot mostly from her left, which was her preferred side, and Edeson used a softening gauze filter and catch lights that made her eyes sparkle. These were designed to make her seem “ineffably sad and tender and nostalgic.” To set the nearly constant dark mood, low-key lighting is used almost exclusively. However, in my opinion, the most memorable affect of cinematography was the “duel of the songs” in Rick’s club. It starts with a group of German soldiers with Major Strasser singing their national anthem, while the rest of the club is relatively quiet. Victor Laszlo then tells the band to play the Marseilles, to which he sings along and conducts for the rest of the club who join him singing the French anthem as loud and proud as they can. Close-up shots go back and forth between Laszlo and the other triumphant French singers and the dispirited Germans, particularly Major Strasser.