Question

Casablanca is often considered to be one of the top films to have ever been produced. What merits does the film have that would give it this status?

Answer 1

Spoilers ahead, but then again, who isn't familiar with Casablanca, even if one hasn't seen it?

I've been watching 'Casablanca' over and over again since I bought the Special Edition DVD, and is there any film out there one can watch again and again without ever being tired of it? And does any film appeal to a broader audience? Just everything about it seems to be as close to perfection as it only can be.

But what exactly is so special about it? Is it its great genre mix, never equaled by another film? When we think of 'Casablanca' first, we remember it as a romantic film (well, most of us do). But then again, its also a drama involving terror, murder and flight. One can call it a character study, centering on Rick. And there are quite a few moments of comedic delight, just think of the pickpocket ("This place is full of vultures, vultures everywhere!") or the elderly couple on the last evening before their emigration to the US ("What watch?").

But 'Casablanca' is not only great as a whole, it still stands on top if we break it apart and look at single lines of dialog, scenes or performances alone. Is there any other film which has more quotable dialog than 'Casablanca'? 'Pulp Fiction' is on my mind here, and 'All About Eve' and 'Sunset Blvd.' come close, too, but still I think 'Casablanca' tops everything else. And not only is the dialog great, it's unforgettably delivered, especially by Humphrey Bogart ("I was misinformed.") and Claude Rains ("I am shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here"). Many of scenes have become a part of film history; the duel of 'Die Yacht am Rein' and 'La Marseillaise' is probably one of the greatest scenes ever shot (the only I can think of that would rival it for the #1 spot is Wankel and the globe from Chaplin's 'The Great Dictator'), and the last scene is probably even familiar to the few people who've never seen 'Casablanca'. Am I the only one who is absolutely convinced that the film wouldn't have become what it is today if Rick and Elsa would have ended up as the lucky couple?

Answer 2

Answer:

    "Casablanca" was born more as a political propaganda film than as an immortal love story, whose exoticism would be reconstructed entirely in the studios. The Paris station, for example, was recycled from another Warner film, "The Strange Passenger".

     The "Casablanca" script was written during a manifest, World War II had left Hollywood without heartthrobs and Humphrey Bogart had joined the cast of the last-minute film, replacing none other than Ronald Reagan. Instead of Ingrid Bergman, the producers had been thinking about Hedy Lamarr, while the film would not even be set in Morocco, but in Lisbon.

     At first, the film would have the same title as the theater work on which it was based, "Everybody comes to Rick's", but this idea was eventually discarded in an attempt to repeat the same success of "Algeria", shot three years earlier.

    Thus, stumbling, one of the films with the most unforgettable and remembered moments in cinema was developed. The fact is that, with three Oscar awards won, a plot full of unforgettable dialogues, anthological interpretations by Bogart and Ingrid Bergman (as well as Claude Rains and Peter Lorre in secondary roles) and a song by Max Steiner, "Casablanca" would go on forever to Eternity.

    Rick and Ilsa, the lovers that time and history will continually want to separate, gave the classic Hollywood melodrama an added bit of bitterness, topped off with that realistic ending so unaccustomed at the time. An inopportune love, whose power will no longer be able to overcome adversity, but mere convenience. That was a hard blow for the second chance and a victory for the defeat.

    Given that Paul Henreid and Claude Rains only arrived on the film sets later due to overwork in the previous film, the first scene filmed by Bogart and Ingrid was the meeting at the piano, but the chemistry has since become evident.

    They were a perfect couple within the magic of cinema, since he had to climb in boxes to gain the five centimeters that the Swedish actress took from him. Although the song that reminded them of the past is called "As time goes by", this scene ended up being frozen in the retinas of the moviegoers.