"We seldom get into trouble when we speak softly. It is only when we raise our voices that the sparks fly and tiny molehills become great mountains of contention."
There is a percentage of the movie watching population that is only interested
in seeing new movies. If it didn't come out in the past three months, well, forget
it. That's their opinion, their right, but I just don't get it. I think that any movie
you've never seen is essentially a new movie, at least to you.
People say that newer equals better. I'm not suggesting that you have to like
anything you don't want to, but the music on the radio today wouldn't be on
the radio today if it weren't for hundreds of musicians who have contributed to
the collective evolution of popular music. And so it is with movies.
For me, one of the most perfect of films has always been Casablanca, and if
you've never seen it, well, there's still time to make amends. This Warner
Brothers' classic is celebrating its 70th anniversary, and numerous DVD and Blu-ray releases are
available with loads of extras (if you're a bonus material junkie like me).
The film stars Humphrey Bogart in one of his finest and most complex roles as
Rick Blaine, an American expatriate with a shadowy past who is running the
most popular nightclub in Casablanca during the early days of World War II.
Dooley Wilson plays his companion and piano player, Sam, who has been with
Rick since his days back in Paris before the Nazi occupation.
The signature song from the movie, which almost didn't make it into the movie
at all, is "As Time Goes By." That song spawned what is perhaps the most oft-misquoted line in movie history, "Play it again, Sam." Rick never said it, but
Sam played it anyway.
In the film, the city of Casablanca is run by the pleasantly corrupt Captain
Louis Renault, played with devilish charm by Claude Rains. Sydney
Greenstreet as Signor Ferrari and Peter Lorre as Ugarte are just two of the
lovable rogues who inhabit Casablanca and add a bit of spice and intrigue to
Rick's life.
More spice is added when Major Heinrich Strasser of the Third Reich shows up
with his band of jackboots looking for some stolen letters of transit, which
magically allow the possessor to travel freely beyond the reach of the Nazis. OK,
the whole concept of the letters of transit is somewhat flawed; such letters
never existed, and if they had, why would the Nazis give two shakes who was in
possession of them if they could detain anyone they wanted to anyway? But
that's not really important.
This is an example of a device Hitchcock referred to as "the MacGuffin," an
object or event that serves as the impetus for the plot to move along but doesn't
necessarily matter in and of itself, or even have to make much sense.
So you've got Nazis converging on Casablanca looking for the letters of transit,
the police are looking for whomever murdered the person who originally had
the letters, and all of these folks are filtering through Rick's Café Americain,
known for its free-flowing alcohol, lovely music, and lots of illegal gambling in
the back.
Plenty of other characters make their way to Casablanca, usually running away
from something and trying to get somewhere else. And then, of all the gin joints
in all the world, Ilsa Lund walks into Rick's.
Ilsa, played by the radiant Ingrid Bergman, was Rick's one-time lover back in
Paris, and when the Nazis came they decided to run off together, only she left
Rick standing on a train platform in the rain. That's how Rick ended up in
Casablanca, trying to forget all about her in the bottom of a glass.
He has just about managed to erase her memory when she walks into his bar
one evening with her husband Victor Laszlo, a prominent leader of the French
resistance played by Paul Henreid. Laszlo is naturally wanted by the Nazis, but
they can't just grab him in Casablanca, although they assume (correctly) that
he's trying to get his hands on the letters of transit.
Rick, as it turns out, is in possession of the letters, something Captain Renault
suspects but can't quite prove, and something that Ilsa knows but can't quite
reconcile with her rather conflicted feelings about the man she loves and the
man she is married to.
At one point Ilsa comes to Rick's room late at night to plead with him to give
her the letters but he refuses, which leads to her drawing a gun that she can't
bring herself to use. The two of them finally conspire to use the letters
themselves to run away together.
That scene of Ilsa emerging from the shadows with eyes filled but not quite
overflowing with tormented tears is one of my favorites in all of moviedom. In
that moment, in that light, I don't think any other woman in the long, lustrous
history of women was ever more perfectly beautiful than Ingrid Bergman was in
those few frames of captured cinematic consummation.
Their concocted plan also seems to be perfect, but things are rarely what they
seem in Casablanca. The story that ensues is a perfect date movie, filled with
anticipation and humor, bad guys with guns, good guys with sad stories, spies
and secrets, and a heart-wrenching love triangle.
The film was based on the unproduced play "Everybody Comes to Rick's" by
Murray Burnett and Joan Alison. Director Michael Curtiz evokes top-notch
performances from all his actors, and screenwriters Julius Epstein, Philip
Epstein, and Howard Koch penned some of the most memorable lines ever
uttered on the big screen.
Even before the script became part of the vernacular, it was venerated by the
Academy with an Oscar win for Best Screenplay, along with Best Picture and
Best Director. Bogart was nominated for Best Actor, and the film was also
nominated for Best Cinematography, Best Editing, and Best Score.
Awards or not, I think Casablanca is simply one of the best films ever made,
bar none, for all the reasons I've mentioned. But also because it deals so deftly
with such universal themes of love and betrayal and sacrifice and redemption.
So if you've never seen it, take a look. And if you have watched it, it might be
time to enjoy it all over again. Here's looking at you, kid.
Andy Lindsay can frequently be overheard engaged in conversations that consist entirely of repeating lines of dialogue from movies, a genetic disorder he has passed on to his four children and one which his wife tolerates but rarely understands. When Andy's not watching a movie he's probably talking about a movie or thinking about a movie.
Or, because his family likes to eat on a somewhat regular basis, he just might be working on producing a TV commercial or a documentary or a corporate video or a short film. His production company is Barking Shark Creative, and you can check out his work here www.barkingshark.com.
Andy grew up in Frederick, Maryland, but migrated south to North Carolina where he met his wife, Deborah, who wasn't his wife then but later agreed to take the job. Their children were all born and raised in Greensboro, but are in various stages of growing up and running away.
Andy (or Anziano Lindsay, as he was known then) served a full-time mission for the Church in Italy, and today he teaches Sunday School, works with the Scouts, and is the Stake Video Historian.