It was 75 years ago today that ‘Casablanca’ premiered in New York in 1942. The passage of long decades has not diminished any of its appeal. To mark this rather trivial anniversary I republish a piece I wrote on September 16, 2009 for no obvious reason.
Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart in the 1942 classic ‘Casablanca’
On a complete whim I watched ‘Casablanca’ the other day after nearly a quarter century. I am glad to report it has not lost of any of its crackling smart impact. If anything its distilled humor has only intensified with the passage of time. The delivery of the movie’s lines was accentuated by the deliberate concision of their words. While the 1942 movie is full of crisp cynicism and probably offers more memorable lines, the following brief exchange has remained with me.
Let me set up the scene for you. Annina, a Bulgarian woman who wants to escape a Europe tormented by the Nazis and escape to America via Casablanca, approaches Rick (brilliantly restrained Humphrey Bogart), a café owner of great influence. The woman wants her husband to win some quick cash at Rick’s casino and needs the owner’s munificence. Captain Renault (a memorably unscrupulous Claude Rains) is the eminently pliable French prefect of police whose blessings are essential to leave Casablanca.
Annina: Monsieur Rick, what kind of a man is Captain Renault?
Rick: Oh, he's just like any other man, only more so.
Then there is Senor Ferrari, who owns café Blue Parrot but wants to buy Rick’s café. In a scene there is a character beseeching him for help. His response:
Senor Ferrari: As the leader of all illegal activities in Casablanca, I am an influential and respected man.
Let me cite three more and move on.
There is scene where Rick is chatting with the Nazi officer Major Strasser along with his underling Heinz and Captain Renault.
Major Strasser: Are you one of those people who cannot imagine the Germans in their beloved Paris?
Rick: It's not particularly my beloved Paris.
Heinz: Can you imagine us in London?
Rick: When you get there, ask me!
Captain Renault: Hmmh! Diplomatist!
Major Strasser: How about New York?
Rick: Well there are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade.
There is a character called Ugarte who sells exit visas for a premium. Rick does not particularly like him. Check out this exchange between them.
Ugarte: You despise me, don't you?
Rick: If I gave you any thought I probably would.
In an early scene Rick denies an influential German banker entry into the casino. Incidentally, Carl in the exchange is Rick’s waiter-cum-manager-cum-accountant-cum-resistance.
Rick: Your cash is good at the bar.
Banker: What? Do you know who I am?
Rick: I do. You're lucky the bar’s open to you.
Woman: What makes saloonkeepers so snobbish?
Banker: Perhaps if you told him I ran the second largest banking house in Amsterdam.
Carl: Second largest? That wouldn't impress Rick. The leading banker in Amsterdam is now the pastry chef in our kitchen.
Banker: We have something to look forward to.
(Some of the bankers today should have met a similar fate, not that there is anything wrong with being a chef.)
More than anything else Casablanca endures over six decades after it was made, and that too at the height of the bloodiest conflagration that the world has seen, is because director Michael Curtiz and his writers made a sharply defined entertainer. The fact that he made it on the margins of the Second World War gave it authenticity even while it was laced with all the levity and license of a Hollywood film. The beauty of Casablanca is that every time you watch, you feel it always existed as a finely polished finished product. You do not see the labor behind assembling all the nuts and bolts.
Since no compelling is art is free from flaws, let me nitpick a bit in conclusion. There is a glaring problem of continuity in one of the scenes.
It takes place at the Paris railways station when Rick and his faithful musician friend Sam are waiting for Ilsa (divinely distant Ingrid Burgman). There is a heavy downpour as Sam delivers a note to Rick from Ilsa saying she would not be joining him. As Sam hurries Rick up to catch the departing train, the two in their soaked up raincoats enter the platform. Coming in they are dripping with water but in the very next frame as the camera changes angles, their raincoats are totally dry. Here are the pictures of those frames.
P.S.: Lest you think that I have nothing better to do than memorizing them, I have been able to reproduce the lines verbatim courtesy http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034583/quotes