Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!
We're looking at the 1940s today, specifically the year 1943 and the Best Pic winner from that year, one of the most beloved films of all time, Casablanca. Directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, plus Claude Rains, Peter Lorre and Conrad Veidt, Casablanca is based on an unproduced play called Everybody Comes to Rick's and set against the backdrop of World War II, in Nazi-occupied Morocco. The film's macguffin is a pair of transit authorization letters hidden in Rick's Cafe Americain, brought to Rick by an acquaintance, a petty crook named Ugarte (Lorre), who is quickly arrested after unloading the letters (Said letters allow their bearers passage to Portugal and freedom from German occupation). Rick is of course Bogart's character, who spends his nights running the most popular nightclub in town and drinking heavily. One night an old flame visits the club, Ingrid Bergman's character Ilsa, accompanied by her resistance leader husband Victor Laszlo (Paul Heinreid), and this chance meeting dredges up all the old feelings, including Rick's reluctant sense of moral duty, despite claiming he has no dog in the WWII fight.
I've seen Casablanca three times over the years, once in college on a VHS tape, once in the Netflix DVD rental days, and now in HD on my big TV. While the visuals certainly jumped out at me this time - Arthur Edeson of Frankenstein and The Maltese Falcon fame was the cinematographer - I must confess the story still doesn't really move me the way it should. This film is based on a play as I mentioned, and it often very much feels like one. The bulk of the film takes place in Rick's bar, and there's certainly no shortage of atmosphere there. For me that's the film's biggest strength; just the act of people watching as Rick and the others plot to make use of the transit letters, while Vichy French officer Louis Renault (Rains) performs a balancing act of serving his German occupiers and his own interest, using his position to hook up with local women in exchange for travel privileges.
The main issue for me though is I don't feel all that much for the romance between Rick and Ilsa, and I can't exactly put my finger on why not. The performances are quite strong; Bergman conveys much with facial expressions, and Bogey is classic world-weary, taciturn Bogey. For some reason though I don't feel a ton of chemistry between them. Rick is maybe TOO hard-boiled for me to see him as a vulnerable romantic lead, while I guess I never really bought that Ilsa would ever leave her important husband for a seedy club owner; she just seems too pure of heart to even consider it.
So without the core love story working for me, I'm left with visually lovely, noir-esque black and white cinematography (a few shots clearly inspired moments from the Indiana Jones films), some amusing moments of levity, the oft-quoted dialogue ("Here's looking at you, kid," "This is the beginning of the beautiful friendship."), and some fine acting performances from a pretty loaded cast. Nothing to sneeze at, to be sure, but I'm still at a loss why Casablanca became such an unexpected, enduring milestone of a film. For me it's just a well-made political/romantic drama without a very strong emotional hook. I guess I admire it more than I enjoy it.
For the reasons I've mentioned above plus its cultural significance, I'll be generous and go ***1/2 out of ****.
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