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Citizen Kane (1941) Gaslight (1944)
Casablanca (1942) - The Hollywood Classics
785    Dibyendu Banerjee    05/12/2023

Directed by the talented Hungarian-accented Michael Curtiz and starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, Casablanca (1942) is a fast-paced, emotionally charged masterful tale of two men vying for the love of the same woman in a love triangle, set against the tumultuous backdrop of World War II. Considered one of the most celebrated and iconic films, it is about a man and a woman who are in love, but unselfishly sacrifice their love, contributing to the great cause of defeating the Nazis. It was simply another Warner Bros release, made on a tight budget and released with small expectations and no one involved with its production expected it to stand out amid the packs of pictures produced by Hollywood yearly.

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However, exceeding expectations, the film, with a rich and smoky atmosphere, anti-Nazi propaganda, superb musical score, suspense, unforgettable characters and memorable lines of dialogue, proved to be one of the most popular and magical films of all time always found on top-ten lists of films. Nevertheless, it is also argued that the greatness of Casablanca was largely the result of happy chance and the tradition helped the film remain popular, while other popular and famous films made in the 1940s have gradually faded from popular memory. However, released nationally in the United States on 23 January 1943, the film was initially a substantial, but not a spectacular box-office success, received consistently good reviews and went on to win five Academy Awards, including the Award for Best Picture and Best Director.

casablanca

The film opens in the city of Casablanca, in French-ruled Morocco, where numerous Europeans are stranded, who wanted to escape Europe for America, through Lisbon, the most popular port for having exit visas for Portugal.

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However, as two German couriers carrying valuable letters of transit were murdered on a train, it was presumed that the murderer is headed for Casablanca with those papers, which allow the bearers to travel freely around German-occupied Europe to neutral Portugal, priceless to the refugees stranded in Casablanca. With luck, money and those right papers, they could go from Morocco to Portugal and then sail to North or South America. Ugarte, the murderer, planned to sell those papers at Rick's Café Américain, a nightclub and gambling den in Casablanca, owned by American expatriate Rick Blaine and persuades him to hold the papers temporarily. But before he could meet his contact, he was arrested for the murder of the courier by the local police under Captain Louis Renault. However, Ugarte died in custody without revealing that the letters are in the custody of Rick.

casablanca

Subsequently, when Victor Laszlo, a renowned, fugitive Czech Resistance leader, arrived at the lively café with his wife, Ilsa Lund, as the prospective buyer, Rick became stunned, as he immediately recognized Ilsa, with whom he once had a brief love affair in Paris and refused to sell the papers at any price.

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Later, Ilsa desperately confronted Rick in the deserted café and although he refused to give her a patient hearing she desperately confessed that, she had been married to Laszlo since before they met and fell in love in Paris in 1940. But during that time, she was under the impression that Laszlo had been killed while attempting to escape from a concentration camp. But while she was preparing to flee from the city with Rick, she suddenly came to know that Laszlo was alive and in hiding. It prompted her to leave Rick immediately, even before explaining everything to him, to nurse her sick husband and leave Rick feeling betrayed. Ilsa’s story pacifies the irritated Rick, dissolves his bitterness about her and he agrees to help her.

casablanca

Laszlo was aware of Rick's love for Ilsa and when he shows up, having narrowly escaped a police raid on a Resistance meeting, he tries to persuade Rick to use the letters to take Ilsa to safety. Meanwhile, when the police arrest Laszlo on a minor charge, Rick persuades Louis Renault, the police captain, to release him by promising to set him up for a much more serious crime, the possession of the letters. To dismiss Renault's suspicions about his motive, Rick explains that he and Ilsa will be leaving for America soon. However, when Renault tries to arrest Laszlo as arranged, Rick double crosses Renault and forces him at gunpoint to assist in their escape. Although by that time, Ilsa had made up her mind to leave Laszlo, Rick makes Ilsa get on the plane to Lisbon with her husband at the last moment, handing over the letters of transit at the airport and telling her softly that she would regret it if she stayed. As Major Strasser drives up alone, tipped off by Renault, Rick shoots him when he tries to draw his pistol to intervene. Finally, when the police force arrives, Renault informs them that Strasser is dead and to provide cover for Rick, orders them to round up the usual suspects. He then suggests to Rick that they both leave Casablanca and join the Resistance, while walking into the fog Rick replied that he presumes it to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

casablanca

Humphrey Bogart, who played strong and heroic leads in his career, excelled in the role of Rick Blaine, the disappointed, wounded, resentful lover and at the same time, the hard-drinking American running a nightclub, in Casablanca. On the other side, although the Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman has notoriously been quoted as saying she did not think Casablanca was a great movie and that it was not her best as Ilsa Lund, her on screen chemistry with Bogart in the film was magical. Casablanca is blessed with an ensemble cast of iconic proportions and actors from 34 different countries played in the film and the actors who played the Nazis were mostly German Jews who had escaped from Nazi Germany. The two main opponents in the film, Victor Lazlo and Major Strasser, were played by Austrian Paul Henreid and Gherman Conrad Veidt, both of whom fled their native countries due to the rise of Nazism. Peter Lorre, who played the short but unforgettable role of Ugarte, was also an Austrian and was exiled by the Nazis.

casablanca

Casablanca was banned in Germany, at the time of release, as the story of the film was considered to be anti-Nazi propaganda by the wartime censors. However, it was finally released in Germany after World War II, but with a cut of around 20 minutes of footage, containing all the scenes with Major Strasser and all the references to Nazism. Strangely, it was banned twice in Ireland. On 19 March 1943, it was banned for infringing on the Emergency Powers Order preserving wartime neutrality for portraying Nazi Germany in a sinister light, which was lifted with cuts on 15 June 1945, after the end of the Great War. Much later, in 1974, the fresh Irish release also got a green signal from the censors, only after getting rid of two important sequences, containing references to an extra-marital affair.

casablanca

A colourized version of Casablanca, aired on the American television pay television network WTBS, created waves of controversy and was mostly met with a negative critical reception. According to the critics, it was much less visually interesting than its 1942 predecessor. However, the 1942 film was added to the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress in 1989, enlisted in the American Film Institute's 1998 list of the Top 100 Greatest American Movies and waas also included in the list of Great Movies, by the reputed film critic, Roger Ebert.

Citizen Kane (1941) Gaslight (1944)
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Author Details
Dibyendu Banerjee
Ex student of Scottish Church College. Served a Nationalised Bank for nearly 35 years. Authored novels in Bengali. Translated into Bengali novels/short stories of Leo Tolstoy, Eric Maria Remarque, D.H.Lawrence, Harold Robbins, Guy de Maupassant, Somerset Maugham and others. Also compiled collections of short stories from Africa and Third World. Interested in literature, history, music, sports and international films.
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