As Time Goes By Abridged

Rating:
Summary: A plausible, entertaining sequel to a classic movie.
Review: I was quite skeptical when I first saw As Time Goes By. Eventually I bought it. If you approach it with an open mind you will find it plausible and enjoyable. Contrary to other reviewers I found the dialogue and story line in keeping with that of 1940's Hollywood. I thought Walsh did an excellent job. After all the original script was not high literature. The brilliant actors are why we remember it so fondly. Overall the author's tale rings true, even Rick's past as a Jewish gangster. I could vividly imagine the original actors as I read. But surely everyone agrees that a film version would be true sacrilege. Bergman and Bogart are Ilsa and Rick and that is that. Ignore the nay sayers and enjoy the book for what it is.

Rating:
Summary: Ultimately unsatisfying
Review: This book serves as a prequel and sequel to a film classic. Perhaps THE film classic of all time. Why would such a book be necessary?

****The answer relies on three things. First of all, "Casablanca" is a story that the audience fell into. A wealth of backstory exists that we only caught glimpses of. Second, the audience has an innate desire to know that Rick and Ilsa see each other again. Third, a film sequel is no longer possible with its original players (principally Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Claude Rains). The book allows their irreplaceable images to remain intact while giving the characters new things to do.

****Walsh is mildly successful in not making a complete travesty of his assignment. He picks up on hints imbedded in "Casablanca." From Rick's comment to the Nazis that there are certain sections of New York they shouldn't try to invade, Walsh rumminates that Richard Blaine was originally Yitzhak Baline, a Jewish gangster and speakeasy manager in New York.

****Louis Renault's curiosity and remarks about Rick's past is also useful: "Did you abscond with the church funds? Did you run off with the Senator's wife? I like to think that you killed a man -- it's the romantic in me." In the film, Rick replies that it was a combination of all three reasons and Walsh draws on that idea as well.

****The down side to this novel involves the characters of Victor Lazlo and Ilsa. Victor carries on like a self-righteous man blinded by "the cause" and revenge. Walsh has Ilsa go undercover in an attempt to portray her as more active in the war intrigue and her destiny. However good the intent, the scenario plays out poorly.

****"As Time Goes By" does give food for the imagination -- if only how you would've written a better story. But you can easily live your life without ever reading Walsh's book. The best advice, really, is to see "Casablanca" again. The original never disappoints.

Rating:
Summary: good, but not amamzing
Review: I think this book didi a good job of capturing the spirit of the movie, but fell a little short in the execution. I am glad I now know where Ilsa and Rick came from, but somehow the book just doesn't do the original story justice.

Rating:
Summary: "This isn't going to be very pleasant for either of us."
Review: "I suppose you know that this isn't going to be very pleasant for either of us."

So said Louis Renard in the film "Casablanca" and, unfortunately, it applies to this book also. Mr. Walsh has created both a pre-quel and sequel to the basic story line of the famous movie, and for that deserves praise for the effective use of his imagination. While there's little likelihood that his ideas would match yours or mine, I salute him for putting in the effort to think it through. Sadly, once he sat down to write it out, it became clear that he hadn't quite thought it through enough to fill an entire book, but he wrote one anyway.

There seems to have been a bounty on the inclusion of as many of the film characters as possible, even when it makes no sense whatsoever. (He even includes Herr Heinze - remember his rather innocuous character: "Can you imagine us in London?") You'll be happy to know, his print appearance is just about as brief and serves no useful purpose at all except to convince the reader that Mr. Walsh has indeed watched the movie. Why are so many virtually "background" personalities included unless it's to fill pages?

Another filler tactic is to lift as much dialogue from the script as possible, repeating it frequently lest we forget it, and on several occasions putting it into another character's mouth (guess who says, "Here's looking at you, kid." this time around).

There is a story line, and it's plausible and imaginable, just poorly written. It attempts to add "Terminator" style action while it swings back and forth between actual historical facts, somewhat twisted film plots and a strong dose of imagination. In some hands this might have worked; it doesn't here. With an abundance of novels from which to choose, you don't need to read this, even (ESPECIALLY!) if you're a "Casablanca" fan. Let your own imagination fill in the "before" and "after" to Rick's café. But I'll go you one better and offer my own paraphrase of the patriot-come-lately Rick Blaine: "It doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." At least not in this version of the story.

Rating:
Summary: Good read
Review: Don't get me wrong, this is a good read. The end seemed rushed somehow. I didn't quite understand why some of the things happened the way they happened to bring up the end. I think the author had basically run out of ideas to stay to the ending he anticipated. I guess that's because I could picture an ending wtih more finality and he left himself open for further stories in the future. Also, I had trouble picturing Humphrey Bogart as the character of Rick as this author portrayed him. If one forgets that it is based on CASABLANCA, then one might be tempted to rate it a 4.

Rating:
Summary: Here's looking at "As Time Goes By".......
Review: Every once in a great while, Hollywood produces a movie that is so popular, so beloved, that its many fans clamor for a sequel, wanting to know what happens next to the characters they have gotten to know and care about. And of course, Hollywood is happy to oblige, knowing that certain films which were written as stand-alone projects (Jaws, for instance) have the potential to become cash cows.

Sadly, often the result is a poorly written or directed sequel that is nothing but a pale copy of the original. Many people know, for instance, about Robert Mulligan's elegaic coming of age story, Summer of '42. It's an indelibly beautiful and memorable film. But does anyone recall the sequel, Class of '44?

The Golden Age of Hollywood of the 1930s, '40s and '50s has its share of classics that sparked off some demand for sequels. Gone With the Wind (one of my personal favorite books and movies of the time period) was often cited by those who wanted to know more about Rhett and Scarlett after the indomitable Mrs. O'Hara-Butler utters her famous "Tomorrow is another day" line. However, GWTW author Margaret Mitchell reputedly never wanted to write a literary sequel, and her premature death certainly precluded a change of mind. It was not until much later that the Mitchell estate approved Alexandra Ripley's Scarlett that a sequel was written.

Another favorite from the Golden Era that fans wanted to see more of was Hal B. Wallis' production of Casablanca. This wonderful film, directed by Michael Curtiz and winner of the 1942 Academy Award for Best Picture, surely had many loose plot strands to tie up in a sequel...not all of them centering on the Rick-and-Ilsa love affair, of course, but clearly most fans wanted to see this star-crossed couple reunite on-screen.

Despite several dismal attempts to transport Casablanca's characters and situations to television, the film's many admirers had to wait until 1997, when former Time magazine staffer Michael Walsh wrote As Time Goes By: A Novel of Casablanca.

Walsh's novel not only recreates the original movie's pace and moods (even going as far as using most of the spoken intro that starts the film) by using almost cinematic language, but it also serves as both prequel and sequel to Casablanca. Walsh uses the movie's fade out scene ("Louie, I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship....") as a jump-off point for the continuation of the 1941-'42 storyline while giving us revealing insights about events in Rick Blaine's past hinted at in Casablanca's dialog but never really explained.

Walsh interweaves the various strands involving the film's major players with one of World War II's most controversial cloak-and-dagger episodes, placing Victor Laszlo and Ilsa Lund (and, inevitably, Rick, Sam, and Louis Renault) right in the middle of the only Allied assasination attempt on a Nazi leader.

I really liked this novel. I started reading it last fall, and after watching Casablanca again I finished it, amazed and pleased with the way the author captured the movie's tone and the characters' voices. It is full of every ingredient that made Casablanca work so well: a storyline full of action, suspense, and romance, quick-witted quips and revealing exchanges, and a long-awaited reunion of one of the most memorable couples ever to emerge from the silver screen. The only thing that's missing from As Time Goes By is a stirring Max Steiner score, but otherwise, this book is a worthy literary sequel to a true Hollywood classic.

Rating:
Summary: "Here's Looking At You Kid."
Review: As Time Goes By: A Novel of Casablanca was ex-Time magazine music critic Michael Walsh's second novel, and it serves as both prequel and sequel to one of the most popular movies of Hollywood's Golden Age. Unlike Scarlett, Alexandra Ripley's sequel to Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind, As Time Goes By was neither widely praised nor reviled, perhaps because there was not as much media scrutiny for Walsh's exploration of the lives of Ilsa, Rick, Victor Laszlo, Louis Renault, Sam, and all "the usual suspects" after the fade-to-black in Casablanca.

Walsh was no fool when he undertook this project. Indeed, in his afterword, he says. "Everyone knows Casablanca. Everyone loves Casablanca. Therein lies both the challenge and the danger of writing a novel of Casablanca."

Walsh's approach is to treat the movie as a centerpiece sandwiched between the two timelines depicted in the 38 chapters of his novel. His prose is crisp and fast moving, echoing the tone of the Epstein Twins' screenplay while expanding the story both backward to Rick Blaine's past in New York's seedy underworld and to a perilous mission in Victor Laszlo's Nazi-occupied homeland, Czechoslovakia.

Purists -- and I know there are always going to be Casablanca fans who feel this way -- will probably say the movie was fine without a sequel (forgetting or ignoring the two failed TV series based on Casablanca), but this book is a pleasure to read. Particularly worth noting is how Walsh blends Casablanca's fictional characters and historical reality. At the heart of As Time Goes By is Victor Laszlo's involvement in Operation Hangman, the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi "Protector of Moravia and Bohemia" and architect of Hitler's "final solution." Although the inclusion of the Casablanca cast is fiction, the details of the operation and of its tragic aftermath are historically accurate.

Another bonus is Walsh's literary talent. His narrative captures the pace of its source perfectly, and his ear for the characters' voices is almost uncanny. Readers who allow themselves to fall under this novel's spell will hear the voices of Claude Rains, Paul Heinreid, Ingrid Bergman, and especially Humphrey Bogart in the exchanges between characters. There are also many "inside gags" for knowing Casablanca fans within the pages of this wonderful novel, such as the inclusion of "As Time Goes By" composer Herman Hupfeld, into the storyline. Like the movie it plays homage to, As Time Goes By is romantic, witty, and dramatic.

Rating:
Summary: Not a bad sequel...
Review: For someone who loves the film "Casablanca" as much as I do, I was prepared to really pick nits in this book. Believe it or not, it was pretty good, and kept my interest.

This takes up right after the end of the film. All of the major players end up taking part in the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, which then leads to the massacre and destruction of the town of Lidice. There are flashbacks to Rick's past in New York (which explains why he can't go home again), and some twists and turns in the plot to keep it interesting.

A good read, and "Casablanca" fans will have some fun spotting the references to the film. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Interesting but not great
Review: If you are an fan of CASABLANCA as I am you will find AS TIME GOES BY interesting. The author creates a story line that give Ilsa and Rick and past and a future. The problem is that we all remember Ilsa walking off into the foggy night with Victor. Somewhere deep in each persons heart you think of the person that you really loved but whose love was unattainable. Therein lies the beauty of the movie. We all want to hope that someday she and Rick maybe got together or that they spent the rest of their lives with other people but still dreaming of Paris.

Although I found the book an interesting read, it just didn't work. You really can't add to someone else's story.

Rating:
Summary: End of a beautiful friendship
Review: This book is similar to the first fifteen minutes of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," in which all of Indy's quirks are explained down to the scar on his chin. Only in this case, it's not funny, or even fun. Walsh gets the characters' flaws correct, but completely misses their strengths -- especially Renault and Victor Laszlo, who seem to be completely different people here. He also removes the nobility from both Rick and Ilsa, making their sacrifices vain in both senses of the word.