Rating: 
Summary: The best of the best
Review: This movie is a real masterpiece. Please dont miss it
Rating:
Summary: Probably the best film I have ever seen
Review: I've seen Casablanca dozens of times and I still get misty eyed. Oh yeah, I know it has some stereotypes that aren't PC but that's the way things were back then. The acting and the screenplay get better and better every time I see it. I recently introduced the movie to my kids and the actually liked it.
Rating:
Summary: They don't make them like this anymore!
Review: This is my all time favorite movie, and I wasn't even born when it was in the theaters. Claude Raines is too perfect for words. Bogey and Bergman made screen sparks that crackle off a mere TV screen--just imagine how they were on the big screen. The supporting character actors are unmatched by anyone I've seen these days. And, oh, yeah, what a great story. Don't miss this movie.
Rating:
Summary: A must have classic!
Review: Casablanca is a must have classic for any DVD collection. Easily, one of the best films ever made, Michael Curtiz' direction, Bogart's & Bergman's performance, the performances of the supporting cast (especially Claude Rains) and the writing congeal to make this film a rewarding experience for anyone. It is in fact required viewing because of its impact as a cultural touchstone for America in the 20th Century.
Rating:
Summary: "As Time Goes By" This Is The Best Film You'll Ever See
Review: From the first frame of "Casablanca" you know you are about to watch something special. There is not a moment in the film where you will find yourself bored or overwhelmed. It is perfect in every way. I have seen many films in my time and I am only 17. I have an extensive collection of over 180 DVDs and this is by far my most prized. I saw this film for the first time exactly one year ago and purchased this Two-Disc Special Edition the day it came out. Not a day goes by when this film does not pop into my mind.There are many movies but very few great films. The few include Gone With the Wind, Wizard of Oz, Lawrence of Arabia, Schindler's List, The Godfather, and, of course, the rarely seen Imitation of Life. This is at the head of those. It is at the head of all films. "Casablanca" is about Rick (Humphrey Bogart), the owner of an American bar in Morroco, who is visited by Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), the object of a love affair in Paris a few years earlier. She is accompanied by her husband (Paul Heinreid) who knows nothing of this but is only interested in acheiving two exit visas because they are both wanted. What follows is the most romantic and thrilling film of all time. The DVD transfer is nothing short of miraculous. The film looks like it had been filmed today in B & W. Even the mono soundtrack sounds breathtaking. The DVD does not shy away from some amazing special features. I don't want to spoil them but anyone will find them interesting. I promise you this is one of the finest DVD packages on the market. So go out now and buy the film that recieved three Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay; the film that was called the Second Greatest Film of All Time on the AFI's 100 Best List (it's second to Citizen Kane); and also called the Most Romantic Film of All Time by the AFI's 100 Most Romantic Films. "Play it again, Sam."
Rating:
Summary: "You must remember this"....
Review: It's hard to believe that when Casablanca was filmed at Warner Bros. Studios in 1942 it was "just another" of the 50 or so films that the studio was producing every year, as Lauren Bacall points out in the documentary about the film included in the special features. The movie was an instant success with audiences everywhere, and won three Academy Awards including Best Picture. Called "America's most popular and beloved movie- and rightly so" by The Motion Picture Guide, and "The best Hollywood movie of all time" by Leonard Maltin, Casablanca was voted the #2 film in a list of the top 100 films of this century by the American Film Institute.
Set in refugee strewn French North Africa in 1942, Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), a night club owner, and his friend Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Prefect of Police, enter into a wager as to whether or not Resistance Leader Victor Laslo (Paul Henreid) will be able to escape Casablanca and reach the Free World. When Laslo arrives in Casablanca, Rick is stunned to find him accompanied by his ex-lover, Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman). Filled with mystery, suspense, intrigue and romance, Casablanca will remain a favorite of classic movie lovers for years to come.
The supporting cast include Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson as Rick's piano playing confidant, Sam. The entire cast are superb, the settings are excellent, and the cinematogrophy is wonderful.
The song "As Time Goes By" was made famous by Casablanca, as it's melody is entwined throughout the film, and it too is now a classic, filled with romance and nostalgia.
This is one film that absolutely MUST be in your DVD library!
Rating:
Summary: Intrigue, corruption, love and tension in every scene
Review: This 1942 film is a classic, and rightly so. Staring Humphrey Bogart,
Ingrid Bergman and Paul Heinreid, it was originally just another one
of the more than 50 films turned out each year by each of the major
studios that dominated Hollywood in those days. It's release
coincidentally coincided with the Nazi occupation of France, and its
theme and its timeless love story caught the public's
imagination. Casablanca in French Morocco is under French rule and
one of the places in the world where refuges can get safe passage
visas to go on to Lisbon and eventually to America and freedom. It is
seething with intrigue and corruption. Humphrey Bogart is an
ex-patriot American citizen who runs Rick's Cafe, where much of the
commerce takes place. Peter Lorre is a smuggler, Sidney Greenstreet
is a black marketeer, and Martin Dooley is the piano player known as
Sam. When, one evening Ingrid Bergman comes in to the cafe on the
arm of her husband, Paul Heinreid, and asks the piano player to
"play it Sam", he reluctantly plays "As Time Goes
By." This melody which is played throughout the movie, is the
glue that defines the romance. There's electricity between the
lovers. There's intrigue and double dealing. Something exciting
happens in each scene. And the acting is so good that it brought me
right into Casablanca. The story is always clear. The danger is
always there. The tension sizzles. One particularly meaningful
scene was when some Nazi soldiers gather round the piano and sing an
ominous song to the "Fatherland". It makes everyone in the
Rick's cafe very uncomfortable. That's when Paul Heinried instructs
the orchestra to play the French national anthem, the
"Marseilles". Everyone starts to sing. The Nazis are
silenced. The music takes over. I found my eyes filled with
tears. The video I rented included a "made for TV program"
that featured interviews with some of the original writers and
recollections from people working on the set at the time. There was
an interview with the man who did the music. He said that when he
wrote that into the script he actually felt tears running down his
face. It was the same powerful emotion that I felt too. The movie
was shot in black and white. It was also shot in a studio in
Hollywood. The airplane scene used a cardboard cutout of a plane and
hired midgets dressed as mechanics. Shot from a distance and through
a fog it was realistic and served the same kind of purpose of
today's video imaging and special effects. Of course all the
principals are dead, but their celluloid images in a timeless classic
film lingers on.
Rating:
Summary: Eternal....
Review: CASABLANCA is a GOOD movie and is fast-paced and just happens to be right on target. No discussion is necessary. The script, cast and crew did a marvellous job. No question about it. Bergman is a revelation; she`s so youthful, fresh and her excitement and naturalness is a pleasure to behold.
Rating:
Summary: Very Watchable Movie
Review: Casablanca is perhaps the classic movie of all time. Even after more than 60 years it still entertains well.
The dialog is excellent ... just a lot of wonderful lines. My favorites are:
Ugarte: "You despise me don't you?"
Rick: "If I ever gave you a thought, I probably would."
Rick: "I don't buy and sell human beings."
Ferrari: "That's a pity. It is Casablanca's leading commodity."
Renault: "Waters? There are no waters. We're in a desert."
Rick: "I was misinformed."
Rick: "You can tell me now ... I'm reasonably sober."
Ilsa: (Threatens to shoot Rick)
Rick: "Go ahead, you'll be doing me a favor."
Ilsa: "You have to do the thinking for both of us; all of us."
Rick: "All right ... I will."
Rick: "Louis ... I think this might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship"
But the acting here is top-notch. Normally, a movie back then had top-shelf talent for 3, maybe 4 of the leading roles. In Casablanca, quality actors are used 9 or 10 roles deep into the cast.
The spotlight is pretty bright on Bogie and Ingrid, especially with 60 years of close scrutiny. Bogie does some excellent work here, and he carries the lead very well, but there are flaws in his performance, and they seem to stand out. Ingrid's performance is solid, but there again, there are moments in her performance that I am sure she later wished she could have redone.
Conrad Veidt is excellent as the bad guy ... just a great great job at being menacing. Claude Rains perhaps had the most fun lines to speak, and he seems to have had fun saying them. Sydney Greenstreet is very excellent as Ferrari, and Peter Lorre is good also. S.Z. Sakall is delightful as the waiter Carl ... and is a very natural actor, it seems.
Paul Henreid is OK. I read that, before he agreed to do the movie, he negotiated his billing to be up with Bogie's and Ingrid's. Did he deserve it? I'm not so sure. Of all the film's performances, his comes across to the audience with the least effectiveness. He doesn't strike us as a great leader of a movement or as a patriot on the run. Nor does he seem to be the type of man that would inspire Ilsa's love. And so, it's hard to root for him. Maybe this did help the picture in a way ... in that it does allow us to root all the more for Rick and Ingrid to be together. But it's hard to put him in the same categorie as Bogie and Ingrid.
But, being the critic here, there are some unrealistic aspects to the plot I'd like to point out:
- When Ugarte is arrested (and later interrogated) he definately would have told the Nazis that Rick had the exit visas ... especially after Rick refused to "... stick his neck out for anybody."
- The Nazis, upon learning that Victor Lazlo was at Rick's Cafe, would have immediately arrested him, then killed him. Definately.
- And Lazlo would never have travelled under his real name, nor would he have allowed it to be spoken aloud in a crowded restaurant.
- Rick's bravado toward the Nazis (mostly in the flash-back scene) would never be. It would have been foolhardy not to acknowledge the very real (and scary) threat they posed.
- And when Rick lets that honest young man win at gambling, so he and his wife could afford the bribe to Captain Renault, he (Rick) is lauded for it. But, no thought is given to the (certain) hundreds of times Rick used the same trick to cheat honest people out of their money.
Like I said ... just being the critic.
But it is a very watchable movie ... with no dull moments at all.
Rating:
Summary: The epitome of the classic Hollywood film
Review: Just as "Gone With The Wind" raised the costume drama to new heights, "Casablanca" defined the Hollywood romance, with a touch of film noir thrown in. What's remarkable is that all the contributors to this film did solid work before and after this, but for some reason they only gelled like this once, here. Or, as Rick might say, "All the productions of all the movies for all the studios in the world, and they walked into this one." Casablanca has become more than a movie. It's an icon for 1940s Hollywood. Or rather, it's full of icons: the trenchcoats, the fedoras, the fog and cigarette smoke, the starry-eyed closeups in half-shadow, the exotic locals and transport planes that whisk our heroes to safety. Many films since have tried to duplicate the mood of this movie, but none has succeeded.
Somehow the role was perfect for Bogart: famous for playing gangsters (he once said he worked his way up from third gangster to second gangster to first gangster), here is is playing a character who is in even more danger, and I think that's largely reponsible for the film's success. For as a gangster the danger was self-evident; here, as a cafe owner, Bogie had to juggle corrupt police chiefs, cheating gamblers, angry Nazis and fleeing refugees, all while remaining calm, keeping his business open, and, as he so famously puts it, sticking his neck out for no one. It's not an easy task, but Bogart's Rick makes it look easy; that's the key to his charm and allure. There's much pleasantness on the surface in Rick's cafe, but there's always intrigue boiling just underneath.
Ingrid Bergman is...well, I hate to use the cliche, but she *is* luminous. She manages to suggest so much with a glance, a shrug, and both she and Bogart have long pasts that are wisely not dealt with in detail. (Thirty years later, the creators of "Chinatown" did a similar wise thing with the J.J. Gittes and Evelyn Mulwray characters, leaving much of their past as pieces in a puzzle.) We can fill in the blanks, which just makes the characters more alluring and appealing.
The supporting cast hits all the right notes, with special kudos to Claude Rains for what might be the best acting job in the film. (Ebert says this in his commentary, and I agree.) I'm constinually struck by how short Peter Lorre's part is. I find his lack of screen time a little unbalanced, frankly.
Some people call Casablanca the "perfect" movie, whatever that means. That's a sentimental pronouncement--the film has its share of flaws. There are some ridiculous plot holes--why would Nazis who put Victor Laszlo in a concentration camp allow him to roam freely in Casablanca once he escaped?; why would letters of transit--mere pieces of paper--stop Nazis from allowing wanted people to flee? Ebert says we shouldn't dwell on these questions, and maybe we shouldn't, but the fact remains that the whole situation is improbable in the extreme. The virtuals of the film are such that we don't worry too much about these details however: we just enjoy being invited into Rick's Cafe, and as long as we are in its cozy and fascinating interiors we will forgive certain transgressions of logic. And the ending is about self-sacrafice in a way that will be lost on much of the younger generation, who oftentimes just see it as a sappy love story.
This DVD release is excellent, with a superb print (hardly a nick or speck of dust), bountiful supplements and interesting commentaries. Ebert's enthusiasm for the film bubbles over, and he dispells many of the myths that have cropped up regarding Casablanca over the years. The documentary on Bogart's life and career is interesting, especially when the films he produced with his own company are discussed--many of these should be more highly regarded than they are. People today remember Bogie as the great commercial Hollywood icon, but few realize he was also one of the first "indie" producers, and just like many of today's independent filmmakers he tasted frustration as less-commercial projects floundered. An interesting bit of trivia: he developed and starred in a now relatively-obscure film about a mobile army surgical hospital in Korea in the early 1950s. The title he wanted for this film--a title vetoed by the studio because it was too odd and obscure-- was MASH.
The Warner Brother's cartoon, "Carrotblanca," is the lowpoint of the extras. Warner Bros. made thousands of inspired cartoons during its heyday, but this isn't one of them. On the whole, though, this DVD set has enough extras to satiate even the biggest Casablanca fan or Bogart buff. Buy this release: it will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
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