Casablanca

Rating:
Summary: Not everyone gets it
Review: I watched this movie as a kid and thought it was terribly boring too. As an adult I try to watch it about once a year. It's one of my top five favorite movies. Why? Dunno. But there's a magic in there somewhere. It's not the most exciting, action-filled, super-deep story and modern performers can often act circles around these classic actors, but the quick dialog, character interactions, and sense of humor in a time of impending doom continues to draw me back. Forget Ingrid Bergman's phoney-baloney dramatics, Bogie's flashbacks and the manipulative but powerful scene in the bar where the French and Germans start singing their national anthems and just let yourself be pulled into their world and enjoy a very fine film that somehow makes it all click. I'm also a big fan of Bogie's Key Largo and Maltese Falcon.

Rating:
Summary: Great!
Review: I always heard that this film was great. So I thought that I would find out! After viewing this film people where right! It's great! Humphrey Bogart gave his best performance ever! The supporting cast was just down right great. The film does in a very smart way flash back to Paris from time to time and I thought that for once this was done well. Usually they don't need to be in there and they are done badly. Not in Casablanca! Just a note to some other people that it was released in 1943. Just look at the cover. A great acted, directed and scripted film. Among the best ever made! Grade:A

Rating:
Summary: One of the Best Movies of All Time!
Review: This movie is absolute perfection. Humphrey Bogart (my favorite actor) and Ingrid Bergman make screen magic in this movie, Claude Rains is also superb. Filled with lots of now famous cliches; 'Here's looking at you kid', 'This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship', 'We'll always have Paris', 'Play it Sam, play As Time Goes By', etc. This is THE Hollywood movie, probably the greatest screenplay ever written, filled with memorable dialogue. Easily one of the greatest movies of all time, a MUST SEE. Winner of the Best Picture Oscar, as well as Best Director and Screenplay. From a scale of 1-10 I give this movie a 10! Masterpiece

Rating:
Summary: The most boring movie I have ever seen!
Review: I saw this old classic in my film class several years ago and since I am hearing impaired, I simply never had the chance to learn its story that seemed to hold the audience spellbound for several generations. So here I just sat and stared as the dull b&w scenes rolled slowly right by and nothing much seemed to happen. But at least I recognized the famous scene at the very ending where Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman turned to look at each other by the plane - but that's all. Sorry, but it was a very very bland experience for me as the deaf viewer.

Rating:
Summary: A Blasphemous Review
Review: If you're one of those people who loves Casablanca unconditionally then what are you doing reading reviews? Go watch it again and continue your beautiful friendship with the film. There is an air of nostalgia that surrounds people who grew up with the film that obscures the fact that it is indeed a very silly piece of melodrama peppered with some priceless moments.

One thing in Casablanca that hasn't aged, and I guess will never age is Humphrey Bogart's brilliant performance as Rick. He is the owner of Rick's Cafe Amercain, where just about everybody comes. He hides his idealism under a thick and delicious coat of cynicism, when he says "I don't stick my neck out for nobody", you know at that point that he would and will. But his tough armour is broken, as it is always in the movies, by a long lost love who walks into his bar early on in the film, her name is Ilsa played by the lovely Ingrid Bergman. They were lovers once in Paris, but that was before she learnt that her husband was alive. Now accompaning her husband Laszlo(Paul Henreid) who is in Casablanca as an underground leader of the French resistance to the Nazis. Complicated events unfold after that setup, but I wouldn't want to spoil it for the few who haven't seen it.

Casablanca has a labyrinthine plot involving the battle between the Nazis and the French resistance in North Africa, but you never take any of this seriously, never for a moment believe its melodramatic twists and certainly never believe that those backlots look anything like Morocco. The political realism of the film is ludicrous, specifically the ending which I can't reveal as that would be a spoiler. If the film works, it is because of those treasured individual moments, Sam(Dooley Wilson) playing "As time goes by", the aching looks of love between Rick and Ilsa, the colorful local and the one and only Humphrey Bogart.

You constantly hear professional critics such as Leonard Maltin above refering to Casablanca as one of the greatest films ever made, and they may genuinely believe that. The truth is that after Anthony Minghella's THE ENGLISH PATIENT and Peter Weir's GALLIPOLI, Casablanca looks very thin indeed. The fact of the matter is no professional critic would ever be able to get away with criticising Casablanca. I think it would be safer to read amatuer critics when you're checking on the "classics", they have a lot less to lose.

Classics such as CITIZEN KANE, THE THIRD MAN, and THE MALTESE FALCON are genuinely great films that have stood the test of time. Turn out the lights, forget the reviews and these films would still be stunning. Casablanca is not in the same league as those titles.

I'd hate to give the impression that Casablanca is a bad film, it is merely a light weight one that lives on its gentle charm. Its also a film that will join my Blasphemy files (overrated films that no one dares to criticise) along with such titles as Franklin J. Schaffner's Patton and Steven Spielberg's Close Encounter of The Third Kind. But enough sin for now.

Rating:
Summary: Extroadinary
Review: In this movie, an American expatriot who was once a gunrunner, had an intense affair with a mysterious woman, and now runs a highly successful bar in Casablanca, comes into possession of letters of transit. At about the same time, the mysterious woman turns up with her husband, a significant figure in the fight against the Nazis, who is in desperate need of those letters of transit in order to make a quick getaway. From this wildly improbable plot stems quite possibly the greatest movie of all time. The pacing is brisk, dialogue & performances perfect, cinematography phenomenal. When a person watches it, the unlikelyhood of it all fades away & suspension of disbelief is instantaneous, because everyone involved knew how to make a good movie. Personal favorite lines of dialogue: "Why, Rick, how extravagant of you throwing away women like that. Someday they may be scarce."; "Tomorrow I will be in here with a breathtaking blonde, and it will make me very happy if she loses."; "I am shocked! Shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!"

The DVD features pretty much the same extras as the Aniiversary Edition VHS, which is a shame. It would be nice to have a commentary by a film historian.

Rating:
Summary: Best of all time?
Review: Hard to say if it is the best movie of all time, but truly an outstanding movie. Some of the most memorable lines in movie history. A must for any movie buff. Very pleased since adding the DVD to my home library.

Rating:
Summary: Casablanca Forever!
Review: Most have not mentioned that the play on which "Casablanca" was based was written by the late Murray Burnett.( former address East 86th St.New York City)

"Everybody Comes to Ricks" was the name of the play.Mr. Burnett spent his life in the courts trying to "recapture" the rights to his own play.

Aljean Harmetz,s book , " Round Up the Usual Suspects" gets into this issue in depth.

" Is that cannon fire.....or is it my heart pounding" That and all the rest of the memorable dialogue are all intact. A great experience is seeing the film at a revival house..I did...it was like a religious experience. Most of the audience was reciting the dialogue word for word. "I,m only a poor corrupt official" or "its serves me right for not being musical"

In a 1977 film review book it said " remember ..not much is going on in this film" was this gent looking for an action film?

Max Steiner weaves the music in and still no one sings " As Time Goes By" like Dooley Wilson.

Rating:
Summary: One of the finest films ever made
Review: Casablanca was a watershed in world film making and if you have not seen it, you must. It's as simple as that.

Rating:
Summary: Time for more stars!
Review: I was introduced to this movie in the greatest "gut class" in the history of American higher education. It was screened in a class called "World War II on Film", at S.M.U., and made my college education complete. There is a reason it makes virtually every "best" film list. There has never been a better movie. Nothing can be done to improve upon it (except cutting the line where Ilsa describes Sam as "The boy playing the piano").

So much of this movie has become classic. It may be because of the lines, like "Here's looking at you kid", or "This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship". Has there ever been a retort like Rick saying to Major Strasser "There are parts of New York I would advise you not to invade"? Casablanca of full of these bon mots.

It may be because of the music, like "As Time Goes By". I may love this country, but there is no anthem like "La Marseillaise", and seeing and hearing this played in Rick's makes the little hair I have left stand on end. It may be the most stirring affirmation of indominitable strength in a movie ever. No wonder the Nazis sat down.

It may be the classic moments. Like the flashback to Rick and Ilsa dancing in La Belle Aurore. Or Rick and Captain Renault having a chat about women becoming scarce, and how Rick should not cast them aside so cavalierly. Or the hope of the Bulgarian couple who would risk all to have their children born free; him gambling badly and her willing to submit to Captain Renault. Or Victor Lazlo leading the whole house in singing.

Casablanca is a testimony to love, and hope, and nobility. If I were Mr. T, I would say "I pity the fool" who is not touched by this movie. Those woeful individuals have never had love, lost love and recaptured it. Too bad for them. The rest of us lucky ones can relish these feelings as time goes by.