Casablanca

Rating:
Summary: Must have classics
Review: This is all time great classics movie that everyon should have in their collection

Rating:
Summary: It's still the same old story, a fight for love and glory...
Review: Yes, "Play it!" is what Bogart actually commands pianist Sam (played by Dooley Wilson) to do in that timeless, priceless classic "Casablanca". No genuine movie buff can ever forget that song with those ultra-romantic lines, "A kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is still a sigh." Bogart as Rick is outstanding in his portrayal of an idealistic, intriguing anti-fascist adventurer with a facade of cynicism. In many ways he is better than James Bond. Immaculate in his white dinner jacket, he feels betrayed by the love of his life, Ilsa and harbours a deep seated grudge and resentment against her for not meeting him at the train station in Paris to flee from the Nazis. Rick is a hard man with a heart of pure 24 karat gold. It is a troubled time when the Nazi Wehrmacht invades Paris. Rick has to flee because he fought against Franco's Fascists in Spain and is on the Geheim Staats Polizei black list. It is better known as the Gestapo. The story set against a Europe ablaze with the fiery flames of a terrible war, is of the eternal triangle with 2 men in love with a beautiful woman, namely Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa. Her screen presence is as large as Bogie's and her elegant and ethearel beauty is absolutely mesmerizing. The chemistry between the two sizzle like a fondue. My all time favourite scene is where Captain Renault, the corrupt French Prefect of Police asks Rick, "Why did you come to Casablanca?". Rick says nonchalantly, "My health, I came here for the waters." Stunned, Renault interjects, "Waters, what waters? We're in the middle of the desert!" Rick calmly drawls sardonically, "I was misinformed." Another classic scene is when Captain Renault closes Rick's Cafe Americain and says, "I'm shocked, shocked to find there's illegal gambling here". Rick's fat waiter comes along and gives Renault some money which he won at the gambling tables and says, "Your winnings, Sir". Such true to life corruption and satirism is hard to find in any movie nowadays. I have seen this movie many times but I never get tired of it and I learn something new every time I see it. It inspires me every time. Another amusing thing is that many of the characters are named after cars, for example Ferrari and Renault. One intriguing question you must ask yourself is whether Rick committed adultery by making mad, passionate love to Ilsa the whole night long when she desperately tried all means to get the letters of transit for her husband. Did they or did they not. The Director never spells it out but leaves it to your imagination. Later, she schemes with Rick to leave Casablanca together and abandon her husband to the Nazis. However, Rick is too good a gentleman to break up their marraige. Instead he rescues them from the Germans. One round from his trusty blue nosed .45 calber Colt autoloader into the Nazi Major's black heart and it's curtains for him. Rick then walks off into the sunrise cooly with his good friend, Louis, saying those immortal lines, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
Recently, I was in the Westin St. Francis San Francisco and as I was leaving the Compass Rose, my friend the resident pianist played my favourite song for me and it made my day. It was "As Time Goes By" from Casablanca. This song like the movie lives forever in the hall of the immortals. Play it!
Dr. Michael Lim The Travelling Gourmet

Rating:
Summary: "Voiceover" special distracting
Review: Casablanca is unsurpassed as a movie and having it on DVD is well worth while. On the special following the movie, I found the monologue, over the film to be very distracting. Here, the film is rerun from beginning to end while a narration over it has very little to do with what is happening on screen. It would have been much better if the narration simply explained or amplified what was happening on screen. An even better alternative would have been to create an explanitory narrative (or use the existing one) but to cut and splice the film to match what was being said. The specials on the other disk, by Loren Bacal, were good. The cartoon bit, rather poor.
carrollflys,
california

Rating:
Summary: I'm Shocked, Shocked...
Review: I for one am shocked my parents let me get all the way to college before I saw this film. It is so good and so fun on so many levels that it should be with us as long as the technology exists to preserve it. There's a war going on; there's deceit; there's nationalistic flag-waving; there's heroism; and in the midst of all this, there's a love story. If ever there was a "chick flick for guys," this is it. In addition to the war and romance, there is also sharp, sly dialogue that still amuses nearly 60 years later. Throw in some of the best talents of 1940s Hollywood and you've got that marvelous cliché, the "classic." If World War II were to somehow disappear from the history books, yet "Casablanca" remained behind, an audience could still watch, understand, and appreciate it.

Who would like it? Good Lord, who wouldn't? Maybe a few Nazis; perhaps the Arab Anti-Defamation League; and the humor does occasionally angle toward the masculine viewpoint. But even so, the famously "tough" Humphrey Bogart gets to be war hero and sensitive romantic lead all in one.

This is the way Hollywood movies should be (and all too often are not) made.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Look Too Deep!
Review: I never tire of watching this movie and take delight in all the characters. That the story is a bit convoluted is irrelevant. But all the moods work, whether the terror in the opening shot of the man running from the police, or the depth of love in Paris, or the affection for everyone for Sam, or the spirit at Rick's, or tears during La Marsielles, or of the relationship between Ilsa and Victor . . this is as close to the perfect movie as I've ever seen . .

Rating:
Summary: You must remember this ...
Review: Aaaahhh ... Bogey. AFI's No. 1 film star of the 20th century. Hollywood's original noir anti-hero, epitome of the handsome, cynical and oh-so lonesome wolf (with "Casablanca"'s Rick Blaine alone, one of the Top 5 guys on the AFI's list of greatest 20th century film heroes); looking unbeatably cool in white dinner jacket or trenchcoat and fedora alike, a glass of whiskey in his hand and a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. Endowed with a legendary aura several times larger than his real life stature, and still admired by scores of women wishing they had been born 50+ years earlier, preferably somewhere in California and to parents connected with the movie business, so as to have at least a marginal chance of meeting him.

Triple-Oscar-winning "Casablanca," directed by Michael Curtiz, was and still is without question Bogart's greatest career-defining moment, the movie on which his legendary status is grounded more than on any other of his multiple successes. The film's story is based on Murray Burnett and Joan Alison's play "Everybody Comes to Rick's," renamed by Warner Brothers in order to tag onto the success of the studio's 1938 hit "Algiers" (starring Charles Boyer and Hedy Lamarr). Building on the success of 1941's "The Maltese Falcon" and further expanding Bogart's increasingly complex on-screen personality, it added a romantic quality which had heretofore been missing; eventually making this the AFI's Top 20th century love story (even before the No. 2 "Gone With the Wind"), while second only to "Citizen Kane" on the AFI's overall list of Top 100 20th century movies; with a unique, inimitable blend of drama, passion, humor, exotic North African atmosphere, patriotism, unforgettable score (courtesy of Herman Hupfeld's "As Time Goes By," Max Steiner and Louis Kaufman's violin) and an all-star cast, consisting besides Bogart of Ingrid Bergman (Ilsa), Paul Henreid (Victor Laszlo), Claude Rains (Captain Renault), Dooley Wilson (who, a drummer by trade, had to fake his piano playing as Rick's friend Sam), Conrad Veidt (Major Strasser), Sydney Greenstreet (Ferrari) and Peter Lorre (Ugarte). And the movie's countless famous one-liners have long attained legendary status in their own right ...

Looking at this movie's and its stars' almost mythical fame, it is difficult to imagine that, produced at the height of the studio system era, it was originally just one of the roughly 50 movies released over the course of one year. But mass production didn't equal low quality; on the contrary, the great care given to all production values, from script-writing to camera work, editing, score and the stars' presentation in the movies themselves and in their trailers, was at least partly responsible for its lasting success. In fact, the screenplay for "Casablanca" was constantly rewritten even throughout the filming process, to the point that particularly Ingrid Bergman was extremely worried because she was unsure whether at the end she (Ilsa) would leave Casablanca with Henreid's Victor Laszlo or stay there with Humphrey Bogart (Rick).

Little needs to be said about the movie's story. After the onset of WWII, Casablanca has become a point of refuge for Jews and other desperate souls from all corners of Europe, fleeing the old world with the hope of building a new life in America. Unofficial center of Casablanca's society is Rick's "Cafe Americain," where gamblers, refugees, French police, Nazi troops, thieves, swindlers and soldiers of fortune come together on a nightly basis, to make connections, conduct their shady business, or simply forget the uncertainty of their fate for a few precious hours. And presiding over this mixed and colorful society is Rick Blaine, expatriate American without any hope of returning to the United States himself (for reasons never fully explained), officially not interested in politics but only the flourishing of his business, but soft-hearted underneath the hard shell of his cynicism. From Rick's perspective, everything is going just swell and the way it is meant to be: he is reasonably well-respected, has a good working relationship with Captain Renault, the local representative of the Vichy government (based on mutual respect as much as on the fact that Renault is a guaranteed winner at Rick's gambling tables and, by way of reciprocation, turns a blind eye to whatever less-than-squeaky-clean transactions Rick may be tolerating in his cafe, always ready to have his police round up "the usual suspects" instead of the truly guilty party of a crime if that person's continued freedom promises to be more profitable); and although aware of Rick's not quite so apolitical past, the Germans are leaving him alone as well, as long as he stays out of politics now. Until ... well, until famous underground resistance leader and recent concentration camp-escapee Victor Laszlo and his wife Ilsa walk into Rick's cafe, into his place "of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world" - and with one blow, administered to the melancholy tunes of "As Time Goes By," the carefully maintained equilibrium of his little world comes crashing down around him.

The movie's recently-released two-disc special edition is unquestionably superior to the prior single-disc DVD; featuring not only an improved video transfer but also, and notably, a new introduction by Lauren Bacall, additional documentaries ("Bacall on Bogart" and "The Children Remember" with Stephen Bogart and Ingrid Bergman's daughters Pia Lindstrom and Isabella Rosselini) besides the excellent "You Must Remember This" already included on the one-disc edition, newly-discovered deleted scenes, treasures from the production history, commentary tracks with Roger Ebert and historian Rudy Behlmer, as well as several audio documents and fun stuff like web links and the "Looney Tunes" homage "Carrotblanca."

Not only to Bogart and Bergman fans all over the world, "Casablanca" is film history's all-time crowning achievement, a "must" in every movie lover's collection, and one of the few films that truly deserve the title "classic." If you don't already own it, the 2003 release of a two-disc special edition is a great occasion to remedy that omission!

Rating:
Summary: Round up the usual suspects
Review: Casablanca has been beautifully restored and the extras only enhance the movie experience.

Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Friendship: Classic Film and Super DVD
Review: An admission: I've never liked "Casablanca." I'm a huge fan of old movies, but there are better romances out there, and these stars made better films. Still, it's withstood the test of time gone by (excuse the pun), so it's hardly surprising Warner released a special edition.

What is surprising is my new appreciation for the film. It looks and sounds wonderful, and features a highly comprehensive package, including two solid commentaries by Rudy Behlmer and Roger Ebert.

Disc 2 is splendid, with over ten minutes of deleted footage and alternate takes (sadly, the sound is lost), not to mention studio memos, press materials, photographs, etc. Other highlights include a radio production featuring the stars in their original roles, and two fascinating documentaries: one on the film, the other on the life of Humphrey Bogart.

Truthfully, I was blown away by this new release of "Casablanca." Every serious DVD collector needs it on their shelf.

Rating:
Summary: One Minor Complaint
Review: This is one of the best movies ever made, no question.

Here is my only teeny weeny complaint. The movie comes across as being made on a sound stage in Hollywood, not in some dirty town in Morocco thriving with people and commerce rammed betwen the Atlas mountains and the Atlantic ocean. Casablanca is and was a melting pot of Europeans, Jews, Arabs, and Africans. In the movie it is too clean, too pristine for Morocco. All the buildings are beautifully painted. The Arabs look like well dressed extras from Mexico. It is all just too perfect!

Throw in some dirt, grime, and dust and I will believe it is Casablanca. Otherwise it is perfect.

Jack in Toronto

Rating:
Summary: Beyond Great
Review: I bought this video on the spur of the moment because my film studies teacher decided to remove it from the curriculum. It is one of my all time favorite films.

As I was walking in the door I ripped off the plastic and ran to the DVD player. I have never done this before.

At this price, even without the extras it is worth every penny. How many movies can you say this about?

5 Stars for age 15 and above