CASABLANCA DIRECTED BY MICHAEL CURTIZ 1942

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATIONS Won Best Picture Won Best Director - Curtiz Won Best Screenplay –Julius & Phillip Epsein, Howard Koch Best Actor - Humphrey Bogart Best Supporting Actor - Claude Rains Best B & W Cinematography Best Editing Best Musical Score

PRIMARY CAST Humphrey BogartRick Blaine Ingrid BergmanIlsa Lund Paul Henreid Victor Laszlo Claude Rains Captain Renault Conrad Veidt Major Strasser Sydney GreenstreetSignor Ferrari Peter Lorre Ugarte S.Z. SakallCarl Madeleine LeBeauYvonne Dooley WilsonSam Joy Page Annina Brandel John QualenBerger Leonid Kinskey Sascha

THEMES *Lost love *Honor and duty *Self-sacrifice *Romance within a chaotic world

BACKGROUND The film is set in Casablanca, Morocco, just before the beginning of America’s involvement in WWII. Many Americans believed in strict Isolationism, wishing to stay out of “Europe’s war.” Rick’s line, “I stick my neck out for nobody” echoes this mindset, but we also see that Rick has a nobility that leads him to assist those in need and to do the right thing.

Casablanca is controlled by the Vichy French, a government that has been supportive of the Nazis, mostly due to self-preservation. We see that the Vichy are really puppets for the Nazis, in that it is truly Strasser, not Renault, who controls Casablanca. The French Resistance are the Gaullists, or supporters of Charles de Gaulle. President Roosevelt wavered between which group he support prior to U.S. Involvement in the war.

HOLLYWOOD STYLE Casablanca is often looked at as the quintessential example of the Hollywood Style.

The sentimental story, originally structured as a one-set play, was based on an unproduced play entitled Everybody Comes to Rick's by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison - the film's original title. Its collaborative screenplay was mainly the result of the efforts of Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch, although a total of six writers worked on the script.

No one making Casablanca thought they were making a great movie. It was simply another Warner Bros. release. It was an ``A list'' picture, to be sure (Bogart, Bergman and Paul Henreid were stars, and no better cast of supporting actors could have been assembled on the Warners’ lot than Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet, Claude Rains and Dooley Wilson). But it was made on a tight budget and released with small expectations. Everyone involved in the film had been, and would be, in dozens of other films made under similar circumstances, and the greatness of Casablanca was largely the result of happy chance.

Stylistically, the film is not so much brilliant as absolutely sound, rock-solid in its use of Hollywood studio craftsmanship. The director, Michael Curtiz, and the writers, Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch, all won Oscars. One of their key contributions was to show us that Rick, Ilsa and the others lived in a complex time and place.

Casablanca is wonderful not just because it captures a place and time with a tight, smart script, fabulous performances, and brilliant direction. Rick and Ilsa and Victor transcend their medium -- they cease to be fictional characters and become real. They seem like the first modern people to be captured on film.

“Michael Curtiz' direction of Casablanca is remarkable for being completely economical. He creates a picture we would be hard-pressed to improve, and does it without calling attention to the fact that it has been directed at all. Mostly, he uses the basic repertory of cinematic story-telling, as encoded by Griffith and rehearsed in thousands of earlier films: Establishing shot, movement, medium shots, alternating closeups, point-of-view shots, reactions. Is there a single shot that calls attention to itself for its own sake? I cannot think of one. Curtiz is at the service of the characters and the story.” Roger Ebert:

In the early years of World War II, the Moroccan city of Casablanca attracts people from all over. Many are transients trying to get out of Europe; a few are just trying to make a buck. Most of them -- gamblers and refugees, Nazis, resistance fighters, and plain old crooks -- find their way to Rick's Café Américain, a swank nightclub owned by American expatriate Rick Blaine. Though we learn later that Rick once harbored enough idealism to put himself at risk to fight facism, he's now embittered and cynical, professing to be neutral in all matters. PLOT INTRODUCTION

Ugarte comes to Rick's with letters of transit he obtained by killing two German couriers. The papers allow the bearer to travel freely around German- controlled Europe, including to neutral Lisbon, Portugal; from Lisbon, it's relatively easy to get to the United States. They are almost priceless to any of the refugees stranded in Casablanca. Ugarte plans to make his fortune by selling them to the highest bidder, who is due to arrive at the club later that night.

However, before the exchange can take place, Ugarte is arrested by the police under the command of Captain Louis Renault. A corrupt Vichy official, Renault accommodates the Nazis. Unbeknownst to Renault and the Nazis, Ugarte had left the letters with Rick for safekeeping, because "...somehow, just because you despise me, you are the only one I trust."

At this point the reason for Rick's bitterness re-enters his life. Ilsa Lund arrives with her husband Victor Laszlo to purchase the letters. Laszlo is a renowned Czech Resistance leader who has escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. They must have the letters to escape to America to continue his work. At the time Ilsa first met and fell in love with Rick in Paris, she believed her husband had been killed. When she discovered that he was still alive, she left Rick abruptly without explanation and returned to Laszlo, leaving Rick feeling betrayed.

FAMOUS QUOTES “With the coming of the Second World War, many eyes in imprisoned Europe turned hopefully, or desperately, toward the freedom of the Americas. Lisbon became the great embarkation point. But, not everybody could get to Lisbon directly, and so a tortuous, roundabout refugee trail sprang up - Paris to Marseilles... across the Mediterranean to Oran... then by train, or auto, or foot across the rim of Africa, to Casablanca in French Morocco. Here, the fortunate ones through money, or influence, or luck, might obtain exit visas and scurry to Lisbon; and from Lisbon, to the New World. But the others wait in Casablanca... and wait... and wait... and wait.” -- OPENING VOICEOVER

“Round up the usual suspects.” -- Used at both the beginning and the end of the movie.

“Everybody comes to Rick’s.” -- Captain Renault (Also the original working title of the film)

“Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.” -- Rick, upon the arrival of Ilsa

“Here’s looking at you kid.” - Rick to Ilsa, several times

“We’ll always have Paris.” Rick to Ilsa, about their earlier love affair

“It doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people doesn't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” -- Rick to Ilsa at the airport...

"Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” --Rick to Renault (The closing line of the film)

AND, PERHAPS,THE MOST MISQUOTED LINE IN FILM HISTORY “Play it again, Sam.” THE ACTUAL QUOTE: Rick: You know what I want to hear. Sam: [lying] No, I don't. Rick: You played it for her, you can play it for me! Sam: [lying] Well, I don't think I can remember... Rick: If she can stand it, I can! Play it! -- Rick talking about “their song” - As Time Goes By

The script was written from day to day as the filming progressed, and no one knew how the film would end - who would use the two exit visas? Would Ilsa, Rick's lover from a past romance in Paris, depart with him or leave with her husband Victor, the leader of the underground resistance movement? Bergman's face reflects confusing emotions. And well she might have been confused, since neither she nor anyone else on the film knew for sure until the final day who would get on the plane. Bergman played the whole movie without knowing how it would end, and this had the subtle effect of making all of her scenes more emotionally convincing. TRIVIA

The movie, much like the setting of Casablanca, was a real international melting pot, with 34 nationalities represented by the actors and crew. TRIVIA

Dooley Wilson (Sam) was a professional drummer who faked playing the piano. As the music was recorded at the same time as the film, the piano playing was actually a recording of a performance by Elliot Carpenter who was playing behind a curtain but who was positioned such that Dooley could watch, and copy, his hand movements. TRIVIA

Producer Hal B. Wallis nearly made the character Sam a female. Hazel Scott, Lena Horne, and Ella Fitzgerald were considered for the role.

CASABLANCA