“Casablanca” How and Why it Became an Iconic Hollywood Movie A personal observation on American filmmaking exceptionalism
By Jack Lyons Theatre and Film Critic Member American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) Member Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (ATAS) When the movie “Casablanca” merged the powerful elements of love, war, and destiny in 1942, the film and its producers never saw the phenomenal appeal or its success coming until it won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1943. Seventyseven years later it still deserves a shout-out for American filmmaking exceptionalism. It seems the world can never get enough stories about romance, loves won and lost, exciting adventures or the drama of the human condition. Even with its flaws and its foibles laid bare, such stories keep tugging us into this intriguing, exciting, complicated short journey we call life but it doesn’t explain where we came from, why we’re here or where we are going. It’s not only profound, it’s a little scary when one thinks about it. No wonder the world is constantly in a state of flux, chaos, and uncertainty. The best medium for me in bringing some sense of understanding and clarity to life’s unanswered questions has been the cinema. “Casablanca” starred Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid, as one of the best examples of American filmmaking. The story encompassed a unique entertainment value amid the potent and poignant backdrop of World War II. It allowed Americans, for the first time, to see others through the lenses of empathy and their fight for a just and good cause, pitting the Allies - America, England, France, and Russia - against the Axis powers Germany, Japan and Italy. Americans have always prided themselves as being a nation of rugged individualists. We believe that with our love of freedom, our love of country, and our love of democracy, anything is possible. All we need to do is put our minds, muscles, and money in motion and we become invincible. We are a nation of optimists, but also a nation of nationalists. The pressure to keep America neutral and out of “Europe’s War” was extremely intense. Yet we still admire the qualities and characteristics of our Wild West history and those nonconforming individuals who loved doing things their way. “Casablanca” came along in American cinema at just the right time. Before John Wayne ‘won’ WW II on the silver screens of the country, this relevant and
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significant movie produced by Warner Brothers, helped explain America’s necessity for entering the war and did so with honesty, style, and a wonderfully patriotic script. Deftly directed by Michael Curtiz, featuring a brilliant cast, the movie would go on to win the Best Picture Oscar of 1943, also winning Best Screenplay Oscar statuettes for twin brothers Julian and Philip Epstein and Howard Koch. The timeless romantic war story made a huge international star of journeyman actor Humphrey Bogart, who was used to playing hard-boiled tough guys, convicts, and outsiders in B movies. However, his luminous young Swedish co-star, Ingrid Bergman, was already an established and accomplished actor in Europe and England. Her beauty and his talent made them an acceptable romantic on-screen couple, despite their age gap (he was 42 and she was 27). Bergman would go on to win three Academy Awards; Bogart would win only one. Handsome leading man Paul Henried, the ‘other man’ in this love-triangle, would later go on to woo Bette Davis in “Now Voyager”, another Warner Brothers romantic film directed, once again, by Michael Curtiz. The genesis of “Casablanca” began as the love-child of playwrights Murray Bennet and Joan Alison who wrote an unproduced stage play called “ Everybody Goes to Rick’s” which they couldn’t sell to Broadway. However, savvy movie producer Hal B. Wallis got a hold of the stage-script and thought with changes it would make a wonderful and much needed World War II propaganda movie. He bought the film rights from Bennet and Alison for $20,000, then a princely sum of money for an unproduced stage play. Many extraordinary and wonderful films were produced during the height of Hollywood’s Golden Age when the studio system was in its full glory. Producer Wallis enjoyed the freedom of the Warner Brothers backlot that was overflowing with actors, writers, producers, directors, and movie technicians. It afforded him the luxury to cast his movie directly from the studio’s list of long-term contract players, many who fled Europe earlier to England and America as immigrants when Hitler became Germany’s Chancellor in 1933. The now-rewritten movie script by the Epstein brothers and Koch depicted Rick Blaine as a cynical American, expat soldier of fortune with a mysterious past who settled in Casablanca, French Morocco running his own cabaret and gambling casino called Rick’s Café Americain.
The heart of the story, revolved around Rick and his struggle to decide whether to help his former lover Ilsa Lund (Bergman) and her Czech husband Victor Lazlo (Henreid), a wanted underground resistance leader on the run from the Nazi government, to escape from Casablanca to America and continue the fight against the Axis powers. It’s obvious that both men are in love with the same beautiful woman. The burning question for audiences was which man will win Isa’s heart in the end? Rick, the exciting soldier of fortune she met and fell in love with in pre-war Paris or Victor, the dedicated and committed leader for the cause of freedom. Rick’s was frequented by the wealthy and the notso-wealthy of those fleeing the war in Europe seeking passage to the safety of America. Casablanca was a melting pot of characters who conducted negotiations for coveted travel visas by black market profiteers, all under the watchful eye of ‘mildlycorrupt’ French Prefect of Police Captain Louis Renault, brilliantly played by charming character actor Claude Rains. Renault never met an attractive female seeking an exit visa that didn’t require his special personal attention – validating the practice of “quid pro quo” that
has been a powerful negotiating force since the world began. Producer Wallis knew he had a solid film on his hands when he saw the early footage from Curtiz. Only generations later would everyone realize that the film was made, not only to help defeat Nazism and Fascism, but that it also told a wartime love story that resonated with practically everyone; as a result “Casablanca” has been a consistent Top Ten
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movie in fan popularity polls for more than seven decades. American Film Institute’s (AFI) Top 100 Films List of All Time ranks it as number three. “Casablanca” is a master class on how to write a successful screenplay. Most films back in the 1940s ran about 90 minutes. There wasn’t a lot of time spent on exposition or explaining character development for Continues on Page 11
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