Casablanca Film Review

Michael Curtiz’s 1942 classic, Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, is a must see for any film enthusiast.

The film is a black and white production set in Casablanca, Morocco, during WW2. Most of the film is set in a bar by the name of ‘Rick’s Café Américain’ which Bogart’s character, Rick, is the proprietor of. We don’t know much about Rick at the beginning of the film, only that he is a wealthy man, as suggested by his look and his occupation as a nightclub owner. Then, Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) comes into the story when she enters Rick’s bar with her husband, Victor Laszlo, played by Paul Henreid. When Rick sees Ilsa there is a very serious look between the two of them suggesting they have unfinished business seeing as they knew each other in the past.

The scenes shot in Rick’s bar introduce numerous characters of different ethnicity and racial background including Sam (the pianist), German soldiers, Italian business men, French police and various other characters who either live in Casablanca or are waiting there until they can access an exit visa. It also seems that many of the scenes in the bar, if not all of them, include at least one person with a cigarette in their hand and practically everybody is drinking alcohol. The men seem to be wearing suits and looking well groomed and the women looking very classy and wearing lots of expensive looking jewellery, as for makeup, we cannot see whether the women are wearing any due to the film being in black and white, though I did notice that every time they did a close up on Ilsa, her face seemed to be slightly blurred out, possibly to make her look more elegant and flawless.

When Rick was sat at the table alone in the bar while Sam played the piano, there was a lengthy flashback to his past with Ilsa. The flashback is set in Paris, the world renowned ‘City of Love’, where Ilsa and Rick are in a mysterious relationship where they know very little about each other, though compared to the present day, they look a lot happier. In the final scene of the flashback Rick was waiting for Ilsa at the train station because they were going to leave Paris together to start a new life, but, unfortunately before their departure Ilsa left a note with Sam for him to give to Rick. It said:

Richard,

I cannot go with you or ever see you again.

You must not ask why.

Just believe that I love you.

Go, my darling, and god bless you.

Ilsa.

This note gives a mysterious vibe and an unexplained answer to her abandoning Rick. Later we discover that she couldn’t go with him because she was already married to Victor who she had just found out had not been killed in a German prisoner of war camp.

My favourite bit about the train station scene was how rain was pouring down the letter in Rick’s hands, forcing the ink to run from the words, which caused a particularly empathetic feeling due to it looking like tears and the fact the weather was dismal.

During the film I also noticed the poor visual effects and continuity faults throughout. The audio quality was poor too, but it was good for its time. A few other things I realised were:

·         The music was very old fashioned and traditional.

·          Characters lines hinting to the colours of things, for example “Are my eyes really brown?” and “Germans wore grey, you wore blue”. I found that these lines made me think a lot about the actual colours of the things in the film, I also realised that something in my mind was pairing certain things in the film to what colour they could have been in real life.

·         Sam seems very protective over Rick.

·         There were several famous quotes: “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in the world, she had to walk into mine”, “Here’s looking at you kid” and “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship”.

·         At times Rick could be quite angry and sarcastic and would talk back to people but overall, he never really seemed bothered by anything.

·         The soft focus of Ilsa’s face makes it look like she is always sad.

·         At the end when Rick is threatening a man’s life unless he signs the papers to make sure that Ilsa and Victor get away safely, he doesn’t seem to care about the fact that he is going to be punished for what he is doing.

·         Rick does the right thing for everyone which shows that under it all he is a kindhearted man. This is shown when 1. He makes sure Victor and Ilsa leave the country and go to America which is where they want to be. And 2. He rigged the roulette wheel so that a couple could afford their exit passes out of Casablanca.

But, overall, I found the film to be quite challenging and dramatic and yet the story line was still very romantic and mysterious. The film is a classic and I recommend it to all people who are looking for something unique and different to watch.

Til next time, “Here’s looking at you kid”.