“Casablanca” is a 1942 American romantic drama about a man who says he sticks his neck out for nobody, and then spends 102 minutes proving otherwise. Michael Curtiz directed it. Humphrey Bogart plays Rick Blaine, an American expatriate who owns a nightclub and gambling den in Casablanca, Morocco, in December 1941. Ingrid Bergman plays Ilsa Lund, the woman who walked out on him in Paris in 1940. Paul Henreid plays her husband, Victor Laszlo, a fugitive Czechoslovak Resistance leader. The film runs 102 minutes and it does not waste one of them.
Trailer, via Park Circus.
A Nightclub in Vichy Morocco
Rick’s Café Américain draws a mixed crowd: Vichy French and German officials, refugees desperate to reach the still-neutral United States, and the people who prey on them. Rick claims neutrality in all matters. The film undercuts him fast. He ran guns to Ethiopia in 1935. He fought on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. His cynicism is a pose, and everyone around him knows it.
The engine of the plot is letters of transit. Petty crook Ugarte, played by Peter Lorre, boasts to Rick that he got them by murdering two German couriers. The papers let the bearer travel freely around German-occupied Europe and into neutral Portugal. Ugarte asks Rick to hold them. Captain Louis Renault, the corrupt prefect of police, then arrests Ugarte. Ugarte is killed while in custody, and never reveals that Rick has the letters.
Bogart, Bergman, and the Song Sam Won’t Play
Then Ilsa walks in. She spots Sam, Rick’s friend and house pianist, and asks him to play “As Time Goes By.” Rick storms over, furious that Sam disobeyed his order to never perform that song again. He is stunned to see Ilsa.
The flashback is the film’s spine. Ilsa left Rick without explanation as the German army neared Paris in 1940. That is the whole reason for his bitter, closed-off manner. Bergman’s official website calls Ilsa her “most famous and enduring role,” and it is not a stretch. Roger Ebert called her “luminous” and said of her scenes with Bogart, “she paints his face with her eyes.”
The Supporting Cast Is the Real Treasure
Only three credited actors were born in the United States: Bogart, Dooley Wilson, and Joy Page. The rest are a roster of exiles and refugees, which is exactly what the film needed.
- Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault, the unabashedly corrupt prefect of police
- Conrad Veidt as Major Heinrich Strasser, the German officer sent to stop Laszlo
- Sydney Greenstreet as Signor Ferrari, an underworld figure and Rick’s friendly business rival
- Peter Lorre as Ugarte, the crook who never lives to spend his money
- Dooley Wilson as Sam, the pianist who carries the film’s most famous song
- Madeleine Lebeau as Yvonne
Veidt was a refugee German actor who fled the Nazis with his Jewish wife, then spent his American career playing Nazis. He was the highest-paid member of the cast despite his second billing. He died shortly after the film’s release.
How Casablanca Got Made
Warner Bros. story editor Irene Diamond convinced producer Hal B. Wallis to buy the film rights to “Everybody Comes to Rick’s,” an unproduced stage play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison, in January 1942. Brothers Julius and Philip G. Epstein were assigned the script first. They left early in 1942 to work on Frank Capra’s Why We Fight series, against studio resistance. Howard Koch took over until the Epsteins came back a month later.
The production schedule was tight and unglamorous.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| January 1942 | Wallis buys the rights to “Everybody Comes to Rick’s” |
| Early 1942 | The Epsteins leave for Capra’s Why We Fight series |
| Spring 1942 | Howard Koch writes until the Epsteins return |
| May 25, 1942 | Principal photography begins |
| August 3, 1942 | Principal photography ends |
The film was shot entirely at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, except for one sequence at Van Nuys Airport in Los Angeles. No one involved expected it to stand out among the many pictures Hollywood turned out that year.
A Cast That Didn’t Get Along
Henreid, an Austrian actor who had emigrated in 1935, was reluctant to take the part of Laszlo. He only signed on when he was promised top billing alongside Bogart and Bergman. He did not get along with his co-stars. He considered Bogart “a mediocre actor.” Bergman called Henreid a “prima donna.”
Bergman was under contract to David O. Selznick, and Wallis got her by lending Olivia de Havilland in exchange. Ann Sheridan, Hedy Lamarr, Luise Rainer, and Michèle Morgan were all considered for Ilsa. The film is better for the one it got.
Why the Ending Still Lands
The plot resolves the way it has to. Laszlo and Ilsa need the letters to escape. Major Strasser arrives in Casablanca to make sure they don’t. Ferrari tells Laszlo he suspects Rick has the papers. Laszlo comes back to the café that night and tries to talk Rick into handing them over. Rick has to choose between the woman he loves and the cause her husband fights for.
That choice is the reason “Casablanca” endures while the studio expected it to be one of many pictures that year. The romance is real, but it is not the point. The point is that a man who claims to stick his neck out for nobody decides, once, to stick it out for something larger than himself. Curtiz keeps the camera on faces and lets the dialogue do the work. The screenplay by Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, and Howard E. Koch is lean, quotable, and never sentimental about its own tragedy.
The Tagline Undersells the Film
The tagline promised “They had a date with fate in Casablanca!” That is marketing, and it undersells the thing. What the film actually delivers is a study of a man who has to lose the love of his life a second time to become worth something. It is a drama and a romance, and it earns both labels without leaning on either.
Some films get called timeless because nobody can find anything new to say about them. “Casablanca” gets called timeless because it keeps being right. The performances hold. The structure holds. The song holds. Generations of imitators have not dented it.
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