Respond to these rapid questions in our Casablanca quiz and we will tell you which Casablanca character you are. Play it now.
It is not surprising that “Casablanca” is one of the most well-known movies ever produced if we consider how much we can relate to the characters in some films. It centers on a man and a woman who are in love and who give up their passion for a greater good. This is incredibly alluring because it allows the viewer to picture not only falling in love with Humphrey Bogart or Ingrid Bergman, but also sacrificing that love for the greater good of defeating the Nazis.
Nobody involved in the production of “Casablanca” believed it to be a masterpiece. It was just another film from Warner Bros. Undoubtedly, it was a photo from the “A list.” (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). However, it had a limited budget and had low hopes when it was published. Everyone involved in the movie had been in or would be in dozens of other movies made in comparable circumstances, so “Casablanca’s” success was mainly the product of fortunate coincidence.
Memoirs mention that the screenplay was adapted from a minor production, and that dialogue snippets were quickly written down and brought to the set. The writers must have found it easier to compose dialogue in the right tone because the characters were already well-established in their thoughts and were so similar to the actors’ on-screen personas.
Throughout his acting career, Humphrey Bogart portrayed heroic roles, but his best performances were as heroes who were hurt, dissatisfied, and resentful. He was persuaded that the others were hatching a scheme to steal his gold in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” if you recall. He portrays Rick Blaine in the movie “Casablanca,” a hard-partying American who manages a nightclub in Casablanca at a time when Nazis, spies, and the French Resistance all traveled through Morocco.
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The dialogue blends the cynical with the weary; the opening sequences dance with comedy; and there are wisecracks and epigrams. Rick appears to move with ease in a dishonest society. He responds, “I’m a drunk,” when the German Strasser queries, “What is your nationality?” He always lived by the motto, “I stick up for nobody.”
Then “she walks into mine, of all the gin joints in all the towns in the world.” Rick’s former Paris-based sweetheart, Ilsa Lund (Bergman), is there. He orchestrated their escape under the shadow of the German occupation, and he feels like she deserted him by leaving him waiting in the rain at a railway station with their tickets to freedom. She is currently with Victor Laszlo (Henreid), a renowned French Resistance fighter.
Casablanca Quiz
All of this is done very efficiently in a few shots that, even after repeated viewings, still have the ability to emotionally impact me in a way that very few scenes ever have. Sam (Wilson), the piano player at the bar and an acquaintance of theirs from Paris, is surprised to see her. She requests that he play “As Time Goes By,” a tune that she and Rick wrote together. Rick emerges angrily from the back room (“I thought I told you never to play that song!”) as he reluctantly plays the song despite his protests. The scene then unfolds in resentment, regret, and the memory of a love that was genuine as Ilsa enters the frame, with a dramatic musical chord highlighting their close-ups. (This scene is not as powerful on a first viewing as it is on subsequent viewings because you don’t know the story of Rick and Ilsa in Paris when you watch the movie for the first time; in fact, the more times you watch it, the more the entire film resonates.)
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The letters of passage that will enable two individuals to leave Casablanca for Portugal and freedom make up the plot, a thin thread to dangle the emotions from. The wheedling little black marketeer Ugarte gave Rick the papers. (Peter Lorre). All of his old scars are suddenly reopened by Ilsa, shattering his carefully cultivated façade of neutrality and indifference. He understands she has loved him all along after hearing her tale. She is now, however, with Laszlo. Rick creates a scenario in which Ilsa and Laszlo escape together while he and his friend the police chief (Claude Rains) get away with murder. Rick initially wants to use the letters to escape with Ilsa, but in a long sequence that successfully combines suspense, romance, and comedy. Gather the typical suspects.
The fact that none of the main personalities are evil is intriguing. Even though some are murderers, liars, and cynics, everyone can be saved. Remember Forster’s famous remark, “If I were forced to choose between my country and my friend, I hope I would be brave enough to choose my friend,” if you think it was simple for Rick to give up his love for Ilsa and to place a higher value on Laszlo’s struggle against Nazism.
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The movie makes intriguing assumptions when viewed from a contemporary viewpoint. In essence, Ilsa Lund plays the part of a great man’s lover and helper; the real question in the film is, which great man should she be having a sexual relationship with? Since Ilsa can stay in Casablanca with Rick, there is truly no reason why Laszlo can’t board the plane alone. In fact, that was one of the possible endings that was briefly considered. But that wouldn’t be right; the “happy” ending would be tainted by self-interest, whereas the ending we have enables Rick to be bigger and closer to nobility (“it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world”). And it enables us to bask in the warmth of his courage as we experience all of these things in the theater on a virtual level.
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In this scene’s closeups, Bergman’s face displays conflicted feelings. She might have been perplexed as well because nobody in the movie, including her, knew for sure until the very last day who would board the aircraft. Bergman didn’t know how the film would end while she was acting it, which had the subliminal result of making every scene she was in more emotionally convincing because she couldn’t tilt in the direction she knew the wind was flowing.
The movie’s style is perfectly sound, rock-solid in its use of Hollywood studio craftsmanship rather than brilliant. Michael Curtiz, the film’s director, and the authors (Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, and Howard Koch) shared the Oscar for best writing. One of their most important contributions was demonstrating to us the complexity of the world in which Rick, Ilsa, and the others resided. The depth of the supporting cast, which included Greenstreet as the dishonest club owner, Lorre as the conniving cheat, Rains as the subtly homosexual police chief, and minor players like the young girl who will say or do anything to support her husband, provided the moral framework for the major characters’ choices. Hollywood conventions demanded that Robert Redford and Lena Olin appear in every major scene when this story was remade in 1990 as “Havana,” and as a result, the movie struggled because, when taken out of context, they were more lovers than heroes.
I discover that despite watching the movie repeatedly year after year, it never gets boring. The more I get to know it, the more it sounds like a beloved musical album. Contrary to color, black-and-white film has not matured as well. The conversation is so terse and cynical that it hasn’t become dated. The emotional impact of “Casablanca” is largely accomplished through indirection; as we leave the theater, we are completely persuaded that the problems of three small people do, in fact, amount to more than a hill of beans.
For more personality quizzes check this: The Departed Quiz.
