Family Movie Night
By Karyn Bowman
“You played it for her, you can play it for me.”
That line and many others come from Casablanca which opened in theaters seventy years ago this week. The movie was released just a few weeks after the war opened on the African front, which explains the map sequence at the beginning of the 1942 film.
Poster Image from IMDb.com
If you have never seen the movie, the story is this: A man runs a tavern and secret casino in Casablanca. Every day more refugees from Europe come to the French colonial city in Morocco hoping to get the necessary papers to leave the county, a stop away from America.
One night a famous resistance leader comes to the club looking for such papers for himself and his wife. But what the husband does not know is that his wife and the club owner have a past that occurred during the time everyone thought the leader was dead. The owner has papers everyone wants but the question is what will he do with them as the Germans are breathing down his neck.
It is a movie you can watch with your teens but be aware that there are no car chases or crash sequences. There are innuendos about sexual favors and two murders occur on-screen. Dialogue runs this movie and the great lines seem never-ending.
“This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
I always wonder if a creative person knows they are writing or working on perfection as they do it. The Epstein twins may not have thought they were doing that at the time. This was just another movie they were writing when the studios put out hundreds of movies a year.
There are great legends connected to this movie such as Ronald Reagan originally being cast as Rick. Personally, I do not think he had the right amount of dark disappointment to play the casino owner. Bogart, with his string of gangster roles, displayed a man who hid his heart with a layer of toughness.
Admit it, you guys. Once you have seen Bogart perform in just about any movie, you want to be as cool as all that. This role defines that elusive male who is tough but able to be so crazy in love that years later he is still angry at the woman who got away. And instead of taking that anger out on the world, every now and again he performs an act of kindness that allows young love to continue on to the new world.
This was Bogart’s first truly romantic role. He was given a partner who gave him everything back that he dished out. I am not sure if I ever saw Ingrid Bergman more beautiful, more glowing than in this movie. She is a woman who appears divided between two men of similar standards. She is willing to go to extremes to protect the man she loves but we are left guessing who that man is for the majority of the movie.
“Round up the usual suspects.”
Perhaps the best judge of any movie is whether or not you would watch it again. Some movies make me feel embarrassed that I ever liked them. When I watch Casablanca I want to be there in the hot and dry African city – going to the club every night, attending Resistance meetings, and looking as stylish as Elsa did in every scene.
Until next week, see you in the rental aisle.
Notes from Rumbly Cottage 
Bogart defined cool. Not just then, years after he died, he was still king of cool. “Don’t Bogart that joint my friend” was late 60’s
I never heard that phrase before.
Ingrid Bergman, one of the most beautiful women on film.
Her daughter, Isabella Rosellini, is not far from that as well.
Great show. Been thinking maybe wandering through some old classics – longing for some well done characterizations, nicely constructed plots, noteworthy lines, and that glamour of old “Hollywood”
My cable company on-demand service has this movie available for $2.99
LOVE this movie! Definitely be No. 1 on my family movie night list, though I’m sure the rest of the household would roll their eyes and groan. I may have to invoke maternal “I really do know what’s good for you in this instance” authority and make them all watch it. I know they’ll thank me for it later. 😉
When I watch those old flicks, I’m amazed at the looks of the men who passed for romantic leads. They certainly weren’t classically handsome, but they had something else about them that worked. Spencer Tracy, Jimmy Stewart, Humphrey Bogart–they weren’t all that attractive, but they had star power.
Perhaps what they had was righteous swagger. Although, you have to admit that Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Tyrone Powers and Kirk Douglas all had some incredible looks.
That is very true. Cary Grant is a favorite of mine.