# Casablanca and stupid young people **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 14, 2004, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-and-stupid-young-people/224359 "2004-01-14T05:35:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2004, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-and-stupid-young-people/224359/61 "2004-01-15T23:17:17Z")
> [@jeevmon](#): > > _Casablanca_ in particular is one film that I think requires a certain amount of living before you can really appreciate it. At the very least, I think it helps to have had your heart broken at least once to enjoy the film. Which many 18 year olds may think they’ve experienced, but probably have not. I think this is very insightful. I had my heart badly broken in college, and in the weeks afterward, unable to sleep, I first saw _Casablanca_ on late-night TV. The movie burned itself into my heart. Bogie, standing on the railway platform in the rain, completely crushed – that connected with me in a way very few movies ever had. If I had seen it a different time in my life – as a teenager, or now as a happily married thirty-something – I’m sure I would have liked it; but that powerful, visceral reaction I get when I watch it would not be the same. ---
**Author:** ![BabaBooey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dfb087/32.png) [@BabaBooey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BabaBooey)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2004, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-and-stupid-young-people/224359/62 "2004-01-16T04:40:57Z")
Slight hijack, but anyone interested in buying the movie should check out WB’s buy two get one free deal: [http://www.warnervideo.com/two-disc/](http://www.warnervideo.com/two-disc/) I just purchased Casablanca, Amadeus, and will be sending off for Se7en. Tempted to buy another two as I wouldn’t mind Boogie Nights, Cookoo’s Nest, and Christmas Story… ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2004, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-and-stupid-young-people/224359/63 "2004-01-16T06:26:20Z")
When my first husband and I divorced, the only items that we argued over were the framed black and white stills from _Casablanca_. “I was conceived while the movie was being filmed,” was my best argument. Writing and acting styles change. A classic endures despite that. As for watching a movie for the plot, Ebert says that what’s important is not what the movie is about, but _how_ it is about what it’s about. Once I understood that, I was on my way to becoming a buff. Three exceptions to **Reverse’s** B&W rules that immediately jumped to mind when I read her or his comments are _Gilda, To Kill a Mockingbird,_ and _Manhattan._. This phrase from someone else also puzzles me: > [@](#): > > and other horribly over-Technicolored examples What is an over-Technicolored film? Examples? ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2004, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-and-stupid-young-people/224359/64 "2004-01-20T13:54:57Z")
> [@mailman](#): > > Finally, somebody early in this thread made mention of an alternate ending. Is this on a new, re-re-re-release DVD or something? We watched it on a DVD from the library, but I didn’t see anything about alternate endings. What was the alternate ending? From [snpp.com](http://snpp.com), episode capsule for “Natural Born Kissers” (the one where Marge and Homer start having sex in semi-public): > [@](#): > > Back at the Springfield Retirement Castle, Bart, Lisa, and Abraham watch the old Casablanca reel on a projector. Rick and another guy. The other guy draws a gun. The pianist pushes his piano into the gunman. Hitler pops out of the piano, and Ilse crushes him via parachute. Ilse and Rick marry. > > Lisa: Unbelievable. > Bart: I’ll say. Wasn’t it great? And the question mark leaves the door open for a sequel. > Abe: I’ve seen that movie ten times. And I never get tired of that ending! > > It seems another Retirement Castle resident has been watching the film. > > Crazy Old Man: My studio produced Casablanca, all right? We tried to tack that happy ending on the picture 'cause back then, well, studio execs, we were…we were just dopes in suits, not like today. > > The old man bribes them to bury it. He gives Lisa the money, and adds “This one too”, handing her a reel of “It’s A Wonderful Life: Killing Spree Ending”. ---
**Author:** ![petelin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/71c47a/32.png) [@petelin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/petelin)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2004, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-and-stupid-young-people/224359/65 "2004-01-20T17:21:45Z")
Hey pkbites, I just wanted to say thanks. Casablanca has been buried on my NetFlix queue for quite some time, and your thread convinced me to bump it to the top. I watched it for the first time Sunday night, and loved it. I definitly see why it’s a classic. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2004, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-and-stupid-young-people/224359/66 "2004-01-20T22:20:34Z")
I agree with **Skammer** that to appreciate _Casablanca_ (and _It’s a Wonderful Life_), you have to have an outlook that few teenagers have. Not many teenagers are aware of their own mortality, or have faced a sacrifice of the proportions Rick faced. While I loved both movies from the first time I saw them, I was in my mid-20s, and had undergone my share of disappointments. I don’t know whether I would have appreciated them earlier. It’s not just young people though: I’ve met plenty of people my age (I’m 44) who don’t appreciate such movies. Lots of them seem to be practical-type men I work with (I’m an engineer) who consider any creative pursuit to be pretentious arty-fartsy stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Algernon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a183cd/32.png) [@Algernon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algernon)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2004, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-and-stupid-young-people/224359/67 "2004-01-20T23:03:19Z")
To all these wonderful B&W movies, I have to add a couple more of my favorites: \*It Happened One Night \* (Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert) and \*His Girl Friday \* (Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell). My kids, who are 21 and 19, have the same reaction. They turn up their noses at these movies. I came close to convincing them to watch _Casablanca_ over the holiday, but they ended up being too busy with their friends. Soon. Soon. I’ll win them over. I think they’re old enough now to have the maturity to appreciate these classics. ---
**Author:** ![Titan2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Titan2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Titan2)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2004, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-and-stupid-young-people/224359/68 "2004-01-21T00:15:50Z")
checked my DVD library, and there’s a lamentable dearth of Bogart. I need to get Casablanca, The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The African Queen. Good stuff. I just wish Bogart could have played Sam Spade in some more movies. * * * And I wish he made more Fred C or Charlie Allnut movies. Always liked him as the heavy better.Probably stems from the Petrified Forest. Also thought Dick Powell did as much justice to Raymond Chandler in Murder My Sweet as Bogie in The Big Sleep. Amazing considering where he came from in his previous movie roles. And for any younguns’ who turn their noses at B&W check out Detour,esp.if you’re a fan of the Coen bros.They could have written that movie if they were alive back in the day. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2004, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-and-stupid-young-people/224359/69 "2004-01-21T00:21:11Z")
> [@yojimbo](#): > > I love this movie. I was lucky enough to see it on the big screen a few years back. A packed cinema all laughing with and enjoying a 50+ year old movie. What a great movie even if the plot is somewhat confusing 😉 > > "Have you met my daughter? > > - Yes, she tried to sit on my lap while I was standing up" 😃 > > . I recently saw it on the big screen about a year ago, and I never really apperciated how funny it was until then. Bogy gets a lot of great lines, and the telephone conversation in his office was great. “No, this isn’t a police station”. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2004, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-and-stupid-young-people/224359/70 "2004-01-21T01:51:38Z")
When I was in college (going on twenty years ago now) I ran the student union film program. I went to one of those big state universities with lots of students, but a commuter college. We did a Bogart film festival and sold out every night. I think there are some movies, some actors, some directors (and even some genres) that are so iconoclastic that they will always find audiences among college students and the youth of whatever “today” is - at least the ones looking for icons in the past. Hitchcock, James Dean, Bogart, Monroe, the Ms. Hepburns (Audrey and Katherine), Chaplin - genres like Science Fiction and Film Noir and Musicals. What a movie like the Big Sleep has going for it is its level that it taps into that on so many levels…Raymond Chandler…Howard Hawks…Bogart and Bacall. Plus a snappy script. And Casablanca…Casablanca taps into something different. A moment in WWII that was relevant then and is still so. Nobility in ordinary (and not so ordinary) humans. Ingrid Bergman at her most luminous. A film that rises above its sloppy creation (not that there is much sloppy about the end product, but they were writing it while they were filming). Many of the actors were Jews fleeing the Nazis (if they didn’t know exactly what was going on, they at least knew enough to flee Europe). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-and-stupid-young-people/224359.md?page=3)