I’ve just watched Casablanca on TCM. What’s-his-name – Robert Osborne – said that Joy Page, who died last year, was the last surviving member of the cast. But I’d looked up Madeleine LeBeau (‘Yvonne’) earlier, and Wiki says she’s still alive.
So who’s right? Osborne, or Wiki?
IMDbalso says she’s still alive, so I’d say Osborne messed up.
Nobody’s perfect.
Even if LeBeau has died recently she was still alive when Page died, so Page was definitely not the last surviving cast member.
Lebeau was the prettiest member of the cast. Her passion shown in the short shot of her as she sings La Marseillaise is one of my favourite shots.
I’m assuming that by “last surviving member of the cast” he meant “last surviving member of the important part of the cast” (that is, Rick, Ilsa, Louis, Victor, Strasser, Ferrari, Ugarte, Karl, Sam).
Which wouldn’t be accurate for Joy Page either, who was the young Bulgarian wife saved by a rigged roulette wheel.
Y’know, I really can’t blame Renault for wanting a piece of that…
Yeah I love that shot. I just realized from Wiki that she was married to Marcel Dalio (who played the croupier in Casablanca) and the two fled Paris before the Germans came.
Making Casablanca and the Marseillaise scene in particular must have been a special experience though apparently Dalio filed for divorce while she was shooting her scenes.
A slight hijack.
I loved that scene. Rick says, “Nobody ever love me that much.”
Concur. She was gorgeous.
I love this movie.
As I understand it, Casablanca received lukewarm reviews and mediocre performance.
What, in y’all’s opinion, makes this a classic?
For me:
Vibrant characters, often snappy dialogue, good vs. evil, intrigue, the death (and rebirth) of idealism, redemption, forgiveness, true love…yep, that’s all I got.
What about you?
The dialogue is what makes this film a classic for me. I’d listen to it like a book on tape. In fact, it is my understanding that there is at least one radio station that airs it regularly and has for decades.
Are my eyes really brown?
I came for the waters
…I was misinformed
Yeah, I’ve heard a lot of stories, they all went along with the sound of a tinny piano being played downstairs.
Is it just me, of does it seem like Paul Henried doesn’t really know the words to Le Marseillaise, there’s only one shot where it’s even mouthed convincingly.
I just saw it for the first time. Based on description alone, it sounds like something that wouldn’t appeal to me. Despite that, I found it immediately compelling in a way few films have been. Everything in that movie is perfect. The look, the sound, the direction.
I’ve never liked the way Sydney Greenstreet swats the fly, after telling Paul Henreid to go see Rick.
ExTank writes:
> As I understand it, Casablanca received lukewarm reviews and mediocre
> performance.
No. That’s simply wrong:
It was fairly successful at the box office, if not a blockbuster. It got generally good reviews, if not great ones. It won the Best Picture Oscar. During its production, it was considered an A-picture (i.e., not a cheap one just tossed off by the studio). Nobody involved with making it thought that it would be a classic, but then when does anyone ever correctly predict what will and what won’t be a classic? It took perhaps a decade and a half before it became a cult film, but again that’s not so uncommon.
Ok, thanks. I was probably misremembering stuff again.
If anybody has an address for her could you leave us a message on www.filmandcinema.uk
According to IMDb, LeBeau is still alive, almost six years after this thread was started, and turned 92 in June.
Well, make sure she gets home safely. And come straight back.