# Casablanca question **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 27, 2010, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-question/544656 "2010-06-27T01:40:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-question/544656/1 "2010-06-27T01:40:51Z")
Copying my tape to DVR to burn a DVD. Ilsa comes back to see Rick. He scorns her, she pulls a gun on him. “Go ahead and shoot. You’d be doing me a favor.” “Oh Rick, I tried to stay away!” Etc. Scene cuts to the searchlight at the airport. Back to Bogie, er, Rick and Ilsa. “And then?” Did they “do it” between scenes? ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-question/544656/2 "2010-06-27T01:52:18Z")
no, for unmarried people didn’t have sex in the 40s ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-question/544656/3 "2010-06-27T01:58:52Z")
For two people that used to be in love, but also know they can’t be again, getting their freak on would be a dangerous move. “How about a quick one, for old time’s sake?” probably wasn’t considered OK back then. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-question/544656/4 "2010-06-27T02:00:39Z")
So in Paris they just necked a lot? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-question/544656/5 "2010-06-27T02:27:58Z")
> [@PSXer](#): > > no, for unmarried people didn’t have sex in the 40s Even worse: Elsa _was_ married. Paris is excusable, since she thought Victor was dead, but in Casablanca, he was alive and there was absolutely no way the Hays Office would allow that. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-question/544656/6 "2010-06-27T02:29:42Z")
Of course they “did it”. At one point, Rick says “We’ll always have Paris and if we didn’t, we got it back last night.” or some such. Knowing that each loves the other, they can each go their own ways and live their lives. The whole movie is about nobility and sacrifice. So, yes, they did have sex, just off screen. I know exactly what they did and how they did it and how much they both enjoyed it, but I’ve been sworn to secrecy… ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-question/544656/7 "2010-06-27T02:40:05Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Even worse: Elsa _was_ married. Ilsa, Curtiz Breath. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sigmundex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e19adc/32.png) [@Sigmundex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmundex)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-question/544656/8 "2010-06-27T02:51:45Z")
What man could have resisted? I mean, Ilsa looked just like Ingrid Bergman in her BEST years, for god’s sake! ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-question/544656/9 "2010-06-27T03:00:31Z")
> [@Sigmundex](#): > > What man could have resisted? I mean, Ilsa looked just like Ingrid Bergman in her BEST years, for god’s sake! And what are the odds of THAT, anyways? ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-question/544656/10 "2010-06-27T06:17:44Z")
> [@eleanorigby](#): > > So, yes, they did have sex, just off screen… Wow. I’m Bogie, man. Every time I have sex, it’s just off screen… ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-question/544656/11 "2010-06-27T12:47:05Z")
I actually always wondered about the line at the airport, Rick speaking to Laszlo: > [@](#): > > She tried everything to get them (the letters of transit) and nothing worked. She did her best to convince me she was still in love with me but that was over long ago. For your sake she pretended it wasn’t and **I let her pretend**. Is Rick saying, “Ha! Ha! I banged your wife!” ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-question/544656/12 "2010-06-27T13:44:37Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Wow. I’m Bogie, man. Wasn’t that a 70s disco song? ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-question/544656/13 "2010-06-27T17:33:35Z")
In the scene in question, after Ilsa declines to shoot Rick, the scene cuts to a tall building with a searchlight on it (as noted by the o.p.). While the building isn’t labeled (and is presumably the airport), one might as well call it “The Phallic Building”, and under the Hays Code is about as close as you could get to showing a passionate, sweaty sex scene without being banned from release. In modern terms, it is the equivalent of Chloë Sevigny’s infamous scene in _The Brown Bunny_. As for _Casablanca_ being all about “sacrifice and nobility,” while that is the motivation that the main characters would all have themselves and everyone else believing, even a cursory analysis of the story and its logical plotholes suggests a more sinister agenda. We’re to believe that Ilsa is a clueless ingenue caught in an impossible love triangle between two diffident men while enmeshed in a plot to acquire these vaunted “letters of transit”, signed by General De Gaulle ("…cannot be rescinded, not even questioned…") permitting the bearers to pass unmolested. However, as we discover, the letters of transit aren’t worth the paper they’re written on when it comes to allowing Lazlo and Ilsa to leave Casablanca, Ilsa is far more conversant with Rick’s background than she initially lets on, and Victor Lazlo is a pathological showboat that can’t help but make a big dramatic scene even when he’s supposed to be on the d.l. and fleeing from the cartoon Nazis that would like nothing better than to break him publicly. Ilsa herself is so careless about Rick that instead of writing a letter that actually explains the circumstances of her departure she merely sends a short note that basically does nothing but strings him along, and her interest in Lazlo seems to be nothing more than securing the best future for herself; she’s apparently willing to leave Casablanca with Rick, abandoning her husband to the Germans, although in fairness it seems obvious that she knows that Rick’s mercenary exterior conceals a heart of gold and that he’ll fall on his sword for her if she exercises her feminine wiles to both appeal to his inner nobility and simultaneously shame him for acting in his own self-interest. So, what _Casablanca_ has to say about sacrifice and nobility is that being uncategorically amenable to appeals on such grounds leads you vulnerable to manipulation and may result in your being a fugitive from authorities, running to Brazzaville in the company of a man with a barely concealed homosexual crush on you. Also, with a few notable exceptions like the Yugoslav Partisans and the Norwegian sabotage of the German nuclear materials program, the various Resistance units in Europe during WWII were mostly ineffective, spending much of their time rooting out traitors in their midst. So all that noble sacrifice ended up meaning not much more than “a hill of beans”. Carol Reed’s post-war _The Third Man_ (from a screenplay written by Graham Greene) is a far more cogent and meaningful statement on nobility and sacrifice, serving as an antidote to the saccharine cloyingness of _Casablanca_. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![flano1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f14d63/32.png) [@flano1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flano1)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-question/544656/14 "2010-06-27T18:52:39Z")
Ah! Redemption. I wonder if it really matters how you ratchet up your karma points? ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-question/544656/15 "2010-06-27T19:37:36Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > In the scene in question, after Ilsa declines to shoot Rick, the scene cuts to a tall building with a searchlight on it (as noted by the o.p.). While the building isn’t labeled (and is presumably the airport), one might as well call it “The Phallic Building”, and under the Hays Code is about as close as you could get to showing a passionate, sweaty sex scene without being banned from release. In modern terms, it is the equivalent of Chloë Sevigny’s infamous scene in _The Brown Bunny_. > > As for _Casablanca_ being all about “sacrifice and nobility,” while that is the motivation that the main characters would all have themselves and everyone else believing, even a cursory analysis of the story and its logical plotholes suggests a more sinister agenda. We’re to believe that Ilsa is a clueless ingenue caught in an impossible love triangle between two diffident men while enmeshed in a plot to acquire these vaunted “letters of transit”, signed by General De Gaulle (“…cannot be rescinded, not even questioned…”) permitting the bearers to pass unmolested. However, as we discover, the letters of transit aren’t worth the paper they’re written on when it comes to allowing Lazlo and Ilsa to leave Casablanca, Ilsa is far more conversant with Rick’s background than she initially lets on, and Victor Lazlo is a pathological showboat that can’t help but make a big dramatic scene even when he’s supposed to be on the d.l. and fleeing from the cartoon Nazis that would like nothing better than to break him publicly. Ilsa herself is so careless about Rick that instead of writing a letter that actually explains the circumstances of her departure she merely sends a short note that basically does nothing but strings him along, and her interest in Lazlo seems to be nothing more than securing the best future for herself; she’s apparently willing to leave Casablanca with Rick, abandoning her husband to the Germans, although in fairness it seems obvious that she knows that Rick’s mercenary exterior conceals a heart of gold and that he’ll fall on his sword for her if she exercises her feminine wiles to both appeal to his inner nobility and simultaneously shame him for acting in his own self-interest. > > So, what _Casablanca_ has to say about sacrifice and nobility is that being uncategorically amenable to appeals on such grounds leads you vulnerable to manipulation and may result in your being a fugitive from authorities, running to Brazzaville in the company of a man with a barely concealed homosexual crush on you. Also, with a few notable exceptions like the Yugoslav Partisans and the Norwegian sabotage of the German nuclear materials program, the various Resistance units in Europe during WWII were mostly ineffective, spending much of their time rooting out traitors in their midst. So all that noble sacrifice ended up meaning not much more than “a hill of beans”. Carol Reed’s post-war _The Third Man_ (from a screenplay written by Graham Greene) is a far more cogent and meaningful statement on nobility and sacrifice, serving as an antidote to the saccharine cloyingness of _Casablanca_. > > Stranger Well, there is that. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-question/544656/16 "2010-06-27T20:31:32Z")
> [@eleanorigby](#): > > Well, there is that. Well, it wouldn’t be a Casablanca thread without Strangers Ilsa screed. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-question/544656/17 "2010-06-27T21:15:15Z")
> [@bienville](#): > > Is Rick saying, “Ha! Ha! I banged your wife!” In a manner of speaking. I always took it as his attempt to give Ilsa an excuse, to address the elephant in the room (elephant at the airport?) that they all understood. As if he was trying to defuse the guilt and incrimination that might follow after, in recognition of the fact that Victor was a smart guy and he knew what was up without being told. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-question/544656/18 "2010-06-27T21:30:06Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > In a manner of speaking. I always took it as his attempt to give Ilsa an excuse, to address the elephant in tof he room (elephant at the airport?) that they all understood. As if he was trying to defuse the guilt and incrimination that might follow after, in recognition of the fact that Victor was a smart guy and he knew what was up without being told. Yeah, I concur. Rick is telling him ‘she only pretended it meant something, and I let her pretend.’ It’s kind of the Bulgarian couple act II, wherein an older, worldlier husband knows of the act, but not it’s meaning. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-question/544656/19 "2010-06-27T23:05:58Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > Yeah, I concur. Rick is telling him ‘she only pretended it meant something, and I let her pretend.’ It’s kind of the Bulgarian couple act II, wherein an older, worldlier husband knows of the act, but not it’s meaning. Yep, it was Rick trying to serve up a “she only took one for the team” explanation. Or, again, that’s how I always interpreted it (so I obviously agree that the two weren’t just playing Scrabble on that fateful night in Casablanca!). ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-question/544656/20 "2010-06-27T23:26:58Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > Yep, it was Rick trying to serve up a “she only took one for the team” explanation. Or, again, that’s how I always interpreted it (so I obviously agree that the two weren’t just playing Scrabble on that fateful night in Casablanca!). Could they have been playing Risk instead? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-question/544656.md?page=2)