More on Free French Africa:
The letters of transit in this case were travel documents to be provided by Renault himself (remember Renault had a side hustle providing travel documents to those who could afford them).
Thanks, so I-
A quick Google says Weygand.
Ebert’s 1996 answer:D
A. This is a real mystery. In the published version of the screenplay, the line reads: “…General DeGaulle [Marshal Weygand].” The Internet Movie Database says, “It sounds like Ugarte says that the letters of transit are signed by ‘General De Gaulle.’ leading to confusion as DeGaulle had no authority in that area at the time. Peter Lorre actually says ‘General Weygand,’ but his accent makes it difficult to understand.” Since “DeGaulle” and “Weygand” do not sound much alike in any accent, I checked out my laserdisc of the scene. What Lorre says sounds like a cross between “jenna-rye dee-go” and “jenna-rye wee-gond.” So, which is it? Probably Weygand. But why does the published screenplay give both possibilities?
You tube vid here. Jump to 1:35:
I hear “jenna-rye deh-gon”. No L at the end. No De, more like “Day”. General Deygand.
Thanks for finding this.
It’s quite clearly Weygand - trying to use any document identified as provided by De Gaulle to leave territory controlled by Vichy would get you into a world of trouble.
Note that DeGaulle was in Brazzaville at the time, so Rick and Louis were going to join him.
It’s definitely “Weygand.” I knew that the first time I saw the movie; the “DeGaulle” interpretation was decades later. But Weygand made sense (though he had been deposed by the time the movie began shooting, but the writers probably didn’t bother to change it).
Good work! Thanks.
I love the film, one of my favorites, watch it all the time.
And the letters of transit is just stupid. They’re Nazis! They would have shot Lazlo and dumped his body in a hole. “Letters? We didn’t see any letters!” Case closed!
Unrecindable letters of transit sounds exactly like SovCit happy hooey. “If I say the magic words/use these letters of transit, you can’t touch me!” “Take him out and shoot him.”
Letters of transit could be meaningful, if they were signed by the right person, with authority that the Nazis recognize. It’s just implausible that Weygand would be such a person.
Except they arent in german occupied territory. They were in a (pro-german) neutral country. Abwehr agents operated freely in Spain, for example, but they didnt try any sort of public muscle.
Ugarte was “shot while escaping”. I’m sure he wasn’t the only one.
Of course, Strasser was shot “by the usual suspects”, so anything can happen in Casablanca.
Casablanca was known as a hotbed of corruption.
Exactly, they were just made up for the movie, it’s not like the Nazis are just about to shoot you and then they find out you have a letter of transit and they have to let you go. “Rules are rules.”
But it wouldn’t have been German police: Morocco wasn’t occupied. It would have been Vichy police - and Weygand was Vichy’s military commander in North Africa.
Whether or not the letters of transit (or any other document) would be honored would probably depend on the individual. Some ruthless authority might have shot Lazlo and burned the papers. Others, seeing Weygand’s name, would have accepted the letters of transit in order to avoid any potential trouble.
But there were Nazis all over town in the movie, including Strasser who pulled a gun at the airport. They wouldn’t care about any letters.
And the Nazis who were in town had enough bossing-around authority to make Renault close down Rick’s Café, or to make sure - in Renault’s words - that Ilsa and Rick would both end up in a concentration camp if they both stay in Casablanca. So even though Casablanca was indeed in Vichy territory rather than German-occupied territory, that’s not the end of the story.
And Lazlo had escaped from a concentration camp, but was walking around town openly. The Vichy cooperated with the holocaust and would have turned him over to the Germans. The Nazis are weirdly all powerful and impotent in the movie.
Nevertheless, I love the movie. It’s plot is just kind of nutty.
Another one of my favourite plot holes (or rather more of a character error) is at the end, when Rick forces Renault (or was it Strasser?) at gunpoint to complete the blank letters of transit in the names of Mr and Mrs Victor Laszlo. This makes Ilsa shout out in surprise: “But why my name?”
This exclamation makes no sense. It is entirely clear that one of the two letters would be used for Ilsa; the question is whether she’d go with Victor or with Rick. But a scenario in which Ilsa stays behind and Victor and Rick use the letters would not make any sense whatsoever.