It’s all been pretty much covered. Casablanca is in autonomous Vichy France. Laszlo even says to Strausser that he doesn’t recognize his authority and asks Louie if it is HIS wish that Laszlo attend the police station meeting.
NOW, Louie does demonstrate that he has the power to arrest Laszlo if he wants, and to simply execute him and call it suicide or ‘shot while escaping’.
But I’m sure Louie doesn’t want to face war crimes charges down the line either.
What would happen to Strasser if he sent some of his men to arrest Laszlo?
Strasser would be breaking Vichy law and Louie could arrest him. Strasser wouldn’t be laughing then.
He’s also not seeing any remuneration for going to the trouble, for one thing. He’s “just a poor corrupt officlal”, as he says. For another, Renault really does dislike the Germans, as the airport scene shows, and he won’t just do what they ask.
It still seems like it would have been easy for Strasser to have his *own *men grab Laszlo and dispose of him, though.
It would be a violation of the Vichy territory status. But more practically, you seem to assume that the Morocco has a substantial German presence. It did not, and to the contrary the Vichy armed forces in the area were substantial and resisted in fact the Americans brielfy before changing orders and sides. I have not seen this film although one hears of it from the Americans, but it can be said that in the reality the Vichy administration was very prickly about its independence - and also knew that its own forces were of a divided loyalty.
Not at all, the forces in the cit of Casablanca for the Vichy were very strong and no real life German representative would risk provoking them. Particularly as it would have likely been known many of the units were sympathetic to the allies and in fact tried to execute a coup d’etat before the American landings.
Would Vichy have tried to kick the Germans out for doing it? Not likely.
I was under the impression Captain Renault closed down Rick’s Cafe Americane not because Strasser wanted him to, but because Renault discovered there was gambling taking place there.
No, but they could and would execute Strasser, and he knew it.
Renault always knew that gambling was going on. He gambled there himself, as is made clear in his next line after he shuts down the place for gambling, when he is handed his own winnings. He decided that it would be better if he shut down the place rather than get Strasser angry. Gambling was illegal but one of the things he always ignored and participated in himself. It was just an excuse to shut the place down.
No you are wrong.
A german representative in the Casablanca would not have more than personnel attachés with him, as the French North Africa is not under occuption, and no real forces are in the Morocco. Arrest outside of the law and against the French prefectures desires would be easily undone.
The Germans would also know that there is strong anti-German sentiments in the still strong armed units in Morocco, and would be sensitive to not needlessly provoking an anti-Vichy coup d’état as had already occurred in the sub-Saharan colonies - and when the operation Torch began, actually almost succeeded.
In real history we already see the Germans not pressing too hard on the Vichy for fear of a revolt or the second hand revolt. The case of the Moroccan Sultan refusing the German orders via the Vichy to hand over his Jewish subjects as part of the final solution is famous. The Moroccan population was heavily anti Vichy as seeing an allowance of the worst of the colons habits and the exile of the Sultan later, and already there were numbers of the Moroccans troops with the Free French.
If this Lazslo is not an extreme matter, the Germans would not take unilateral action.
no unlikely, expelled such a representative possibly.
Exactly. He as shocked, SHOCKED, that gambling was going on!
nm
I remember reading that, although there were undoubtedly German agents in Casablanca, they would not have been openly running around in uniform or singing songs in bars. If true, imagining them on the DL in civilian clothes makes it a lot easier to reconcile what Strasser could and couldn’t do, IMHO.
Guys, the entire movie is a setup. Ugarté, Ilsa, Lazlo, Strasser, Ferrari…the entire plot is a scam masterminded by Signor Ferrari of the Blue Parrot who covets the “Rick’s Café Americain”, and Ilsa, who wants to escape to America with her money ticket husband Lazlo and his profitable post-war lecture circuit. Even the young Bulgarian couple who Rick rigs the roulette game to pay off are involved, spurring him toward his native hero-complex impulses to soften him up for the Big Con, which in this case is a clever variation on the standard romance scam with a tip-off in which Rick is duped into believing he has made a heroic sacrifice and runs off to Brazzaville with the adoring Captain Renault in tow (who may or may not be aware of the scam but as the only honest man in Casablanca is not a particiapnt in it except for his complicity in the supposed execution of Ugarté).
This is also why Sam, the piano player at Rick’s, shakes his head. As the stock “wise Negro” character, he’s seen it all before and knows the inevitability of it all. “Knock on wood,” indeed.
Stranger
Now it all makes sense!
I was buying it right up until that.
:rolleyes:
I think if Stranger had rephrased that as “as the most honest man in Casablanca” he could have gotten away with it. Cause, you know, for a given level of honest, Renault might very well have been the most honest man in Casablanca.
Oh, and I can easily imagine during the Third Reich, German diplomatic personnel wearing those uniforms. Not to mention, he was Major Strasser, which was not a standard diplomatic rank. And for any, um, extra-diplomatic activities, there was probably an SS or SD man posted as a cultural attache. Except Renault probably had enough influence with the “usual suspects” to make them unwilling to work for the Nazis.
And Strasser getting PNGed would probably have been bad for his career. Himmler was touchy about that sort of thing.
Goering, not Himmler. Strasser always wore a Luftwaffe uniform. If he was SS, he was working undercover.
“Ve haff two million letters of transit signed by Marshal Pilsudski.”