Great dialogue and great performances (or maybe great casting) are present. The story itself is surprisingly weak in its construction - there are numerous plotholes that are barely papered over in the script. But the weakness of the plotline is redeemed by a perfect ending - an ending which in my opinion is the key to this movie’s legendary status.
The usual story arc of “boy meets girl - boy loses girl - boy gets girl back” is thrown out. In Casablanca, the boy meets and loses the girl but then, rather than getting her back, voluntarily gives up the girl for something more important. And it is a genuine sacrifice - Rick isn’t Sydney Carton giving up a woman who he had already lost. And it only works as a sacrifice - if Victor had conveniently died and Rick and Ilsa had ended up together, the movie would have meant a lot less. Ilsa would then have just been Rick’s reward for making the right choice.
It’s not clear who wrote the ending. Murray Burnett and Joan Allison wrote the play, Everyone Comes to Rick’s, that the movie is based upon and I don’t know how the play ended. Julius and Phil Epstein wrote the script but they had to leave in the middle to work on another project. Howard Koch was brought in to finish the script and Casey Robinson added some additional scenes (mostly the Paris flashback). And this being a forties studio film, director Michael Curtiz, producer Hal Wallis, studio head Jack Warner, and censor Jack Breen all had their input. So it’s hardly clear who wrote what. I’ve seen a documentary about the movie with interviews with Burnett, Koch, and Julius Epstein. Burnett talks about the inspiration for his script (it was based on a nightclub he went to although it was in southern France not Morocco) but he doesn’t mention the ending. Koch says the ending was the most important part of the movie for essentailly the same reasons I gave above. But Epstein claims that Rick’s choice was an afterthought - he saw the big climax as Rick shooting Strasser and Louis covering for him and they just had Rick send Ilsa away as a necessary set-up for this. None of them claims he personally wrote the airport separation scene.
Anything I might add about the greatness of this film would be superfluous, so I’ll just add this to the stuff in the OP about who wrote the script: Casablanca may be the only instance in the history of the universe where true greatness was produced by a ‘committee.’
I can’t dispute that since Casablanca seems to rise to greatness on a collision of brilliant scriptwriting and ideal acting.
Michael Curtiz as the director seemed almost superfluous; he was competent but not brilliant. A lot of his staging seemed firmly stuck in the 1930’s with how confined the camera is. Even when he gets outside onto an airfield at the end the fog closes everything in. I think the best thing you can say about him is that he got terrific performances out the cast and then got out of the way.
And to throw out a discussion point: what’s the best line in the movie?
“I’ve often speculated why you don’t return to America. Did you abscond with the church funds? Run off with a senator’s wife? I like to think you killed a man. It’s the romantic in me.”
“I came with Captain Renault.”
“I should have known.”
“My husband is with me too.”
“He is? Well, Captain Renault’s getting broad-minded.”
I agree that Curtiz doesn’t seem to have done a lot with the performances. But I would credit him for directing the pace and movement of the movie. He keeps things moving at a quick pace that works for this story.
And I assume you’re aware that the airfield scene was not actually shot outdoors. It was shot inside a soundstage and the “plane” was actually a wooden cut-out, which necessitated the fog to conceal its details.
Dare I say that it gave a great claustrophobic feel to the city of Casablanca? Something about the scenography and the direction reinforced the perception that these characters had nowhere else to go.
Captain Renault: In 1935, you ran guns to Ethiopia. In 1936, you fought in Spain, on the Loyalist side. Rick: I got well paid for it on both occasions. Captain Renault: The winning side would have paid you much better.
Even with all the plot holes and continuity errors, the greatest movie ever made.
And thank Og they never did a sequel - I’m so much happier imagining what may or may not have happened to Rick and Captain Renault after they left the airport.
That’s something that didn’t bother me because I got the impression from the film that Casablanca existed in a kind of legal limbo at the time (though I have since learned otherwise). So some officials at the departing gate may have allowed the letters of transit through but at the same time Germans were consolidating control.
Le Ministre de l’au-delà, that’s a very interesting take on it. Obviously I read it more as a mid-range director working within budget constraints and shooting limitations but confining most of the shots does help that feel.
And because of the use of forced perspective in that shot, the men walking around the plane are little people (or as they would have been called at the time, midgets).
My favorite lines:
Captain Renault: What in heaven’s name brought you to Casablanca?
Rick: My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.
Renault: The waters? What waters? We’re in the desert.
Rick: I was misinformed.
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Mr. Leuchtag: Mareichtag and I are speaking nothing but English now.
Mrs. Leuchtag: So we should feel at home when we get to America.
Carl: Very nice idea, mm-hmm.
Mr. Leuchtag: [toasting] To America!
Mrs. Leuchtag: To America!
Carl: To America!
Mr. Leuchtag: Liebchen - sweetnessheart, what watch?
Mrs. Leuchtag: Ten watch.
Mr. Leuchtag: Such much?
Carl: Hm. You will get along beautiful in America, mm-hmm.
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Captain Renault: Major Strasser has been shot. [significant pause.] Round up the usual suspects.
Because at that point Renault is still loyal to Strasser, and this is his way of alerting Strasser that Laszlo is about to get away. It’s only after Rick shoots Strasser that Renault decides to throw his lot in with Rick, as signified by his throwing the bottle of Vichy water in the trash (i.e., rejecting the puppet Vichy government he had previously served).