# SDMB Film Club: Casablanca (spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 18, 2009, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-film-club-casablanca-spoilers/503449 "2009-07-18T16:19:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2009, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-film-club-casablanca-spoilers/503449/1 "2009-07-18T16:19:31Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Not\_A\_Tame\_Lion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e36b37/32.png) [@Not\_A\_Tame\_Lion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Not_A_Tame_Lion)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2009, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-film-club-casablanca-spoilers/503449/2 "2009-07-18T17:32:01Z")
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.’ ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2009, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-film-club-casablanca-spoilers/503449/3 "2009-07-18T19:53:09Z")
According to Wiki: > [@](#): > > Another well-known story is that the actors did not know until the last day of shooting how the film was to end. The original play (set entirely in the cafe) ended with Rick sending Ilsa and Victor to the airport. During scriptwriting, the possibility was discussed of Laszlo being killed in Casablanca, allowing Rick and Ilsa to leave together, but as Casey Robinson wrote to Hal Wallis before filming began, the ending of the film “set up for a swell twist when Rick sends her away on the plane with Victor. For now, in doing so, he is not just solving a love triangle. He is forcing the girl to live up to the idealism of her nature, forcing her to carry on with the work that in these days is far more important than the love of two little people.”[85] It was certainly impossible for Ilsa to leave Laszlo for Rick, as the production code forbade showing a woman leaving her husband for another man. Such dispute as there was concerned not whether Ilsa would leave with Laszlo, but how this result could be engineered.[86] The confusion was most probably caused by Bergman’s later statement that she did not know which man she was meant to be in love with. While rewrites did occur during the filming, Aljean Harmetz’s examination of the scripts has shown that many of the key scenes were shot after Bergman knew how the film would end: any confusion was, in Ebert’s words, “emotional”, not “factual”. So it appears the ending was from the original play. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ad7895/32.png) [@Just\_Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2009, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-film-club-casablanca-spoilers/503449/4 "2009-07-18T21:51:37Z")
> [@Not\_A\_Tame\_Lion](#): > > 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? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-film-club-casablanca-spoilers/503449/5 "2009-07-19T00:10:43Z")
Some of the best humorous lines: “We’ll be there at six!” “I’ll be there at ten.” “Are my eyes really brown?” “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.” ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-film-club-casablanca-spoilers/503449/6 "2009-07-19T00:14:49Z")
> [@](#): > > 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. 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. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/le_ministre_de_l_au-dela/32/12181_2.png) [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-film-club-casablanca-spoilers/503449/7 "2009-07-19T00:27:43Z")
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. An all-time great film. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-film-club-casablanca-spoilers/503449/8 "2009-07-19T00:37:54Z")
_ **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. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-film-club-casablanca-spoilers/503449/9 "2009-07-19T00:41:45Z")
plot holes? You mean the letters of transit? Makes no sense at all, last time I looked. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/le_ministre_de_l_au-dela/32/12181_2.png) [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-film-club-casablanca-spoilers/503449/10 "2009-07-19T00:45:38Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-film-club-casablanca-spoilers/503449/11 "2009-07-19T02:21:32Z")
“I remember everything about that day. You wore blue. The Germans wore gray.” Now that’s romantic dialog from a real man! ---
**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:** [July 19, 2009, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-film-club-casablanca-spoilers/503449/12 "2009-07-19T02:37:05Z")
The humorous line that has taken on a life of its own: “I’m shocked . . . shocked to discover that gambling is going on here.” ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ad7895/32.png) [@Just\_Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-film-club-casablanca-spoilers/503449/13 "2009-07-19T02:45:58Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > plot holes? You mean the letters of transit? Makes no sense at all, last time I looked. 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. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-film-club-casablanca-spoilers/503449/14 "2009-07-19T02:48:10Z")
“What is your nationality?” “I’m a drunkard.” ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-film-club-casablanca-spoilers/503449/15 "2009-07-19T03:08:48Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > 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. And because of the use of [forced perspective](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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. ===== 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. ===== Captain Renault: Major Strasser has been shot. [significant pause.] Round up the usual suspects. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-film-club-casablanca-spoilers/503449/16 "2009-07-19T03:09:47Z")
“Of all the gin joints in all the world, why did she have to walk into mine?” ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-film-club-casablanca-spoilers/503449/17 "2009-07-19T03:38:37Z")
Isn’t it Strasser who asks why Rick came to Casablanca? ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-film-club-casablanca-spoilers/503449/18 "2009-07-19T03:43:53Z")
> [@Rocketeer](#): > > Isn’t it Strasser who asks why Rick came to Casablanca? Not in that scene. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-film-club-casablanca-spoilers/503449/19 "2009-07-19T03:48:53Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > plot holes? You mean the letters of transit? Makes no sense at all, last time I looked. Bigger plot hole: why does when Bogart tell Rains to call the airport, he calls Major Strasser? Logically, it makes no sense… “We’ll always have Paris.” Not a funny line, but one of the most romantic. \ ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-film-club-casablanca-spoilers/503449/20 "2009-07-19T04:09:49Z")
> [@eleanorigby](#): > > Bigger plot hole: why does when Bogart tell Rains to call the airport, he calls Major Strasser? Logically, it makes no sense… 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). It’s not a plot hole at all. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-film-club-casablanca-spoilers/503449.md?page=2)