Casablanca (The "Greatest" Films of All Time)

HOW “GREAT” IS IT?

AFI Top 100: #2

IMDb Top 250: #17

AFI 100 Years… 100 Passions: #1

AFI 100 Years… 100 Movie Quotes: #5, 20, 28, 32, 43, 67

The Writers Guild of America, West’s Top 100 screenplays: #1

“The best Hollywood movie of all time.” – Leonard Maltin

“Seeing the film over and over again, year after year, I find it never grows over-familiar. It plays like a favorite musical album; the more I know it, the more I like it.” – Roger Ebert

“Yes, indeed, the Warners here have a picture which makes the spine tingle and the heart take a leap.” – Bosley Crowther, The New York Times, 1942

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Last summer, as I was sitting on the couch in my parents’ house watching television, I came across the classic film The Sound of Music on ABC Family. Did I watch it? Heck yes. I watched the crap out of it. Slowly the rest of the family gathered around to observe the epic adventure of the von Trapp family and their eventual musical escape from Nazi rule. As the final scenes played out—and the final scene played out to the soaring tune of “Climb Ev’ry Mountain”—my aunt made a comment which somehow stuck with me. When it was over, she made the proclamation that The Sound of Music came from an era “when a movie was a movie.”

I gave this offhand comment far more thought than I probably should have, but when I finally got around to watching Casablanca it was one of the first things that came to mind. Casablanca doesn’t have one-fourth the scope of The Sound of Music, but it comes from the same artistic place. Until recently, films were not meant to disturb us or haunt us. They were meant to be exceptionally satisfying entertainment, and little more than that. Proper taste—and the Hays code—prohibited movies from entering very complex territory. I do not mean this to be a knock on Casablanca and The Sound of Music. Both films are justifiably seen as classics, and in a way they remain such compelling watches because they come from an entirely different era. Neither of these films could likely be made today. No one would green-light a three-hour family musical, and Casablanca would likely be dismissed as far too schmaltzy.

Casablanca is a miraculous film for one reason: it wasn’t intended to be anything special. If you think the film industry is too much of a factory today, you should take a look at the studio system of early Hollywood. The studios didn’t just make occasional tent pole movies; they made enough poles to build several tents per month. Also, the film was released right in the midst of World War II, and film at that point was supposed to be little more than patriotic propaganda. There are plenty of these old-fashioned elements to be found in Casablanca, and it is clearly the work of a system more than an artist, so why are we still talking about it in a year that begins with a “2”? This was a film made to be consumed and then thrown away, yet we have framed it and placed it on top of the stack of cinema’s greatest accomplishments.

This is for one reason: it has become the film which defines its own studio-centric era. In an age where films were constructed like math problems, Casablanca represents what can happen when just the right elements are added together. It starts with the movie’s stars, and in the case of this film they have two names which ooze old Hollywood class: Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. This pairing isn’t just another film couple; they have become the most famous film couple of all time. Keep in mind; this was accomplished in an age where onscreen romances had to remain incredibly chaste. Most of the love-making in Casablanca happens solely in the eyes. Today you can’t turn on the television without seeing some young couple hopping into bed, and the innocence of Casablanca only adds to its modern fascination.

This can all lead to a rather jarring viewing experience for a young’un like me. Strangely, Casablanca can require a bit more effort to get into than other films I’ve written on for this feature. Where Citizen Kane (released even a couple years earlier) has a distinctly modern feel, Casablanca seems downright ancient by comparison. Again, that’s not to say it’s bad. It’s just the result of the era in which it was made. Plus, anyone like me who’s read at least a sentence about film history is likely to know the film’s eventual emotional payoff before we sit down to experience it. Yet, so long as you engage with it, the story is compelling all the same.

Yet I believe that it is the film’s writing which has rendered it immortal. You can’t swing a dead cat in Casablanca without hitting a line of dialogue which has lived on forever. Most movies would be lucky to have one quote in AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Movie Quotes list. Casablanca has freaking six. They are the following:

67: “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” 

43: “We’ll always have Paris.”

 32: “Round up the usual suspects.” 

28: “Play it, Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By.’” (Frequently misquoted as “Play it again, Sam.”) 

20: “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” 

5: “Here’s looking at you, kid.”

These are not just lines. This is dialogue that is recited everyday by people who have both seen Casablanca and those who have not seen Casablanca. That doesn’t even count the great lines found within that don’t make the list, as this is the rare older film that has a wit which holds up today. Where jokes in other films can sometimes elicit a groan from jaded punks like me, Casablanca surprised me by actually making me laugh when it was intended and not just when it wasn’t.

You’ll notice I have barely—if at all—directly addressed this film’s content. This is one of those films where a plot summary would seem exceptionally pointless. Casablanca is not a film about what happens within it so much as it’s about its own existence. It is—like several other films which have been/will be covered in this feature—no longer just a movie. It has escaped from the confines of its own medium and become something infinitely bigger than itself. The aforementioned quotes only further prove this. You don’t need to have actually seen Casablanca to know everything there is to know about Casablanca.

Of the older films I’ll write on for this “project,” this might be an example of one younger viewers may choose to dismiss. It’s a shame, but it’s the way it is. It is impossible—and pointless—to compare and contrast the quality of this film with the movies being made today. It’s become more of a textbook on film history than a movie itself. If you want a great example of what old movies could do really, really well, you need not look any further. As a wise woman once said, it’s from when a movie was a movie. Movies were just entirely different things back then.