This is a thread about CASABLANCA because it is utterly awesome and the best black and white film ever.

To each his own then...

- Fabulous photography!!! Moody, striking, atmospheric, dramatic - the whole ball of wax.

- The plot is total cornball, but the pacing and dialogue are so crisp that you never have time to dwell on the silliness of it all. Each vignette is a perfect little bon-bon of entertainment. No waste. No chewing necessary.

- Claude Rains was having a ball and so were the scriptwriters for him. Every line he spoke was a gem. Probably a commentary on Hollywood studios in there.

- Not a good scenery-chewing Nazi to be found anywhere, just the ho-hum cardboard kind.

- It is very rainy and foggy in Morrocco. Who knew?

"Ninochka"
"Andrei Rubylev"
"Broken Blossoms"
"Pandora's Box"
"Orphans of the Storm"
that film w/Dirk Bogarde where he's a homosexual doctor who gets blackmailed (heh, sorry, bad memory)
"Sabrina"
"Valley of Song"
"Kind Hearts and Coronets"
"Passport to Piml1co"
"Night of the Demon"

That's eleven, but never mind, and I'm not even getting into Ford or Kurosawa films, either.

So obviously, I don't think it's the best black & white film ever, though I do like it quite a lot.

I don't really give a shit about what "name" critics think, and am curious as to why you keep bolstering your arguments by bringing these people's opinions in, c*l*m.

Regarding films as "quotable" is a bit james brown-edited magazine-ist for me, but I suppose if I were no think of the most quotable film, it would be "Scarface"

http://www.thehollywoodnews.com/images3/edisonposter.jpg

That's eleven, but never mind
Why does anyone like 'Sabrina'?
I was gonna say, there's an obvious one to remove if you want an even ten.

Trouble in Paradise
Search! - Any movie involving Edward Everett Horton and gondolas.

(xpost - please tell me that movie is real)

I sincerely hope that's next. I nominate the five of the seven Sternberg-Dietrich collabs I've seen.

No. What's it called?

Vampyr
The Philadelphia Story
M
The Big Sleep
L'Age d'Or
The Man Who Knew Too Much
A Canterbury Tale
Throne of Blood
Peter Ibbetson
Alphaville

I like the implication in the title that Black & White films are somehow inferior to their Colour cousins. That's LadCrit for you.

tracer, wanna read an AMAZING book on the making of a movie? devil's candy by julie salomom on the making of bonfire of the vanities. just finished it last night. soooooo good.

xpost

my old college roommate once told me "yeah, i saw 'citizen kane' and i liked it. it seemed really cool, not like those other black and white movies at all." i still don't know whether to be touched or appalled.

through a glass darkly
tokyo story
ordet
battleship potemkin
vivre sa vie
shadows
cleo from 5 to 7
ikiru
city lights
earth

casablanca has a great screenplay, but it is just your typical hollywood film of the time. it is not ground-breaking, it is not amazing.

how many hollywood films of the time have ingrid bergman and humphrey bogart?!?!?!?!?!

The Marseillaise scene always gets me too.

Somebody wrote a volume of short stories 10-15 years ago about the fates of Great Movie Characters after the films ended. Never read it, but reviews said his "Casablanca" sequel had Rick and Renault becoming lovers, and Ilsa dying in the plane crash with Dag Hammarskjold...