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

henry miller otm too.

-- :| (...), January 5th, 2005.

Uhm... regular cheques would appear to say so.

Citizen Kane is a technical tour de force, but I don't get the same emotional hit that from it that I do Casablanca. I always end up with a tear or two at the end of the Curtiz movie, and Bogart's Rick is a more complex character than Welles' Kane. He's a guy broken in half through loss, something that touches virtually everyone and makes for a strong emotional core. The characters in Casablanca are really what makes it a classic. Finding a script, acting or characterisation like that is hard - whether today or whether almost sixty five years ago.

If you want a complex breakdown of Casablanca give me a paid book contract, which would be my third. Ta.

= you are saying you liked the movie, and nothing else. that is not good criticism.

Best colour film? The Godfather 1/2.

X^n post:
And the extremely sympathetic villian/rival played by Claude Rains in Notorious (after all, his mother is the real villian) is a much more interesting character than that goody-two-shoes Victor Laszlo.

Citizen Kane is a technical tour de force, but I don't get the same emotional hit that from it that I do Casablanca. I always end up with a tear or two at the end of the Curtiz movie, and Bogart's Rick is a more complex character than Welles' Kane. He's a guy broken in half through loss, something that touches virtually everyone and makes for a strong emotional core. The characters in Casablanca are really what makes it a classic. Finding a script, acting or characterisation like that is hard - whether today or whether almost sixty five years ago.

if you had time to write that then why you couldn't you have done so at the beginning? this board suffers from yours and others usual 'X is Y cos i say so' route, as does your reputation as a critic. i can't believe you get any satisfaction out of that. be surprised if anyone else does either. just some friendly advice from the amateur critics critic...

I have a love of classic Hollywood too though.

CC, perhaps you would prefer the feel-good remake starring Michael Richards, Citizen Kramer.

Actually my favorite output of those bald Epstein twins are the Hollywood novels of son and nephew Leslie.

P.S. Best avante garde? Any movie with the legend, "directed by Jack Hill".

*made in the 1980s.

A movie that was advertised on our schools' religious notices board, back in 1969...

NB to CC72: csblnca WAS a faceless blockbuster when it came out; it was precisely that. i'm surprised you haven't read the stories of its creation.. it barely got made; other people were going to play the lead roles until the last moments; no one expected it to do more than the other junk the studios cranked out by the bucketload; it was just one of those movies where everything clicked and the years added to people's appreciation of it (its politics have held up, for one thing, as someone mentioned above). so don't get too snotty about "faceless hollywood"!

avant-garde: Of, relating to, or being part of an innovative group, especially one in the arts.

Best film with innovative techniques used then, yes?

Star Wars then, surely?

Jack Hill is a legend. Check out "Switchblade Sisters", "Spider Baby", "Coffy" and "Foxy Brown".

Dario Argento from 1969 to 1987 is a pretty good bet. Mario Bava as well. Dellamorte Dellamore is worth seeing too.

A Boy and His Dog is an apocalyptic classic. I did a thread on that before.

B-cinema is always pretty interesting when done well. William Castle, Tod Browning, Val Lewton...

um

Dario Argento from 1969 to 1987 is a pretty good bet.
why

Mario Bava as well.
why

Dellamorte Dellamore is worth seeing too.
why

B-cinema is always pretty interesting when done well.
give reasons

Really dude, learn to tell Rains from Conrad Veidt. You guys talk about analog recordings the way you do b&w?

"Casablanca" is arguably a great MOVIE -- iconic, beloved, still works its magic (I've likely seen it 11 or 12 times myself) -- but to claim it as some great work of cinema borders on laughable. For all the smart punchy lines the Epstein brothers wrote, there's howlers like "Victor, please don't go to the underground meeting tonight."

It was a happy accident, as described above, and just look at the scenes before Rick's entrance to see what a hoary, jerrybuilt melodrama it might've been.

Isabella Rossellini says her mom often wondered aloud why fans always wanted to talk about "that Bogart picture."

i get a quasi pre-echo of the manchurian candidate from him, like war and torture have hollowed him out and he's just a vessel for a set of ideas that he may not completely understand. the fact that he's a handsome eurosmoothie just makes him seem even more insane and unloveable.

This sounds so convincing that I want to believe it, but, unfortunately, Henreid's performance doesn't carry this weight (as Lawrence Harvey and Sinatra did in TMC). I always found it hard to believe that the audience is supposed to sympathize with Ingrid Bergman for foregoing a life with Reeee-ck for early burial alongside this mummy with a noble cause.

"Production Code requirements," blah blah blah.

I'd have to watch it again but that actually shifted my whole idea of that character about six feet to the left

I always found him a bit unfathomable, and vaguely unlikable.

xps fighting nazis, it's important.

...ha well we're REALLY supposed to believe the guy is the lynchpin in the entire global antifascist effort! still, not many movies sell 'sacrifice' convincingly.

It's enough that Curtiz and Henreid suggest that Lazlo (can one imagine calling him Victor even after knowing him for years?) is fully aware his wife is fooling around.

NOBODY gets what they WANT in the movie but the AUDIENCE gets to be FREE do you SEE

nice, brief analysis of play-to-script here:

http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2013/02/understanding-screenwriting-105-django-unchained-amour-banjo-on-my-knee-and-more/

The 1980 Charles Bronson/J. Lee Thompson remake Caboblanco is coming to blu. ILX only mentions it once, and only then because of a copy/paste of Jerry Goldsmith's IMDb resume. Anyone seen it? Bad, or hilari-bad?

@OscopeLabs
CASABLANCA, one of the greatest films of all time, came out 75 years ago today. What's your favorite quote?

@labuzamovies
"Sam, play that song about the guy and his sled, Rosebud!"

(btw gen release was actually 74y ago)

I haven't called it a criminally overrated hill of crap beans itt yet, so here goes

but everybody's having such a good time

imago, why do you hate fun?

(btw, I stand by my initial post itt.)

Orson Welles loved it -- sort of!

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/01/31/reluctant-enthusiast-orson-welles-casablanca/

It's a good film and all, but Casablanca wouldn't even make my Top 100 for B&W movies.

Funnily enough, I watched it on Monday for the first time in years. Not my favorite Bergman performance. I was struck this time by the ease with which Curtiz shoots the scene b/w Ilsa and Sam: it's rare to see a period film in which a beloved white woman talks casually to a black man. Also, Rick includes Sam in the champagne toast, even pours him a glass.

A couple of Curtiz films around '50 are similarly generous to characters played by the Afro-Puerto Rican actor Juano Hernandez: The Breaking Point and Young Man with a Horn.

Claude Rains's last-minute transformation from opportunistic jerk to hero is such a classic bit of old-school acting and charisma

sweetnessheart, what watch?

ten watch.

such much?

Huh, always thought it was "such watch?"

that's how i recall it

Rains drops
such watch

I believe it's such much watch

Super Borges just made an appearance on another thread.