Bogart learns to love La Resistance: Casablanca vs To Have And Have Not

btw that second go at THAHN, The Breaking Point w/ John Garfield, Phyllis Thaxter and Patricia Neal, is amazingly good.

When you see a '40s vehicle of Bogart's like Dead Reckoning come up second-rate, you realize how great the great stuff was.

watched CASABLANCA last night for the first time in years. few other films are so easily affecting: ilsa’s first appearance, rick’s drunken reminiscing, that rendition of “la marseillaise”...
fuck nazis!!

As I said in another Casablanca thread, several impressions why it is wonderful, but not exactly perfect:

• 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?

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

Prior to climate change altering things everywhere, Casablanca has slightly higher average rainfall than Southern California does.