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

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 do like conrad vedit that said. but why this film, not 'the spy in black' or whatever. there are lots of films like 'casablanca' really. (like 'pepe le moko', mofo).

CafePress does better turnaround than that, dude.

You know, I'm still gonna say it's a masterpiece of cinema because of how it all blends, the set, the atmosphere, the romance, the tension...

If cinema is entertainment then Casablanca remains one its masterpieces. Sit and beat your meat over Godard all you want.

P.S. Ned, quite possibly. It's about how long it's gonna take me to get it completed. The first one should be out sooner.

-- Ned Raggett (ne...) (webmail), January 5th, 2005 3:11 PM. (link)

Pshh. I'm saying NOWT!

just like the chanel ads with the girl that walks around in golden water! you know those? way superior to casablanca, and well worth seeing.

ps: yum ;)

BZZZZZT!!!!

This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.
WHAT AM I SAYING???
-- mark grout (mark.grou...), January 5th, 2005 6:35 AM. (mark grout)

that you're Calum?

TS: Louie, This Could be the Start of a Beautiful Friendship vs. Sebastian, Would You Please Come Inside?

Notorious wins again.

Sam, if it's December 1941 in
Casablanca, what time is it in New
York?

SAM
Uh, my watch stopped.

RICK
I bet they're asleep in New York.
I'll bet they're asleep all over
America.

then dealing with the emotional residue of bitterness that many Americans felt for Europe following WWI would be an important task.

I think 'Sunrise' is the best B&W film, BTW, though I love 'The Third Man'. Something about 'Citizen Kane' irks me, FWIW. I think I prefer 'The Magnificent Ambersons'.

I recommend Dog Star Man

It is perhaps the ultimate anti-auteur film in that it was really a giant fluke

or in that Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman are very different from Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland

Something about 'Citizen Kane' irks me, FWIW. I think I prefer 'The Magnificent Ambersons'.
OTM. I always thought CK was a little-cold blooded and OW hated his character too much. But the older and more Kane-like I get myself, I now see it as a God-like Fassbinderian statement of: I Love My Character, Therefore I Must Torture Him.

There is a lot of potency to Casablanca, and it was quite obviously a call for America to wake up and go to war - rightly in this case. You can, at the end of the day, analyse films to death (I do it too), but I feel a movie lives or dies - at the end of the day - on how entertaining it is.