Casablanca: 1942, Directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, et al. Won the Best Picture Oscar, 1943.
The Hype: In 1998, The American Film Institute celebrated a century of movie-making by asking members of the film industry to vote on the 100 Greatest Films of all time.
Casablanca ranked No. 2, right behind Citizen Kane. When the AFI tried again in 2007, Casablanca slipped to No. 3, ceding the coveted No. 2 slot to The Godfather, which set up a New Year's Battle in the BCS National Championship Game between Citizen Kane and Don Corleone.
For reasons that escape me, lots of people can't get enough of this tawdry soap opera. Harry Reasoner's last bit before retiring from 60 Minutes was his staking a claim that Casablanca was the greatest movie of all time.
The misquoted song request to Sam, the piano player:
The ending (Spoiler Alert to people new to the planet):
The reluctant acknowledgement: I recall years ago reading that the Stupid Movie Critic review of Casablanca would be: "Just a bunch of people standin' around doin' a lot of talkin'."
I remember that line because that's the impression I had of the movie when I was 19 or 20. I've caught bits and pieces of it over the years but 25 years later I caught it in its entirety on CBC's Saturday Night at the Movies.
The "Marc Horton"-style review (minus the extensive plot synopsis): The characters have no depth whatsoever; I wasn't invested in any of them other than the leads were movie stars. There's nothing remarkable about the cinematography and the tacked-on war footage is cheesy. For all the quotable lines, the dialogue feels forced and the story plays like it was cobbled together at a writer's retreat sponsored by the War Department. It's not very interesting as a political/war drama and it's not compelling as a romance (maybe to old ladies).
The reprieve: In a career that spanned dozens of films over 30 years, director Michael Curtiz directed Captain Blood, The Charge of the Light Brigade, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, The Sea Hawk, Santa Fe Trail, and Yankee Doodle Dandy, all of which are eminently more watchable.
The Politically Incorrect Movie Review: It's a bunch of people standin' around doin' a lot of talkin'.
8 years ago
6 comments:
The website imdb.com has a trivia page for almost all films, and the one for Casablanca has plenty of interesting items. Here's a couple that support the premise that Casablanca is hopelessly overrated:
"In the 1980s, this film's script was sent to readers at a number of major studios and production companies under its original title, "Everybody Comes To Rick's". Some readers recognized the script but most did not. Many complained that the script was "not good enough" to make a decent movie. Others gave such complaints as "too dated", "too much dialog" and "not enough sex"."
It wouldn't be hard to say that reading through the voluminous imdb.com trivia page for Casablanca (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034583/trivia) — how does one get hyperlinks in comments?? — is far more interesting than the movie itself.
Go to this page and scroll down to "Here's an Example Scenario"
Thanks for that link. If you click here you'll get to the Internet Movie Database page for Casablanca.
Once you get there, you can read the User Comments. Often, the review used is the most glowing, kiss-ass assessment of the film, followed by the message board comments. The first one on that list — "Boring."
In that first response to the main review, the guy uses "boring" twice in a two-line review. In the first response to that guy, the writer uses "obvious" twice in a five-word rejoinder.
Shakespeare goes to all that trouble inventing all those words, and these guys run out of material without once hitting the Return key.
I always thought a number of sequels would be good here...Rick and the prefect would star in a bunch of "road to" movies and Ilsa and Rick's child would be appointed a senator from Illinois.
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