Line #68 YMMV/Casablanca


1	* ActorShipping: Creator/HumphreyBogart's then-wife Mayo Methot continually accused him of having an affair with Creator/IngridBergman, often confronting him in his dressing room before a shot. Bogart would come onto the set in a rage. In fact, despite the undeniable on-screen chemistry between Bogart and Bergman, they hardly spoke, and the only time they bonded was when the two had lunch with Geraldine Fitzgerald. According to Fitzgerald, "the whole subject at lunch was how they could get out of that movie. They thought the dialogue was ridiculous and the situations were unbelievable... I knew Bogart very well, and I think he wanted to join forces with Bergman, to make sure they both said the same things." For whatever reasons, Bogart and Bergman rarely spoke after that.
2	* AdaptationDisplacement: Sort of. ''Film/{{Casablanca}}'' was adapted from a stage play called ''Everybody Comes to Rick's'', which took place entirely in the cafe and ended with Rick and Ilsa running away together, though few people know this. They could be forgiven for not knowing, however, as the play was never actually produced in its original form. (The script was published, though, and in 1991 the play was staged in a revised version, titled ''Rick's Bar Casablanca'', which included elements derived from the film.)
3	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: The movie has a lot of ambiguities, and thus has a ''lot'' of this trope.
4	** Ilsa. The classic interpretation is that Ilsa is truly helpless to her feelings for Rick, and his words to Victor are a noble gesture to put his romantic rival's mind at ease and make sure they'll be happy together. However, Ilsa tries everything from reason to begging to threatening Rick with death in order to get those papers for Victor before she kisses him and finally melts his reserve. And remember, this woman has been sticking with Victor through some truly hairy situations, the willing and loyal accomplice to the most wanted spy in Nazi-occupied territories. Whatever feelings she may still have for Rick, it's no stretch to imagine that she's faking that helpless damsel act, and willing to stay with Rick if that's her only means of getting her husband to safety once and for all. More evidence: Ferrari offers them one letter of transit, and she never says, "Honey, you're the one they're after; take this one and get out to continue your work." She doesn't float the idea of staying behind until she's tried everything else she can think of. Also, she hears a singer with a familiar voice, is told that his name is Sam and that he came there from Paris with Rick, and she's still asking who Rick is. Doesn't exactly sound like she's been pining for him, although he stipulates that the one letter of transit would only work for Ilsa. Basically Ilsa's got two totally awesome guys wrapped around her little finger here and would be perfectly happy to stay with either one if only she can be sure the other will be safe.
5	** Many viewers and even some critics are unsure about Captain Renault's sexuality. The movie even drops a few hints that he's into men. Is he pretending to obsess over women because he's a closeted homosexual? Is he simply a bisexual who's only open about what he does with women because it's the 1940s? Or is he just [[EuropeansAreKinky French]]? And then, at the end of the film, Renault and Rick walk off into the fog together, [[HoYay talking about their new and beautiful friendship]]. Some viewers think his hanging around Rick all the time and Rick's comment when Renault brings his latest victim ''and'' her husband suggests his sights are wider than first thought, and that Rick knows it.
6	--->'''Rick''': Renault's getting broad-minded.
7	** Ugarte. A sociopath who killed, stole and sold illegal visas for personal gain, who Rick genuinely couldn't care less about? Or a genuine friend of Rick's, just trying to get by, who had some understandable reasons not to feel bad about killing Nazis, who Rick is secretly sorry he lost? Not surprisingly, Creator/PeterLorre fans tend to gravitate towards the latter. And the NoodleIncident that leads to the couriers being murdered. Did Ugarte kill them for the letters? For some other reason? Or did he just pick over their bodies after someone else killed them? The beginning mentions that the suspected killer and accomplices have fled to Casablanca, and Ugarte might have been an accomplice and not the killer.
8	** After Ugarte's arrest, Renault says he died in custody and they're not yet sure if he committed suicide or was killed trying to escape. The standard interpretation is that Ugarte's captors murdered him and still haven't come up with a cover story, but another possibility is that he was killed while attacking a guard, leaving it unclear if it was an escape attempt or him committing SuicideByCop.
9	** The ethnicities of the refugees are left ambiguous. Some reviews complain about the lack of Jewish characters in a movie about Holocaust refugees, while others simply assume that Jan and Annina Brandel are Jews. Some think of Ugarte as Jewish because his actor was. Karl is German and is working against the Nazis so many fans of the movie believe him to be Jewish. Karl's German friends who have just gotten visas could be Jewish as well. Fanfic writers have fun getting creative with {{Original Character}}s and minor canon characters' backstories for being in Casablanca. Of course it's also important to remember [[DatedHistory at the time of the film's release, the Holocaust was not widely known]] and at any rate, the ''[[FinalSolution Endlösung]]'' proper had only just commenced a few months earlier. What reports were trickling out from Nazi-occupied Europe were not given enough credence due to heavily exaggerated atrocity stories about the Germans circulated during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI making media gatekeepers wonder if this was another case of CryingWolf. It's also important to remember that while the horrors of Holocaust were still almost unknown, the crude anti-Semitism of Nazis as well as massive Jewish emigration from Germany had been no secret since long before the start of WWII, so the concept of Jews fleeing German-occupied Europe (if from persecution rather than extermination) was perfectly natural for the film-makers and audiences alike. They could also be any of the many other groups the Nazis targeted. Slavs, Romani, the disabled, Communists...
10	* AndYouThoughtItWouldFail: Fail is putting it too strongly, but a big part of the movie's legend is how ''no one'' working on it thought they were making anything special and saw it as simply one more product of the studio grind. They were caught quite off guard by its gaining the reputation of one of the greatest movies in history.
11	* AwardSnub: Considering the movie did win UsefulNotes/{{Academy Award}}s for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay, it's not a major complaint. But Creator/HumphreyBogart - giving perhaps one of the most iconic performances ''in the history of the medium'' as Rick Blaine - lost out Best Actor to Paul Lukas for ''Film/WatchOnTheRhine'', Creator/ClaudeRains lost Best Supporting Actor to Charles Coburn for ''Film/TheMoreTheMerrier'', and Creator/IngridBergman wasn't even nominated for Best Actress (instead being cited for her work in ''Film/ForWhomTheBellTolls'').
12	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: At least twice.
13	** When Victor Laszlo leads the crowd in Rick's in ''La Marseillaise'' to drown out the Nazis' "''Die Wacht am Rhein''". Doubles as a SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome for Victor.
14	** Start humming it people. "You must remember this / A kiss is still a kiss / A sigh is just a sigh..."
15	* BeamMeUpScotty:
16	** One of the most famous examples in cinema history. Rick never says "Play it again, Sam." The closest he comes is in the DrowningMySorrows scene, where he cajoles Sam into playing the song for him.
17	--->'''Rick:''' You played it for her, you can play it for me!\
18	'''Sam:''' Well, I don't think I can remember...\
19	'''Rick:''' If she can stand it, I can! Play it!
20	** You'll hear people imitating Bogie say "What's a nice kid like you doing in a place like this?", supposedly what Rick said to Annina. This is actually the title of a 1963 experimental short by Creator/MartinScorsese. Bogie's line was "How'd you get in here? You're underage." (Annina was probably 18, as her actress Joy Page was, so Rick's must have a 21+ age limit.)
21	* DirectorDisplacement: Creator/MichaelCurtiz won the UsefulNotes/AcademyAward for Best Director, but that's about all the acclaim he's ever gotten for this movie. Film historians and critics usually credit the producer, Hal B. Wallis, and the various writers (Julius and Philip Epstein, Howard Koch, and the uncredited Casey Robinson) for the creative direction of the film. At times Curtiz has been called a "journeyman hack" or a "hired gun". The fiasco of one of his earlier movies, "Noah's Ark" (during which three extras were killed due directly to Curtiz's irresponsibility), no doubt also contributes to critics' reluctance to tie him to "the Greatest Movie Ever Made." His overall career was a success, however: He directed 173 films, starting in 1912, and didn't miss a year until his death in the early 1960s. Many are unremarkable, but there are at least a dozen that are still well-regarded.
22	* DracoInLeatherPants: Captain Renault, who extorts sex from desperate woman, even married women -- a LeonineContract of consent, at best -- but is both very charming and has the card-carrying Nazi Major Strausser pushing him around to make him more sympathetic.
23	* EnsembleDarkHorse:
24	** With so many famous actors all over the cast, this is likely inevitable. (For instance, Creator/PeterLorre fans will easily say their favorite character is Ugarte, despite his appearing in only two scenes.)
25	** This also follows for Creator/SydneyGreenstreet who portrayed Signor Ferrari. His character had a larger role than Ugarte, but still a minor role in general.
26	** Sam, for playing an iconic number, and being a close and loyal friend to Rick.
27	** Yvonne is well-remembered for her role in ''La Marseillaise'' where she sang in pride with genuine tears in her eyes. Her actress being the last surviving member of the cast certainly helps.
28	** For a character with more screen time, Captain Renault is well-liked for having a redemption arc similar to Rick's, and shows signs that cared about Rick even before hand.
29	* EvilIsCool: Major Heinrich Strasser isn't just your average Nazi who barks orders at his servants, he's actually a very [[AffablyEvil interesting character]] with as much depth as the other characters.
30	* FairForItsDay: As wince-worthy as Ilsa calling Sam "boy" is, otherwise he's treated with respect by all of the other characters; of course, he is Rick's confidante, business partner, and the only one able to call Rick out on anything without getting snarked into oblivion.
31	* FanNickname: In Japan and as a result of having Creator/ShuichiIkeda (Rick), Creator/KeikoHan (Ilsa) and Creator/ToruFuruya (Victor Laszlo), the voice actors who voice the leads Char Aznable, Lalah Sune and Amuro Ray respectively in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'', the 2021 Japanese dub was already nicknamed as ''Casablanca Gundam'' by Japanese fans.
32	* FridgeBrilliance: See [[Fridge/{{Casablanca}} here]].
33	* GeniusBonus: Bogart's eyes ''are'' brown - not that viewers could tell that, since Bogart had appeared only in black and white films until that point.
34	* HarsherInHindsight:
35	** "[[{{Irony}} I bet they're asleep all over America.]]" From the date on the marker Rick signs at the very beginning, the movie runs from December 2 to December 5, and given that all goes well, Victor will arrive in the US on [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII December 7, 1941]], just in time for America to "wake up".
36	** Victor's defiant line "Even Nazis can't kill that fast." This was written before the general public knew of the millions of Jews in Nazi concentration camps being killed at an unprecedented speed via methods like gas chambers.
37	** Creator/PeterLorre's Ugarte screaming for Rick to "Hide me!" as he is about to be apprehended (and killed) by the Nazis. Lorre was a Jewish actor born in Austria, who worked in Germany until the Nazis came to power. He ended up departing for France and later to America.
38	** Marcel Dalio plays the roulette table minder. His most famous role outside of ''Casablanca'' was as a Jewish businessman drafted in the French army in World War I in Film/TheGrandIllusion and shortly before his exile from France, as an ineffectual French noble in ''Film/TheRulesOfTheGame.'' Combined with the repeated hints that most of Rick's staff have fallen very far from their formal social station, it can be a little discomforting.[[note]]Dalio's family history makes it worse. During his exile to America, his mother and sisters were deported to Auschwitz, when he found out about it after the war, he felt lifelong SurvivorsGuilt about it[[/note]]
39	** Although the war ended with both France and Norway liberated from the Nazis, Victor Laszlo's homeland of Czechoslovakia sadly traded [[ThoseWackyNazis one occupying power]] for [[CommieLand another]] - trapped on the wrong side of the [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar Iron Curtain]] until the VelvetRevolution of 1989, an event Laszlo might not even live to see (although the actor who played him, Paul Henreid, lived until 1992). What's even more tragic is that Czechoslovakia ''did'' attempt to break free of the Communist yoke in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Spring Prague Spring]] of 1968, only for the Warsaw Pact to brutally put it down without any reprisals from the West, essentially the anti-World War II in that regard (although it ''was'' instrumental in finally turning most Western Communist parties against the totalitarian Soviet Union once and for all).
40	* HilariousInHindsight:
41	** Rick's advice to Major Strasser: "There are parts of New York I'd advise you not to try and invade." In two episodes of ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'', the Nazis ''do'' invade New York, and [[LaResistance the resistance]] is mostly made up of all the gangs and mobsters banding together.
42	** This might also have been an in-joke on Warner Brothers' part--the previous year, Bogart had been playing a New York gangster fighting a group of Nazis led by Veidt in ''Film/AllThroughTheNight.''
43	** The famous line "play it Sam" has often been misquoted as "play it ''again'', Sam". In fact, when Ilsa asks Sam to play "As Time Goes By", she says to only play it once.
44	** At the same time this was in production, Paul Henreid was in another film involving an adulterous LoveTriangle - ''Film/NowVoyager''. This time, he's the one committing adultery and ends up staying with his wife to make for a BittersweetEnding (the famous lines affirming this are also quite similar - "We'll always have Paris" and "Don't let's ask for the moon; we have the stars"). And Claude Rains stars in both!
45	* HoYay:
46	** Louis is often interpreted as AmbiguouslyGay, despite his habit of pulling the ScarpiaUltimatum on women. Even Creator/RogerEbert called him "subtly homosexual" in his review of the film - apparently he [[NoBisexuals has never heard of bisexuals]] and it doesn't occur to him Renault might just be InTouchWithHisFeminineSide.
47	** Ebert would later amend his view slightly, stating in his 2007 review of ''Film/TheAssassinationOfJesseJamesByTheCowardRobertFord'' that he thinks Renault "plays for both teams".
48	** Just about every male character in the movie has at least one HoYay moment with Rick.
49	--->'''Renault''': Rick is the kind of man that... well, if I were a woman, and [[ScrewYourself I were not around]], [[EvenTheGuysWantHim I should be in love with Rick]].
50	** Honorable Mention must also go to Ugarte, who really loves to invade Rick's personal space. Of course, this is just part of Creator/PeterLorre's trademark style of acting. Ugarte may not come across as exactly "gay" or "bisexual" so much as simply an eccentric who will half-consciously make love to anything that gets too close. (His cigarette got the most action.) Although...
51	--->'''Rick:''': First they grab Ugarte then she walks in. One in, one out...
52	*** ...almost seems to imply Rick had the same kind of relationship with Ugarte that he had with Ilsa.
53	** Strasser seems to be checking Renault out several times during the movie. Right after their conversation about bumbling Americans and Germans, Strasser says "As for Laszlo, we want him watched 24 hours a day" and ''blatantly'' eyes Renault's crotch and licks his lips before taking a puff off his cigarette. Hard to say whether that's Strasser checking Renault out or Veidt checking Rains out, though. Conrad Veidt's bisexuality was an {{open secret}}, one reason he was on the Nazi shit-list (the other being that his wife was Jewish, and he defiantly listed himself as Jewish as well).
54	* HomegrownHero: It's set in the titular Moroccan city during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, where refugees from all of Europe gather to escape ThoseWackyNazis - and the main character is the American expatriate who runs the local nightclub.
55	* ItWasHisSled: The plane scene and "We'll always have Paris" is ''very'' obvious. It was even the iconic scene shown at Disney's Hollywood Studios' Ride/TheGreatMovieRide.
56	* MagnificentBastard: [[AntiHero Rick Blaine]] is a [[TheCynic cynical]], smooth operator of a saloon, using the guise of a mere bar to mask the massive amounts of illegal gambling he oversees. Bribing local police and facing down Nazi majors with wit and laid-back suaveness, Rick expertly hides valuable Letters of Transit from even a probing ransacking of his saloon while [[BenevolentBoss treating his employees so well that rival businessmen can't buy them off]]. After bitterly threatening to let his old flame, Ilsa, and her husband be arrested by the Nazis due to her abandoning Rick years ago, Rick ultimately accepts his still raging feelings for Ilsa and uses his passion to propel him into a scheme in which he sells off his saloon while securing the futures of his employees, manipulates Captain Renault into a trap, and murders the Nazi Major Strausser. Rick then [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy ensures that Ilsa and her revolutionary husband are spirited away safely to America]], imparting powerful and timeless words to Ilsa before escaping the Third Reich with a spring in his step and the start of a "beautiful friendship" with a befriended Renault.
57	* MemeticMutation: A good chunk of lines from the film have become considerably memorable. Notable is "Play it again, Sam", but they don't say these words [[BeamMeUpScotty exactly]].
58	** "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
59	** "I am shocked, SHOCKED to find that (insert not-so-shocking event)."
60	*** Followed by casual revelation of one's [[HypocriticalHumor participation in said event]].
61	** "Round up the usual suspects"... which inspired ''Film/TheUsualSuspects''.
62	** "Here's looking at you, kid."
63	** "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."
64	** "Vultures, vultures everywhere!" (spoken by one of the vultures)
65	** "The lives of two people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." Hell, pretty much that entire monologue.
66	* OnceOriginalNowCommon: There's a contingent of movie fans and critics - viewing the plot as contrived and the production values rather common - who cannot comprehend the sheer ''love'' people have for this film when it comes to the performances and witty banter. Granted, a lot of romantic thrillers post-''Casablanca'' [[FollowTheLeader tried to repeat the same script]] but could never recapture the spark of this film.
67	* OneSceneWonder:
68	** Creator/PeterLorre as Ugarte (also something of a DeadStarWalking).
69	** Sydney Greenstreet as Ferrari.
70	** Plenty of customers trying to get out of Casablanca from the first scene at Ricks who have conversations indicating tension filled adventures of their own.
71	* SacredCow: Widely considered among the greatest and most iconic works of the Film Canon, Casablanca is one of those silver screen classics from an unattainable, long-gone era where the mere notion of a possible remake is considered disgusting.
72	* TestosteroneBrigade: There are some who just watch the movie to drool over classic screen beauty Ingrid Bergman at the height of her stardom.
73	* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: The public's consensus regarding the [[GeorgeLucasAlteredVersion 1980s colorized version]].
74	-->'''Stephen Bogart (Humphrey's son)''': ...if you're going to colorize ''Casablanca'', why not put arms on the Art/VenusDeMilo?
75	* UnintentionalPeriodPiece:
76	** The film actually got knocked for this upon release by ''Magazine/TheNewYorker'', which grumbled about how focusing heavily on the Axis occupation of Morocco [[ItWillNeverCatchOn would quickly date the film]] when Morocco was liberated only a few ''weeks'' before the film's initial run in Hollywood. This ignores the fact that the movie was already a slight intentional period piece, being set in 1941 despite its 1942 release date. This was because the plot doesn't work unless the U.S. is still neutral.
77	** While UsefulNotes/WorldWarII continues to be a popular setting for movies, ''Casablanca'' assumes you have a greater awareness of the intricacies of the time period than most people have today. For example, the movie simply assumes that you're familiar with the UsefulNotes/SpanishCivilWar, which is quite a bit more obscure now than it was in 1942. The distinction between occupied and unoccupied France is not often remembered nowadays because it was, to be fair, mostly a legal fiction, but the movie just assumes that you're already familiar with it, and it's a major plot point as well.[[note]]At the time, "unoccupied France" meant Vichy France, which was nominally independent of Germany. The reason Major Strasser can't just arrest Lazlo in Casablanca is that it would undermine the legal fiction of Vichy France totally not being a German puppet.[[/note]] On another note, the way the characters talk about "concentration camps" seems rather callous if you don't take into account that the film was made before the full reality of UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust was exposed.
78	* ValuesDissonance:
79	** In the first scene inside Rick's, Sam is singing "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shine_%281910_song%29 Shine]]".
80	** Similarly, Ilsa referring to the adult Sam (played by an actor almost thirty years older than her) as a "boy."
81	** In the scene where Rick sells the Cafe to Ferrari. To his credit, he makes sure that Sam gets a decent cut of the profits, but they way they talk about him makes it sound like Rick is selling Sam as part of the Cafe. Then again, he ''is'' on staff along with the others named in the scene -- Abdul (bouncer for casino), Sascha (bartender) and Karl (cafe manager & bookkeeper). Arguably lampshaded near the beginning of the film in the scene where Ferrari tried to "buy" Sam; Rick responded with "I'm not in the business of selling people".
82	** Rick having to remind Sascha to escort the drunk woman home ''and then come right back''. Sascha's disappointed "Yes, boss" implies that he'd been hoping to take advantage of the situation. What especially makes it an example is that the exchange is PlayedForLaughs.
83	** Even back in the day, Renault's use of the ScarpiaUltimatum was supposed to come across as scummy and rotten. But given his charming, likable demeanour and [[spoiler: apparently sincere HeelFaceTurn by the end of the film]], it's apparent that nearly a century's worth of civil rights and feminism have made it ''even more scummy than that''.
84	** All of the characters are from France or other European countries occupied by Nazi Germany, and they're seeking refuge...in an African city occupied by the French before, during, and after the war.
85	* ValuesResonance: Despite how much society has changed in the seven decades since this film was released, there are ''still'' millions of refugees in TheNewTens trying to find their way to freedom in more peaceful lands. Many of them come from lands that aren't that far from Casablanca.
86	--> '''[[https://www.jonathanrosenbaum.net/2017/02/review-of-well-always-have-casablanca/ Noah Isenberg]]''': "Nearly all of the some seventy-five actors and actresses cast in ''Casablanca'' were immigrants. Among the fourteen who earned a screen credit, only three were born in the United States: Humphrey Bogart, Dooley Wilson, and Joy Page, Jack Warner’s stepdaughter, who plays the Bulgarian refugee Annina Brandel. At the studio, Stage 8, where Rick’s Café was assembled, was known as International House...Hailing from more than thirty different nations, the majority of refugee actors in the film served merely as day players, performing small parts—generally either as Nazis or as refugees fleeing the Nazis—most without significant dialogue. Among them, however, were many distinguished European artists with illustrious pasts on stage and screen."
87	* WatchItForTheMeme: Watch it for any of the most famous lines; possibly even watch it for the BeamMeUpScotty, as many people now realize that it isn't "Play it again, Sam." In fact, the majority of this movie's most famous lines are in the end scene, causing it to practically overdose on MemeticMutation in the last ten minutes or so.
88	* TheWoobie: Yvonne's teary-eyed expression during the famed ''La Marseillaise'' scene is one of the symbols of the movie.

Context YMMV / Casablanca