Casablanca

Reception

Initial response

Casablanca received "consistently good reviews".[91] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote, "The Warners ... have a picture which makes the spine tingle and the heart take a leap." He applauded the combination of "sentiment, humor and pathos with taut melodrama and bristling intrigue." Crowther noted its "devious convolutions of the plot" and praised the screenplay quality as "of the best" and the cast's performances as "all of the first order".[92]

The trade paper Variety commended the film's "combination of fine performances, engrossing story and neat direction" and the "variety of moods, action, suspense, comedy and drama that makes Casablanca an A-1 entry at the b.o."[93] The review observed that the "[f]ilm is splendid anti-Axis propaganda, particularly inasmuch as the propaganda is strictly a by-product of the principal action and contributes to it instead of getting in the way".[93] Variety also applauded the performances of Bergman and Henreid and noted, "Bogart, as might be expected, is more at ease as the bitter and cynical operator of a joint than as a lover, but handles both assignments with superb finesse."[93]

Some reviews were less enthusiastic. The New Yorker rated Casablanca only "pretty tolerable" and said it was "not quite up to Across the Pacific, Bogart's last spyfest".[94]

At the 1,500-seat Hollywood Theater, the film grossed $255,000 over ten weeks (equivalent to $3.6 million in 2022).[95] In its initial American release, Casablanca was a substantial but not spectacular box-office success, earning $3.7 million (equivalent to $53 million in 2022).[95][96] A 50th-anniversary release grossed $1.5 million in 1992.[97] According to Warner Bros. records, the film earned $3,398,000 domestically and $3,461,000 in foreign markets.[4]

Enduring popularity

In the decades since its release, the film has grown in reputation. Murray Burnett called it "true yesterday, true today, true tomorrow".[98] By 1955, the film had brought in $6.8 million, making it the third-most-successful of Warners' wartime movies, behind Shine On, Harvest Moon and This Is the Army.[99] On April 21, 1957, the Brattle Theater of Cambridge, Massachusetts, showed the film as part of a season of old movies. It proved so popular that a tradition began in which Casablanca would be screened during the week of final exams at Harvard University. Todd Gitlin, a professor of sociology who had attended one of these screenings, has said that the experience was "the acting out of my own personal rite of passage".[100] The tradition helped the film remain popular while other films that had been famous in the 1940s have faded from popular memory. By 1977, Casablanca had become the most frequently broadcast film on American television.[101]

Ingrid Bergman's portrayal of Ilsa Lund in Casablanca became one of her best-known roles.[102] In later years she said, "I feel about Casablanca that it has a life of its own. There is something mystical about it. It seems to have filled a need, a need that was there before the film, a need that the film filled."[103]

On the film's 50th anniversary, the Los Angeles Times called Casablanca's great strength "the purity of its Golden Age Hollywoodness [and] the enduring craftsmanship of its resonantly hokey dialogue". Bob Strauss wrote in the newspaper that the film achieved a "near-perfect entertainment balance" of comedy, romance, and suspense.[104]

Roger Ebert, wrote of Casablanca in 1992, "There are greater movies. More profound movies. Movies of greater artistic vision or artistic originality or political significance. ... But [it is] one of the movies we treasure the most ... This is a movie that has transcended the ordinary categories."[105] In his opinion, the film is popular because "the people in it are all so good" and it is "a wonderful gem".[15] Ebert said that he had never heard of a negative review of the film, even though individual elements can be criticized, citing unrealistic special effects and the stiff character of Laszlo as portrayed by Paul Henreid.[71]

Critic and film historian Leonard Maltin considers Casablanca "the best Hollywood movie of all time".[106]

According to Rudy Behlmer, the character of Rick is "not a hero ... not a bad guy" because he does what is necessary to appease the authorities and "sticks his neck out for nobody". Behlmer feels that the other characters are "not cut and dried" and come into their goodness over the course of the film. Renault begins as a collaborator with the Nazis who extorts sexual favors from refugees and has Ugarte killed. Even Ilsa, the least active of the main characters, is "caught in the emotional struggle" over which man she really loves. By the end, however, "everybody is sacrificing".[71] Behlmer also emphasized the variety in the picture. "It's a blend of drama, melodrama, comedy [and] intrigue."[71]

Scott Tobias, writing for The Guardian on the film's 80th anniversary, calls it "the jewel of Hollywood's Golden Age", and the best example of the system of film-making working: due not to a single artistic genius but a combination of talented writing, set design, music, casting, supporting characters, and production.[107]

A few reviewers have expressed reservations. To Pauline Kael, "It's far from a great film, but it has a special appealingly schlocky romanticism ..."[108] Umberto Eco wrote that "by any strict critical standards ... Casablanca is a very mediocre film". He viewed the changes that the characters manifest as inconsistent rather than complex. "It is a comic strip, a hotchpotch, low on psychological credibility, and with little continuity in its dramatic effects." However, he added that because of the presence of multiple archetypes that allow "the power of Narrative in its natural state without Art intervening to discipline it", it is a film reaching "Homeric depths" as a "phenomenon worthy of awe".[109]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 99% of 127 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 9.4/10. The website's consensus reads, "An undisputed masterpiece and perhaps Hollywood's quintessential statement on love and romance, Casablanca has only improved with age, boasting career-defining performances from Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman."[110] On Metacritic, the film has a perfect score of 100 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[111] It is one of the few films in the site's history to achieve a perfect aggregate score.[112]

In the November/December 1982 issue of Film Comment, Chuck Ross wrote that he retyped the Casablanca screenplay, reverting the title to Everybody Comes to Rick's and changing the name of Sam the piano player to Dooley (after Dooley Wilson, who played the character), and submitted it to 217 agencies. The majority of agencies returned the script unread (often because of policies regarding unsolicited screenplays) or did not respond. However, of those which did respond, only 33 specifically recognized it as Casablanca. Eight others observed that it was similar to Casablanca, and 41 agencies rejected the screenplay outright, offering comments such as "Too much dialogue, not enough exposition, the story line was weak, and in general didn't hold my interest." Three agencies offered to represent the screenplay, and one suggested turning it into a novel.[113][114][115]

Influence on later works

Many subsequent films have drawn on elements of Casablanca. Passage to Marseille (1944) reunited actors Bogart, Rains, Greenstreet, and Lorre and director Curtiz in 1944,[116] and there are similarities between Casablanca and a later Bogart film, To Have and Have Not (also 1944).[117] Parodies have included the Marx Brothers' A Night in Casablanca (1946), Neil Simon's The Cheap Detective (1978), and Out Cold (2001). Indirectly, it provided the title for the 1995 neo-noir film The Usual Suspects.[118] Woody Allen's Play It Again, Sam (1972) appropriated Rick Blaine as the fantasy mentor for Allen's character.[119]

The film was a plot device in the science-fiction television movie Overdrawn at the Memory Bank (1983), based on John Varley's story. It was referred to in Terry Gilliam's dystopian Brazil (1985). Warner Bros. produced its own parody: Carrotblanca, a 1995 Bugs Bunny cartoon.[120] The film critic Roger Ebert pointed out the plot of the film Barb Wire (1996) was identical to that of Casablanca.[121] In Casablanca, a novella by Argentine writer Edgar Brau, the protagonist somehow wanders into Rick's Café Américain and listens to a strange tale related by Sam.[122] The 2016 musical film La La Land contains allusions to Casablanca in the imagery, dialogue, and plot.[123] Robert Zemeckis, director of Allied (2016), which is also set in 1942 Casablanca, studied the film to capture the city's elegance.[124] The 2017 Moroccan drama film Razzia, directed by Nabil Ayouch, is mostly set in the city of Casablanca, and its characters frequently discuss the 1942 film.[125]

Awards and honors

Because of its November 1942 release, the New York Film Critics decided to include the film in its 1942 award season for best picture. Casablanca lost to In Which We Serve.[95] However, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences stated that since the film went into national release at the beginning of 1943, it would be included in that year's nominations.[126] Casablanca was nominated for eight Academy Awards, and won three.

Award Category Nominee Result
Academy Awards Outstanding Motion Picture Warner Bros. Won
Best Director Michael Curtiz Won
Best Actor Humphrey Bogart Nominated
Best Supporting Actor Claude Rains Nominated
Best Screenplay Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch Won
Best Cinematography – Black-and-White Arthur Edeson Nominated
Best Film Editing Owen Marks Nominated
Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture Max Steiner Nominated
National Board of Review Awards Top Ten Films 6th place
Best Director Michael Curtiz (also for This Is the Army) Won
National Film Preservation Board National Film Registry Inducted
New York Film Critics Circle Awards Best Director Michael Curtiz Nominated
Best Actor Humphrey Bogart Nominated
Saturn Awards Best DVD Classic Film Release Casablanca: Ultimate Collector's Edition Nominated

As Bogart stepped out of his car at the awards ceremony, "the crowd surged forward, almost engulfing him and his wife, Mayo Methot. It took 12 police officers to rescue the two, and a red-faced, startled, yet smiling Bogart heard a chorus of cries of 'good luck' and 'here's looking at you, kid' as he was rushed into the theater".[127]

When the award for Best Picture was announced, producer Hal B. Wallis got up to accept, but studio head Jack L. Warner rushed up to the stage "with a broad, flashing smile and a look of great self-satisfaction," Wallis later recalled. "I couldn't believe it was happening. Casablanca had been my creation; Jack had absolutely nothing to do with it. As the audience gasped, I tried to get out of the row of seats and into the aisle, but the entire Warner family sat blocking me. I had no alternative but to sit down again, humiliated and furious ... Almost forty years later, I still haven't recovered from the shock."[127] This incident led Wallis to leave Warner Bros. in April.[128]

In 1989, the film was one of the first 25 films selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[129][130] In 2005, it was named one of the 100 greatest films of the last 80 years by Time magazine (the selected films were not ranked).[131] Bright Lights Film Journal stated in 2007, "It is one of those rare films from Hollywood's Golden Age which has managed to transcend its era to entertain generations of moviegoers ... Casablanca provides twenty-first-century Americans with an oasis of hope in a desert of arbitrary cruelty and senseless violence."[132]

The film also ranked at number 28 on Empire's list of the 100 Greatest Movies of All Time, which said, "Love, honour, thrills, wisecracks and a hit tune are among the attractions, which also include a perfect supporting cast of villains, sneaks, thieves, refugees and bar staff. But it's Bogart and Bergman's show, entering immortality as screen lovers reunited only to part. The irrefutible [sic] proof that great movies are accidents."[133] Screenwriting teacher Robert McKee maintains that the script is "the greatest screenplay of all time".[16] In 2006, the Writers Guild of America, West agreed, voting it the best ever in its list of the 101 greatest screenplays.[134]

The film has been selected by the American Film Institute for many of their lists of important American films:

Year Category Rank
1998 AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies 2
2001 AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills 37
2002 AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions 1
2003 AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains 4: Rick Blaine (hero)
2004 AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs 2: "As Time Goes By"
2005 AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes 5: "Here's looking at you, kid."20: "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."28: "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By'."32: "Round up the usual suspects."43: "We'll always have Paris."67: "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."These six lines are the most of any film (Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz tied for second with three apiece). Also nominated for the list was, "Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."[135]
2006 AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers 32
2007 AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) 3

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