What makes casablanca a classic film

Film was much more collaborative back then. This was all before the auteur theory. How did they decide which ending to use? It was a combination of censorship and solid story sense. They originally planned for Rick to send Ilsa off, but did now have any idea how to do it. Then, after they started filming, Hal Wallis began to realize just how well Bogart was working out as a romantic star.

They briefly considered other endings. The best possible ending would have had Bergman stay with him. The only other possibility ever considered was to have Victor killed at the airport. When they realized and nobody knows who arrived at this solution that he should send her off with Victor for the good of the cause, the ending literally wrote itself. Both our guests tonight, co-writers Howard Koch and Julius Epstein, emphasized that the lack of an ending caused the only problems on the set… There were lots of problems on the set.

Arguments with Curtiz. But the major issue with Ingrid Bergman was her uncertainty about how the film would end.

Did the actors have a say in the writing as they often do now? Not really. Bogart suggested a few lines and urged the writers to give Rick a background as a freedom fighter. The first reference to the ending we know comes in a memo from another writer who worked on the script briefly: Casey Robinson. Where there any notable scenes filmed that ended up on the cutting room floor? There was a scene planned, after the ending, that would have shown Rick and Renault on an Allied ship just prior to the landing at Casablanca but plans to shoot it were scrapped when the marketing department realized they had to get the film out fast to capitalize on the liberation of North Africa.

Of all the discoveries in your research, what were some that surprised you the most? The biggest surprise was the one that punctured the biggest legend. In fact, she shot two of her most important scenes after learning that Rick would send her with Ilsa. All you have to do is look at the production reports. The lighting looks different than other films of the same time why? Another part was economy. All those wonderful shadows, throwing fascinating patterns on the walls, could cover up cost-cutting.

He had first made his name at Universal, shooting the classic horror films in their Frankenstein series. I joined the conference not too long ago, and am unfamiliar with the restoration project for the film you mentioned. Can you tell us about it? Specifically, has any footage been restored to the film? Technicians at Turner Entertainment went back to the original negatives to create new printing elements with much more clarity than previous editions of the film.

Ironically, the new negative was created to help make the colorized version possible. Colorizing requires a pristine negative.

The printing elements had been overused. At the same time they made the new negative from which to build the colorized version, they remastered the sound for stereo. Well, why did you write this book? Why now? What are you adding to the canon? I got the job because I had been writing for the public relations department at Turner Broadcasting for years. One of my projects was a 50th anniversary press kit on Citizen Kane.

I have always been intrigued by the sub characters in the film, Karl, Ferrari… their characters seen to evolve with time. Was this planned this way? I cannot remember other films of the era to be this way. I think the brilliance of the writing in those roles is a product of the way the screenplay was written. The part of Renault was specially tailored to the type of sardonic wit he could play with ease. The work of both sets of writers, not to mention whatever others may have been brought in to contribute a line or a scene, was put together by Curtiz and Wallis, who literally decided each morning what dialog would be shot that day.

What did Bogart think of the movie and was the movie as popular then as it is today? Bogart saw the film as a great opportunity, but nobody at the time realized they were making one of the all-time great Hollywood films. It did very well at the box office ranking number five for , but, again, that was attributed to careful timing.

Its New York premiere coincided with the Allied landing in North Africa and the Battle of Casablanca, so the free publicity helped draw crowds. The Los Angeles and national release coincided with the summit conference in—where else? Again, free publicity. Even when it won the Oscar for Best Picture, that was considered a surprise. Everybody expected the award to go to The Song of Bernadette. Frank… tell us about the music composer not even wanting to use that song! Hal Wallis was ready to make the change, but it meant reshooting some lines for Ingrid Bergman.

And she had already cut her hair short for her role in For Whom the Bell Tolls. Is this indicative of the level of wealth of people in Casablanca at that time? Well, this gets a two part answer.

How often do you see a peaceful family meal consumed on film? Secondly, the people on whom the film concentrates are refugees fleeing Europe, usually for America.

From characters like Yvette and the pickpocket you get a sense of what happens to people when they get stuck in Casablanca for too long. They run out of money and turn to desperate measures to survive. Probably not. Those were arranged and recorded before the film was shot. Dooly Wilson did not really play the piano. And he had trouble miming to the playback because they had to cut the volume whenever anybody had a line. So they placed the pianist on the set, out of camera range, and had him play to a dummy piano.

The script was still unfinished when they started rolling. That pesky ending was still giving the writers fits. The final iconic scene was filmed on a soundstage in front of a small cardboard plane, with little people serving as extras to make the scale look convincing. And yet for all that, Casablanca turned out to be a cinematic masterpiece.

Bogart became a bona fide leading man. Bergman turned into a superstar. It won three Oscars, including one for Best Picture and another for the screenplay, and its reputation has only grown over time. It begins with that pesky screenplay, now ranked by the Writers Guild of America as the best of all time. For all the writers working on the thing, it somehow fused into a seamless whole.

And then there was the undeniable cultural relevance of it all. Perhaps it was just a product of Hollywood magic so often talked about but so little seen: Everything just came together. Rarely do things go according to plan in our own lives. We can feel harried. Uncomfortable with where we are, and disenchanted about where it seems like things are going. But you know what? We are not in control. And sometimes those messes all around us — the messes that we might even unintentionally cause — have greater purpose than we can see.

Sometimes, those messes can lead to something great. Today, the classic contends with the greatest of films, rooted in a screenplay considered by many to be the best of all time. In , the Writers Guild of America awarded it that prestigious title.

Universities and film historians praise its inter-woven plots and overall screenwriting craftsmanship. They brought to the movie a realism that was unique. None of the characters are one-dimensional… Bogart Rick set the tone for many film characters to follow — the broken-hearted, reluctant hero — a man who is bitter about politics and refuses to take sides.

All three of the main characters are broken-hearted, not only because of each other, but because of what has happened to the world under the Nazi scourge. This is the heart of the film for me and who among us has not been broken-hearted and cynical about what the world has become? The film is as potent and timely today as it was when it was first written in Paul Blyskal, a story analyst at Netflix, understands the concept from years of looking over material. A good movie should take its audience on a journey to expand their minds and open their hearts to all the possibilities in life.

It should explore different angles of the human condition and draw you in. The fact that the process was so muddled, and it turned out to be one of the classic films and scripts is astounding. Interestingly, when the AFI List was first released in , the slots of The Godfather and Casablanca were reversed, causing reason to suspect that the timeless facet is wearing off.

Scout Tafoya, a film critic for RoberEbert.