SECOND HELPINGS: Casablanca** (1942)

It seems like every time that I watch this film I understand its popularity more and more. This was one of what I call the Original Eleven- one of the 11 films that I watched in my freshman comp & speech class in college that started my whole movie rating obsession. I did not care for it one bit when I first saw it in the autumn of 2002. Over time, I have come to terms with much of this film, but I still have a few issues with it.

Some films from Casablanca’s era are ridiculously dialogue heavy. I used to wonder if this was a common trait for older films but I found that to not necessarily be the case as I have watched more and more films from the early days of Hollywood. Casablanca certainly fits the mold of reel-to-reel lightning-fast conversation. The conversations between Rick, Ilsa, Victor, and Captain Renault are full of exposition, wit, and a flurry of emotions.

At times, these conversations literally pull you from one point to the next, giving you very little time to digest what is actually being said. If you are fine with taking the film as it comes, then you probably see nothing wrong with any of its content. The more you think about the film afterwards, however, the more you realize its plot elements fall apart in some ways. It’s only an hour and forty minutes long, so there is plenty of room to slow the dialogue down and tighten up a few of the details.

The music of Casablanca is terrific and the acting is very good, but there isn’t much that I found technically exciting about this film. There are a lot of static shots of people talking to each other or cuts back and forth between the faces. I can recall one scene in Rick’s where the use of shadow is quite good but very little else stands out as a unique or memorable shot. There is also a pretty glaring continuity error during the famous airport scene- Major Strasser’s epaulettes appear and disappear between cuts. Oops!

Overall, I get why people love Casablanca. It is full of romanticism, heroism, and idealism set against the dark days of World War II. The cookie cutter bad guys are so mean that it’s hard not to cheer on those who oppose them. I see it as an above-average film with a cult following. I think part of the appeal is generational, as it provided a distraction from the grim realities of World War II when it was released and it was a model for idealism and earnestness for Baby Boomers growing up with its occasional re-release in theaters. I am not part of either generation, so I can easily look past it to find the better films of the era.

Original Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Second Rating: 3 out of 5

New Rating: 3.5 out of 5