Directed by Michael Curtiz

AFI #3 Top 100 Films of All TimeCitizen KaneThe Godfather Casablanca

CASABLANCA 1942

Michael Curtiz

Won Best Director: Casablanca

Nominated: Captain Blood, Angels with Dirty Faces, Four Daughters, Yankee Doodle Dandy

Casablanca

Written by Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch

based on an unproduced play Everybody Comes to Rick's

“Near perfect entertainment balance of comedy, romance and suspense”

Academy Awards

Best Picture Best Director Best Screenplay Nominated:

Best Actor (Humphrey Bogart) Best Supporting Actor (Claude Rains) Best B/W Cinematography Score/Editing

Bogart

Bogey AFI # 1 male actor

* Won Oscar African Queen 1952

Caine Mutiny 1954 Casablanca 1943

Bergman

AFI #3 Female Actor Gaslight (Best Actress) Anastasia (Best

Actress) Murder on the Orient

Express (Best Supporting)

Themes

lost love and romance within a chaotic world

honor self-sacrifice in war

Casablanca

Set in early 40’s during WWII: French Moracco is neutral territory where refugees from the war hope to get exit visas to Lisbon (and then to the United States)

Characters

Bogart: Rick (owns the nightclub) Bergman: Ilsa (once Rick’s lover) Henreid: Laszlo (head of French resistance to

Nazi’s) Rains: Renault (French, corrupt chief of police)

grants exit visas to pretty women in exchange for sexual favors)

Strasser: Nazi trying to arrest Laszlo

Characters

Lorre: Ugarte stole the letters of transit Dooley Wilson: Sam piano player/friend Greenstreet: Signor Ferrari owns rival

nightclub: The Blue Parrot

Plot

Casablanca is the exit point to Lisbon and freedom

Need exit visas (supplied and approved by the local police captain (Renault)

Two German couriers carrying two unconditional visas are murdered and Ugarte gives them to Rick (Bogart) to hide for him

Plot

Victor Laszlo (Head of the European Resistance) and Ilsa Lund come to Casablanca and are trying to obtain those visas so hero Laszlo can escape safely

Ilsa and Rick had an affair in Paris while Laszlo was in a concentration camp (and presumed dead)

Memorable Scenes

Competing national songs: In Rick’s the Nazi’s play their national anthem and Laszlo tells the band to play La Marseillaise

Ending: Bergman was not told how it was going to end and they filmed two different endings

Most Quoted Movie Lines

Here’s looking at you kid Round up the usual suspects I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship We’ll always have Paris Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the

world, she walks into mine. Play it (again) Sam

More lines

“I’m shocked, shocked to find there is gambling going on in here.” “ Your winnings sir.” “Oh thank you very much.”

Your business is politics. Mine is running a saloon I stick my neck out for nobody What are you doing in Casablanca. “I came for the

waters.” What waters, we’re in the middle of a desert. “I was misinformed.”