So what's the big deal with this movie?

[RoninFox]

Good luck Aram, but I think you'll find reading what we have to say here and listening to the riffers themselves that a lot of us share your opinion on this movie.

[mdemos]

Why is it so great?  Because with this film, hollywood actually captured lightning in a bottle.

What's almost more amazing, is the story behind the making of the movie.  The finished film, which ended up being scripted by a number of people, was literally written, then re-written, and re-written yet again,  up until the very last moments prior to filming.  By all accounts, this easily could have been the biggest flop of its time.  Instead, the gods smiled down, the heavens aligned, and Bogie, Bergman, Henreid, Rains, Dooley Wilson, and Director Michael Curtiz, made movie magic!

Let me put it another way; if after you watch this movie you still honestly feel the need to ask why it's so special, chances are you'll just never understand......   

[Darth Geek]

Let me put it another way; if after you watch this movie you still honestly feel the need to ask why it's so special, chances are you'll just never understand......   

[BEERxTaco]

Michael Curtiz directing on the set of Casablanca

QUOTES


Although he lived in the United States for more than 30 years Curtiz never quite mastered the english language.The combination of this slaughtering of the english language and his heated temperament delivered some funny lines:

Michael Curtiz, director, arranging a scene during Casablanca: "Wery nice, but I vant a poodle.
Prop master: But you never asked for one. We don't have one!
Curtiz: Vell, get one.
Prop master: What color?
Curtiz: Dark, you idiot, we're not shooting in color!
[A few minutes later, Curtiz is called out to see a standard poodle.]
Curtiz: Vat do I vant with this goddam dog!
Prop master: You said you wanted a poodle, Mr. Curtiz.
Curtiz: I vanted a poodle in the street! A poodle. A poodle of water!

On the set of 'The Charge of the Light Brigade', when, wanting to see stray horses wandering through the battle, Curtiz directed the wranglers to "Bring on the empty horses". When Niven and Flynn cracked up laughing, he responded with:'You people, you think I know fuck nothing; I tell you: I know fuck all"
David Niven later made this "curtizism" immortal by naming his autobiography:"Bring on the empty horses."

The incomparable director Michael Curtiz was preparing to direct a film at Warner Brothers. Richard Webb was asked to assist Curtiz in screen tests. The director was to choose one of seven nine-year-old boys for a certain role. For the test scene, each boy was to take his position in front of the camera, Webb was to stand next to the camera and (on cue) step in, play the scene with the boy, then return to his position next to the camera. When all was in readiness, the boy and Webb rehearsed. The sound man said "okay." Mike Curtiz clapped his hands. "Let's go," he said. "Let's go. Everything is silver!" The assistant director called, "Roll 'em!" The camera operator snapped the camera on and said, "Rolling." A moment later, Mike ordered, "Action!" When the nine-year-old boy commenced his test, Webb glanced into the little glass window of the film magazine, just at eye level, through which one sees the sprocket that turns as film is fed through the camera. The sprocket, Webb observed, was not turning! No one else seemed to notice; the operator was looking through the camera aperture; the head cameraman was watching the scene; the sound people continued doing their busy things. When he heard his cue, Webb entered the scene, played it out with the boy, then returned to his position. He looked again into the aperture. The camera definitely was not running. The scene completed, Mike Curtiz called, "Cut! Print!" Then he beckoned the boy to him. "That was fine," he said to the lad. "Just fine. You tell your mother and father you are a good actor. Who knows, you may get the part." Going to the cameraman, Webb said, "The damn camera wasn't going." "That's right," the cameraman replied with a sly smile. "Didn't you hear Mike call, 'Everything is Silver?'" "Yes, I heard it." "That means everything works, but nothing works," explained the cameraman. "If Mike doesn't happen to like someone the front office has sent down to test, he won't waste film." "Everything is Silver" happened with three of the seven boys.

.....And there then was Mike Curtiz. Curtiz directed The Charge of the Light Brigade, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Casablanca and Mildred Pierce. He was Hungarian and uniquely slaughtered the English language. My brother Phil and I did four pictures, including Casablanca, with Curtiz. In those days we received our weekly paychecks on Wednesday and when we had arguments with Curtiz, and they were many, he would invariably call us "Wednesday Bums." I confess that there are times now when I wish I was a "Wednesday Bum" again.

"The scenario in't the exact truth, but we have the facts to prove it"

"It's dull from beginning to end. But it's loaded with entertainment"

"Don't talk to me while I'm interrupting."

"The next time I want some dumb son of a bitch to do something, I'll do it myself."

"Now ride off," Curtiz once directed Gary Cooper and his horse, "in all directions."

One day the legendary director Michael Curtiz found himself explaining a scene to an actor playing a minister in his latest film. "You watch," he instructed in his heavily-accented English as the actor trailed behind him. "You watch how the camera moves here. You watch now... Then we come back," he continued, backing up, "we move with the camera..." As Curtiz stepped back so did the actor, who promptly disappeared into a large excavation about a dozen feet deep. Curtiz, quite unperturbed, simply peered into the pit and ordered, "Get another minister!"

Warner jokers once hung signs on a Curtiz set reading "English Broken Here," "Curtiz Spoken Here." Some Curtizisms: "Next time I send some fool for something I go myself," "Sit a little bit more femine (feminine)," "Act easy-go-lucky." Prop boys on a Curtiz set are supposed to know that "boy cows" are not steers but cow boys. Malapropism is not Curtiz' only peculiarity. He addresses everyone at Warner's up to Bette Davis as "you bum," gives the best borscht bawlings-out in the business. He takes no lunch, tried to coax actors to have an aspirin instead, uses "after-lunch actor" as his supreme epithet of contempt.

The director of Casablanca, Michael Curtiz, was born in Budapest, Hungary, in the late 1800s. He began making films there in 1912, but left Hungary in 1919 because of political unrest. After leaving Hungary, he became a prolific filmmaker in Europe, primarily in Austria, and in 1926 the head of Warner Brothers' Burbank, California studio, Jack Warner, asked him to come to Hollywood. Over the course of his career, Curtiz made almost one hundred films for Warner Brothers, including musicals, detective stories, and horror films. Curtiz never mastered the English language, though, and his cast and crew, disgruntled by Curtiz's stubbornness and mean streak, often made fun of his linguistic mistakes, calling them "Curtizisms."

Casablanca was released in 1942, and it was an immediate success, despite Warner Brothers' fears that it would fail. The film was nominated for eight Oscars and won three, including Best Director for Curtiz. Despite the award, Curtiz never really received credit for the film's remarkable achievements. Critics viewed Curtiz as a skilled technician, but they had little praise for his artistic sensibilities. Curtiz's other films never garnered much recognition, and even the success of Casablanca was not enough to elevate his reputation. Most of Casablanca's numerous fans wouldn't be able to identify its director by name.

Casablanca has become a legend in large part because of its two leading actors, Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, who play Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lund, respectively. Bogart's and Bergman's portrayals of Rick and Ilsa's tortured reunion and separations are as stunning now as they were in 1942. Yet both Bogart and Bergman proved to be difficult participants in Casablanca. Bogart acted in four other movies in 1942, and Casablanca was far from his favorite. Bergman took the part of Ilsa only because she was initially denied a role she really wanted, the female lead in Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls. When she was eventually chosen for that film, she stopped thinking about Casablanca, prompting the envious Paul Heinreid, who plays Victor Laszlo, to denigrate her as a careerist "tiger."

Other parts of the making of Casablanca are also sobering and pedestrian. The movie was filmed in a period of less than three rushed months, the actors didn't like each other or the director, and the screenwriters reworked the script on the fly. The film was one of many that Warner Brothers made during the summer of 1942, and it was hardly the most expensive or the one they anticipated to become a major hit. In short, the film was just another Hollywood studio production, a chaotic collaboration whose various parts might or might not come together successfully.

Of course, its parts did come together successfully—magnificently—but a few happy accidents are also responsible for the film's tremendous popularity and classic status. For example, composer Max Steiner created an original song to replace "As Time Goes By," a song he hated, but the scenes were not re-filmed because Bergman had already had her hair cut for her role in For Whom the Bell Tolls. Likewise, the screenplay for Casablanca evolved out of a play entitled Everybody Comes to Rick's, which was written in 1941, before the United States entered World War II. The play has a clear anti-Nazi slant, just as Casablanca does, but prior to Pearl Harbor, a movie studio in the neutral United States would probably not have made such a political movie. In this respect, the timing was perfect. Casablanca is an unusual World War II movie in that it isn't overly propagandistic—in other words, it doesn't go overboard in preaching about the justness of the cause and the certainty of victory. In 1942, the U.S. was suffering in the Pacific, and Allied victory seemed far from certain. Casablanca captures this unique moment in America's part in the conflict, when the nation was fully at war but not yet fully indoctrinated in a war ideology. Throughout the film, the war's outcome is uncertain, and Casablanca is a place of anxiety and uncertainty. This uncertainty lends the movie a genuine tension and renders the political activities of Laszlo and Rick all the more heroic.

Just the title of the film is enough to conjure up visions of a distant, longed-for past. Though perhaps not the greatest of the old Hollywood black-and-white films—that honor would probably fall to Citizen Kane-—Casablanca may be the most loved. When someone says, "They don't make movies like they used to," it is a good bet that Casablanca is the film they're measuring against the disappointing present. Unlike many other great successes, Casablanca's popularity is well deserved. The film is deeply intelligent and functions both as a political allegory about World War II and a timeless romance. While many critics respect the film for the former achievement, the film's overwhelming popularity rests squarely on the latter, and Casablanca remains one of the greatest love stories in movie history.

[Darth Geek]

So Michael Cutiz is the inspiration for Chekov?

The behind the scenes info is interesting. Because when people say "they don't make movies like that anymore". Yes, Holly wood makes movies in exactly that process to this day. It's just the lightning doesn't hit the bottle anymore.

[MST3Kgirl]

I completely agree with you, why does THIS film get the label one of the best movies ever made?! It didn't seem super special to me...

[ScottotD]

I completely agree with you, why does THIS film get the label one of the best movies ever made?! It didn't seem super special to me...

The answer seems to be, because it is and if you don't get it you're some kind of idiot.

[CJones]

First off, I have to admit, I never actually tried this Rifftrax. I also have to admit that I generally have little patience for old B&W movies. As a general rule, I'm more into the special effects extravaganza type movies.

However, 10 or so years ago, I decided to rent this movie, soley for the purpose of being able to say I'd seen it. I fully expected to consider it boring and massively overrated. Very much to my surprise, I was dead wrong. I loved it.

I certainly don't fault anyone for not thinking this movie is all it's cracked up to be. However, there is something special about this movie. Even if I can't quite put my finger on what exactly it is that makes it so great, the fact that I, of all people, who rarely "appreciates" classics and doesn't generally care much for romances, thought it was great, means something.

Incidentally, I had a similar experience with Citizen Kane. Though, while I thought that movie was certainly good, I liked Casablanca far more.