The Best Book about the Best Movie Ever
I have to admit at the outset that I am
a sucker for Casablanca. It has always been my favorite movie and one of the
defining moments when I was dating my wife was the time we watched it on a
small black and white TV while she was suffering from a very bad cold. Reading
Isenberg’s book brought back memories of that moment and all of the quotes from
the movie that I still know by heart.
Isenberg begins at the beginning with
the never produced Broadway play, “Everybody Comes to Rick’s” which is picked
up by Warner Brothers for the then astounding sum of $20,000. In the Warner
factory the Epstein twins, Howard Koch and others turn it into the movie we now
know. Director Richard Curtiz as is most of the cast are emigres from
Nazi-occupied Europe. The movie stars
Humphrey Bogart as Rick, Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund, who never looked more
beautiful, and Paul Henreid as Victor Laszlo.
Casablanca opened to rave notices in
late 1942 and Warner Brothers was helped by General Eisenhower landing troops
in North Africa a few weeks later and then with Roosevelt holding a summit
meeting with Churchill in early 1943 in Casablanca. Jack Warner never had
better advance men. It would go on to win the academy award for best picture of
that year.
But this book is more than about the
history of making Casablanca, it is about what made so popular to this day. For
example, why did a movie about World War II become so popular with the anti-Vietnam
War college generation of the late 1960s. As Isenberg tells us, it is about the
universal themes of love, glory and making the right moral choices in a very difficult
environment. Further Rick Blaine is the typical American hero, a loner who
rises to the challenge with just the right amount of comic relief.
Isenberg also tells us that Casablanca
had to end with Ilsa ending up with Victor. Simply put the Production Code at
the time would not have allowed a married woman to run off with another man and
the Code forgives Ilsa’s adultery in Paris because she thought Victor was dead
and allows it in Casablanca in the service of the war effort. Also of note is
Casablanca’s treatment of the African American piano player Sam (“As Time Goes
Bye”), played by Dooley Wilson. The black-owned Amsterdam News wrote, “…no picture
has given as much sympathetic treatment and prominence to a Negro character…”
To sum up to any lover of Casablanca,
Isenberg’s book is a must read!
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