Casablanca
by Julius Epstein, Philip Epstein, Howard Koch http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/04/casablanca-with-humphrey-bogart-and.html
10 out of
10
‘I think
this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship’ is one of the best lines and
most popular – indeed, I am a junior partner in accompany that provides
materials for the ad business, and it decorates cars, banners, shirts and I
have five in the workshop, and the first message on the front of one is the
aforementioned declaration of a close connection, inviting the one who reads it
for a tacla, taifas…
Casablanca
is for a good number of experts and cinephiles one of the best five motion
pictures, for many it is actually the best ever made – I wonder what the
British Film Institute says about it, they have published a list of the magic
100, and it has some very outré (for yours truly) entries, I have not even
heard of the number one, and understand that it is a narrative where we watch
the protagonist doing menial tasks, bathing, preparing food, if we decide to
see it, which we somehow must – and surprisingly so
Looking at
the way it was made, it is an extraordinary achievement, in that it had had the
worst possible start, they had changed writers many times – albeit we find from
histories of cinema http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-movie-book-big-ideas-simply.html that in the old days, the studios
abused employees, they kept stars under contract, have not allowed them to have
anything but the image the executives wanted to project, never mind some of
them being gay, that was illegal and never came out…
Apart from
the fantastic acting, the film has everything, the lead actors are the
legendary Humphrey Bogart http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-african-queen-written-by-james-agee.html and Ingrid Bergman, two stars that
benefit from the script, a powerful story – Rick Blaine aka Humphrey Bogart is
an unlikely hero, he has a very popular (perhaps the most frequented) café in
Casablanca, during World War II
The Germans
had occupied France, and then the Vichy regime decided to collaborate, which is
the situation we have in the Moroccan city, where the head of police is Captain
Louis Renault portrayed by the wonderful Claude Rains…the French play a complex
game, a balancing act between working with, and under the German patronage, and
expressing their wish for liberty, they show their (remaining) pride in a scene
where the invaders start singing Teutonic fare, and the French respond with La
Marseillase
Rick is
complicated enough to show us a gentle, king, magnanimous side, but at the same
time, the exterior is hard, after all, he also has a casino and we see that
they cheat, it is not just the rule of ‘the house always wins’, but the croupier
can and does decide which numbers win, and if the owner shows charity, it is
still worse than immoral that they have these means of stealing from customers,
granted, selected ones
When a
young woman comes to see him, she is desperate because she has left Bulgaria
(our neighbors) with her husband to escape destitution, but they have no money
left to buy from the black market the tickets for America (everybody wants to
sail to the US and survive the Nazis, Vichy, the WWII) the spouse if at the
roulette, betting all they have left, while she had had a discussion with
Captain Renault
The latter
is clearly after having sex with the exquisite young woman, and hence he will
use his position to let them out of Casablanca, on a ship, that is if he keeps
his promise, the woman is asking for advice from Rick, will the captain keeps
his promise (the café owner says that he always does) and she wants to keep
this a secret from her innocent, fresh husband, he must never know of the
sacrifice she would have done so that they are saved, launched into the free
world by her giving in to abuse
With his
immobile face, apparent chagrin (we will learn about his own tragedy) rick goes
to the roulette table and tells the spouse to put all the money on Twenty (if
it was not another number, it does not matter, does it) and then when he wins
(because the croupier has seen the boss and his maneuvers) he insists that he
must place the winnings on the same number, which is again brining fortune…
Now you
have to go and take all this out of here, thus he has just saved a couple of
people…however, the big test is when Ilsa Lund aka Ingrid Bergman walks into
his café – ‘Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks
into mine’ – and his own tragedy is revealed, for they had been lovers in
Paris, they were meant to flee together, only at the last moment, she
disappeared and the man was uncounseled.
We now see
why he is so blasé, without enthusiasm for anything, indifferent, cynical,
because he had given his all, heart, love, admiration to Ilsa, who had done the
same, only to abandon him, when he thought he is in heaven and will be there
for the foreseeable future…there is an explanation for that and complicated
twists in the narrative, she had been married to a leader of the Resistance,
Victor Laszlo, the one ‘known by half the world’, and had to be with him
because of duty, and his position was so important for multitudes, how can you
put your own feelings, happiness above others…Bentham would disagree, and it is
immoral, and selfish, albeit a narcissist like Trump or Putin would not get it…
Now for a
question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more
than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world – as it is, this is a unique technique, which
we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make
lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not
know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se
As for my
role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html
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