Warner Home Video
Region : 2
Format : Black & White; 1.33:1
Sound : Dolby Mono
Extras : 'You Must Remember This featurette ; trailer
Languages : English; French; Italian
Subtitles : English; French; Italian; Dutch; Arabic; Spanish; Portuguese;
German; Romanian; Bulgarian; English for the hearing impaired; Italian for the
hearing inpaired
Humphrey Bogart....Richard "Rick" Blaine
Ingrid Bergman....Ilsa Lund Laszlo
Paul Henreid....Victor Laszlo
Claude Rains....Captain Louis Renault
Conrad Veidt....Major Heinrich Strasser
Sydney Greenstreet....Signor Ferrari
Peter Lorre....Guillermo Ugarte
S.Z. Sakall....Carl, Rick's Cafe Manager (as S.K. Sakall)
Madeleine LeBeau....Yvonne, Rick's Girlfriend
Dooley Wilson....Sam
Joy Page....Annina Brandel, Bulgarian Refugee
John Qualen....Berger, Norwegian Underground Member
Leonid Kinskey....Sascha, Bartender at Rick's Cafe
Curt Bois....Pickpocket
Louis V. Arco....Refugee at Rick's (uncredited)
Leon Belasco....Dealer (uncredited)
Trude Berliner....Baccarat player (uncredited)
Oliver Blake....Waiter at the Blue Parrot (uncredited)
Monte Blue....American (uncredited)
Gino Corrado....Waiter (uncredited)
Franco Corsaro....Conspirator (uncredited)
Marcel Dalio....Emil, the Croupier (uncredited)
Helmut Dantine....Jan Brandel (uncredited)
George Dee....Casselle, Renault's Aide (uncredited)
Jean Del Val....Conspirator (uncredited)
William Edmunds....Contact with cash (uncredited)
Martin Garralaga....Headwaiter at Rick's Cafe (uncredited)
Gregory Gaye....German Banker Refused by Rick (uncredited)
Ilka Grüning....Mrs. Leuchtag (segment "Ten Watch") (uncredited)
Creighton Hale....Customer (Are you sure this place is honest?) (uncredited)
Olaf Hytten....Prosperous Man (uncredited)
Charles La Torre....Tonnelli, Italian Officer (uncredited)
George J. Lewis....Haggling Arab Monkey Seller (First Scene) (uncredited)
Lou Marcelle....Narrator (Introduction) (voice) (uncredited)
Michael Mark....Vendor (uncredited)
George Meeker....Rick's Friend Seen After Ugarte's Arrest (uncredited)
Louis Mercier....Smuggler (uncredited)
Torben Meyer....Dutch Banker at Cafe Table (uncredited)
Alberto Morin....French Officer (Yvonne's German- French Affair) (uncredited)
Leo Mostovoy....Fydor (uncredited)
Corinna Mura....Singer with Guitar (uncredited)
Lotte Palfi Andor....Woman selling her diamonds (uncredited)
Paul Porcasi....Native Introducing Ferrari (uncredited)
Frank Puglia....Arab Vendor (uncredited)
Georges Renavent....Conspirator (uncredited)
Richard Revy....German Soldier (uncredited)
Dewey Robinson....(uncredited)
Henry Rowland....German Officer (uncredited)
Richard Ryen....Heinz, Strasser's Aide (uncredited)
Dan Seymour....Abdul, Rick's Doorman (uncredited)
Ludwig Stössel....Mr. Leuchtag (segment "What watch") (uncredited)
Norma Varden....Englishwoman with Pickpocketed Englishman (uncredited)
Hans Heinrich von Twardowski...German Officer (Yvonne's German- French Affair) (uncredited)
Leo White....Waiter (uncredited)
Wolfgang Zilzer....Man with expired papers (uncredited)
Directed by…Michael Curtiz
Writing credits
Murray Burnett and Joan Alison
(play Everybody Comes to Rick's)
Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch
Casey Robinson uncredited
Hal B. Wallis....producer
Jack L. Warner....executive producer
Original Music by…M.K. Jerome (songs) Jack Scholl (songs)
Max Steiner
Non-Original Music by….Herman Hupfeld (song "As Time Goes By") (uncredited)
Cinematography by…Arthur Edeson
Film Editing by….Owen Marks
Art Direction by…Carl Jules Weyl
Set Decoration by…George James Hopkins
Costume Design by…Orry-Kelly (gowns)
Perc Westmore....makeup artist
Al Alleborn....production manager
Lee Katz....assistant director (uncredited)
Francis J. Scheid....sound
Lawrence W. Butler....special effects director (as Lawrence Butler)
Willard Van Enger....special effects
Robert Aisner....technical advisor
Leo F. Forbstein....musical director
Hugo Friedhofer....music arranger: orchestral arrangements
James Leicester....montage
Hugh MacMullan....dialogue director
Don Siegel....montage
Bob Williams....unit publicist
Elliot Carpenter....musician: piano, dubbed Dooley Wilson's playing (uncredited)
Anthony Gasbarri....tailor: Mr. Bogart's tuxedo (uncredited)
No
one making ‘Casablanca’ thought they were making a great film. It was simply
another Warner Bros. release. It
was made on a tight budget ($950,000) and released with small expectations.
Everyone involved in the film had been, and would be, in dozens of other films
made under similar circumstances, and the greatness of
‘Casablanca’ was largely the result of happy chance.
‘Casablanca’ was just another studio main feature produced by Hal B.
Wallis and directed by Michael Curtiz.
The fact is that even if they had wanted to, they could not have set out
to make ‘Casablanca’ turn out the way it did.
It was a combination of elements and circumstances which produced a work
of indefinable appeal which has endured for generations even though tastes and
attitudes have changed. You
don’t set out to make a classic, you set out to make a film.
The story was
from an unproduced play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison, a play of no great
consequence and written for the screen by the brothers Julius J. and Philip G.
Epstein and Howard Koch (and the uncredited
Casey Robinson). They
struggled hard as studio hacks on assignment to get the script pages in on time,
and did not plan for the fact that because the actors did not know how the film
would end their ambiguous and edgy characterisations would be a major
contribution to film folklore and debate ever after.
Humphrey Bogart was always best when he played the disappointed, wounded,
resentful hero. In ‘Casablanca’ he is Rick Blaine, an American running a
nightclub in Casablanca when Morocco was a crossroads for spies, traitors, Nazis
and the French Resistance. Into
this world comes Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman), the woman Rick loved years earlier
in Paris. (“of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks
into mine”). Under the shadow of
the German occupation, he arranged their escape, and believes she abandoned him
– left him waiting in the rain at a railway station with their tickets to
freedom. Now she is with Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), a legendary hero of the
French Resistance.
No better cast of
supporting actors could have been assembled on the Warner Bros. lot – the
richness of the characters, Sidney Greenstreet as Signor Ferrari, the corrupt
rival club owner, Peter Lorre as Guillermo Ugarte, the wheedling little black-marketeer,
Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault, the police chief and Conrad Veidt as
Major Heinrich Strasser the Nazis ‘baddie’.
Stylistically, the film is not so much brilliant as absolutely sound, rock-solid
in its use of Hollywood studio craftsmanship. Michael Curtiz, the director, and
the writers Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch all won Oscars,
as did the film itself gaining Best Picture 1943.
The final touches to the legend of Casablanca were equally incidental. Musical
director Leo Forbstein oversaw the hiring of Max Steiner and the selection of
two songs 'Knock on Wood' by M.K. Jerome and Jack Scholl and 'As Time Goes By'
by Herman Hopfeld to be performed by entertainer Dooley Wilson, still in the
first year of his film career (Dooley Wilson was a drummer who did not play
piano).
The film was
critically and commercially successful, and after its release its cast and crew
went on to their next films oblivious to the fact that as far as popular memory
was concerned, they would always be associated with a night –club in
Casablanca.
The black-and-white cinematography has not aged and the dialogue is so spare and
cynical it has not grown old-fashioned.
There have been two attempts to make a sequel to Casablanca, both times on
television, both times a failure.
The DVD has been taken from the print that was created for the 50th
anniversary (I think) therefore it is not quite up to the standard of today’s
restorations but is still very good and the presentation in 1.33:1 looks great.
To be honest with such a well know and popular film you would hardly have
expected Warner Bros. to do any less. The
grading of the Black and White is excellent, with the black solid so that the
contrast stands out wonderfully – it’s the sort of film that shows how
purest will argue that colour only takes away from the story.
The Dolby Mono track is also very clean.
The 36min featurette ‘You Must Remember This’ introduced by Louren
Bacall is just a celebration of the film – rather than giving any insights;
but it still worth a watch. The
only other extra is the American trailer.
This is one of those happy chances where the script, actors, crew in fact
everything just fell together to make a lasting film that deserved it’s Best
Picture Oscar.
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