Contact Help Wanted

Claude Rains on TCM

Claude Rains, one of the greatest actors of the studio era — in fact, one of the greatest film actors of the 20th century — is Turner Classic Movies‘ Star of the Month of September.
What would I recommend?
Well, whether on TCM or on DVD or on VHS or in some hidden vault somewhere, I’d say check him out in The Invisible Man and (ouch!) The Lost World; his supporting roles opposite Priscilla Lane and Bette Davis; his Oscar-nominated roles in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Casablanca, Mr. Skeffington, and Notorious; his brief appearances in Lawrence of Arabia and The Greatest Story Ever Told; his cinematic swan song, Twilight of Honor. In sum, if Claude Rains is in it, [...]

National Film Registry

The National Film Registry, Library of Congress
1) ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948)
2) ADAM’S RIB (1949)
3) THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1938)
4) THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951)
5) ALIEN (1979)
6) ALL ABOUT EVE (1950)
7) ALL MY BABIES (1953)

8) ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (1930)
9) ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS (1955)
10) ALL THAT JAZZ (1979)
11) ALL THE KING’S MEN (1949)
12) AMERICA, AMERICA (1963)
13) AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973)
14) AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951)
15) ANNIE HALL (1977)
16) ANTONIA: A PORTRAIT OF THE WOMAN (1974)
17) THE APARTMENT (1960)
18) APOCALYPSE NOW [...]

CASABLANCA Vs. EVERYBODY COMES TO RICK’S

Worth checking out:
Martin N. Kriegl’s brief 2004 essay on the differences (in html) between Murray Burnett and Joan Alison’s "Everybody Comes to Rick’s," the unproduced play that was the basis for Casablanca, and the film’s screenplay credited to Philip G. Epstein, Julius J. Epstein, and Howard Koch.
Here are a couple of snippets from Kriegl’s text:
"Upon first reading both stage play and screenplay, one is tempted to jump to the conclusion that Casablanca is one of the rare occasions where a story, through adaptation from one medium to another, is elevated from a mediocre (if promising) source material to a gem of rare beauty. …
"The character Rick, a former rebel with apparently inviolable values and principles, who has lost [...]

CASABLANCA VII – Final Commentary

Dooley Wilson, Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca

CASABLANCA Review Part VI
On the plus side, Casablanca is quite modern in terms of pacing (and in some aspects of editing), for within the first ten or twelve minutes you feel as if you know these archetypal characters (for good or ill), as if you’d already had a full movie’s worth of them under your belt. This is part of the reason why the film sucks you into its vortex, and gets (subjectively) better as it goes on, even if, objectively, it’s fairly static in terms of plot.
On the downside, Casablanca has not dated well because of its poor special effects (at the level of Alfred [...]

CASABLANCA VI – Review

Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca

CASABLANCA V d: Michael Curtiz
In his essay ‘Casablanca, or, The Cliches Are Having a Ball‘ writer-philosopher Umberto Eco states:
‘Casablanca is not just one film. It is many films, an anthology. Made haphazardly, it probably made itself, if not actually against the will of its authors and actors, then at least beyond their control. And this is the reason it works, in spite of aesthetic theories and theories of film making. For in it there unfolds with almost telluric force the power of Narrative in its natural state, without Art intervening to discipline it. And so we can accept it when characters change mood, morality, and psychology from [...]

CASABLANCA V d: Michael Curtiz

CASABLANCA IV – Ingrid Bergman
Casablanca is part of a two-disc DVD package, put out by Warner Bros. Disc one has the film in a transfer (1.33:1 aspect ratio) stunningly free of blemishes. The disc also has two theatrical trailers (the original and re-release trailers); an introduction by Bogart’s widow, Lauren Bacall; and two commentaries. The lesser one is by film historian Rudy Behlmer. It’s loaded with information on the making of the film, but Behlmer is just reading from a script of Warner Bros. inter-office memos about the film, and few of the facts are scene-specific. Behlmer’s monotone is also rather off-putting, and he rarely ventures an idea or [...]

CASABLANCA IV – Ingrid Bergman

Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca

CASABLANCA III – Humphrey Bogart
That brings me to the last and least of the trio of star performances: Ingrid Bergman’s rather mediocre portrayal of Ilsa Lund. First, it’s not a truly bad performance, but it’s nowhere near great. One need only look at contemporaneous performances by, say, Katharine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, or even Judy Garland, to see how much Bergman pales in contrast. Ilsa is a pawn, a toy, a heroine whose life is the plaything of the two men in her life — and, incidentally, isn’t it interesting how similar in facial construction both Henreid and Bogart are? A fortuitous development that adds some [...]

CASABLANCA III – Humphrey Bogart

CASABLANCA II – Paul Henreid
Now, contrast Henreid’s Victor with Bogart’s Rick. Rick is rather one-dimensional despite the character’s early evocations of depth. His attraction to Ilsa seems quite superficial; after all, in the flashback scenes in Paris and even those in Casablanca, does he ever speak of higher purpose? No, Rick is wholly selfish, through and through. Bogart’s Rick is also a far showier role than Henreid’s Laszlo. But does Bogart do anything more with it?
Despite some wittier lines and the nice scene where Rick lets a Romanian refugee couple win at roulette to pay for their visas out of Casablanca, is Rick Blaine sufficiently different from the Sam Spade Bogart [...]

CASABLANCA II – Paul Henreid

Paul Henreid, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca

CASABLANCA Review Part I
Beginning with the three top-billed actors: Humphrey Bogart as club owner Rick Blaine, Ingrid Bergman as his ex-lover Ilsa Lund, and Paul Henreid as Ilsa’s husband, the Czechoslovakian Nazi Resistance outlaw, Victor Laszlo. Virtually all critiques of this trio leave Henreid as the odd man out, mainly because the film focuses on the love angle between Rick and Ilsa. But from a purely technical standpoint, Henreid gives, by far, the best performance of the trio. Because it is the most retrained and understated, however, it usually gets dismissed as stiff acting, rather than good acting of an intentionally stiff [...]

CASABLANCA

Casablanca (1942)
Direction: Michael Curtiz
Screenplay: Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, Howard Koch; from Murray Burnett and Joan Alison’s unproduced play "Everybody Comes to Rick’s"
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Conrad Veidt, S. Z. Sakall, Dooley Wilson, Joy Page
 

Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca
 

By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
About three years ago, I finally gave in to watch It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) for the first time. I had hesitated because of the five- and ten-minute snippets of the film I had seen, and for its reputation as a hokey Christmas story ‘chestnut.’ Well, was I wrong, for It’s a Wonderful Life is a truly great film — arguably the best [...]

Hedy Lamarr III: CASABLANCA, Private Life

Charles Boyer, Hedy Lamarr in Algiers

Hedy Lamarr – Q&A with Author Patrick Agan: Part II
Is it true that Hedy Lamarr refused the lead roles in Casablanca, Gaslight, and Saratoga Trunk? If so, do you know what her reaction was after those three films became huge hits for Ingrid Bergman?
Let’s get one thing straight off the bat. Hedy Lamarr never turned down Casablanca.
L. B. had her solidly booked for several movies, two of which, I think, defined both her talent and her image. True, [producer] Hal Wallis wanted her for it, but Mayer said no as he had Tortilla Flat, Crossroads, and White Cargo already lined up.
Why should L. B. have loaned her over to [Warner [...]

Best Films – 1942

FILM
Bambi
d: David Hand; scr: Larry Morey and others
The Black Swan
d: Henry King; scr: Ben Hecht, Seton I. Miller
Casablanca
d: Michael Curtiz; scr: Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, Howard Koch
Johnny Eager
d: Mervyn LeRoy; scr: John Lee Mahin, James Edward Grant
The Magnificent Ambersons
d, scr: Orson Welles
The Major and the Minor
d: Billy Wilder; scr: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder
Once Upon a Honeymoon
d: Leo McCarey; scr: Sheridan Gibney
Random Harvest
d: Mervyn LeRoy; scr: Claudine West, George Froeschel, Arthur Wimperis
Tales of Manhattan
d: Julien Duvivier; scr: Ben Hecht, Ferenc Molnar, Donald Ogden Stewart, Samuel Hoffenstein, Alan Campbell, Ladislas Fodor, Laslo Vadnay, Laszlo Gorog, Lamar Trotti, Henry Blankfort
The Talk of the Town
d: George Stevens; scr: Irwin Shaw, Sidney Buchman
 

Carole Lombard, [...]

Recently Posted

• Golden Globes 2010 Predictions: Best Actor - Drama
• Oscar 2010: Animated Short Film Semi-Finalists
• Golden Globes 2010 Predictions: Best Picture – Comedy or Musical
• Golden Globes 2010 Predictions: Best Picture - Drama
• Noel Clarke's ADULTHOOD on IFC Festival Direct
• Oscar 2010: Documentary Feature Semi-Finalists
• THE FUPLERS: Q&A with Matt Koval
• Yoav Shamir's DEFAMATION Opens in NY/LA
• TCM Classic Film Festival: A STAR IS BORN, METROPOLIS, BREATHLESS, 2001
• FOUR SEASONS LODGE Screenings

Most Popular Tags

2008 Oscar 2010 Oscar Academy Awards Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Animation Best Films Books Box Office Brokeback Mountain Censorship Classic Movies Daniel Day-Lewis Documentaries DVDs Film Awards Film Festivals Film Reviews Gay Film Festivals Gay Interest Gay Movies Heath Ledger Helen Mirren Interviews London Film Festival London Film Festival 2009 Los Angeles Screenings Martin Scorsese New York Screenings No Country for Old Men Oscar Movies Photos Political Movies Politics Sex Shorts Silent Films Slumdog Millionaire Sundance Film Festival Trailers Turner Classic Movies


Related Posts

Vincent ShermanBest Films – 1913Best Films – 1918Best Films – 1916Best Films – 1914CINEMA, ASPIRIN AND VULTURES d: Marcelo Gomes