Casablanca (Special Edition)
"Makes the spine tingle and the heart take a leap. Highly entertaining and even inspiring." -Bosley Crowther, The New York Times
Winner of three Academy Awards including Best Picture, Casablanca marks 60 years as a beloved favorite with a new digital transfer and so many bonuses that no matter how often you've seen it, this Deluxe 2-disc DVD looks like yet another beginning of a beautiful friendship with an unforgettable classic.
Member Reviews
casablanca - dsfan
this is a classic movie folks. if you want to see a great movie, it does not get much better than this, seriously folks, i am not kidding, this is one of the greatest movies ever made. if you don't believe me then go ahead and rent it. i know you will like it. seriously.For Me The Greatest Film Ever - Gregg
Why do I consider this to be the greatest film ever, Well its the most enjoyable film I have ever watched and the most re-watchable. The key ingredients in my mind include; wonderful dialogue (so many quotable oft repeated lines), amazing performances, a superb story that while relatively straightforward is also highly enjoyable and finally the great black and white cinematography. Beyond these ingredients its also a film moves quickly and I can’t think of a single scene I found either uninteresting or unnecessary.
For those that desire a synopsis, Rick (Humphrey Bogart) is an American expatriate running a popular nightclub in Casablanca a city under Vichy control. His cool disinterested facade is shaken when Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) his former lover whom he thought dead appears suddenly in his club with her husband a resistance leader who requires safe passage out of German controlled territory. In order for the escape to succeed Rick must not only hide them from the Germans but also the local French police commander (Claude Rains) who is a friend but also a collaborator.
My favorite performance here will always be that of Humphrey Bogart as Rick a man of nobility while evidencing ambivalence, but his performance is closely followed by the wonderful Claude Rains and the limited but iconic performances of Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre. While Ingrid Bergman apparently did not enjoy her experience and it may not be amongst her greatest roles I thought it was still a great performance and also that the chemistry between Bogart and herself was utterly convincing. Further I found both Paul Henreid in the thankless role of the other man in the love triangle and Conrad Veidt as the local German commander to be quite effective along with a good supporting cast.
I believe Michael Curtiz is an underrated director, its true he was not an auteur but a studio director who made the films he was assigned but he has an incredible legacy of film.A Classic War Movie That Doesn't Seem Like A War Movie - revsdd
What I liked most about "Casablanca" was what it wasn't. Unlike most war movies that I've seen that were actually made during World War II, this has no battle scenes and no overtly patriotic binges (and what patriotism there is is French rather than American, which I found refreshing.) It comes across not as propaganda, but as a very human and very well done story about the struggles of living in Casablanca (governed by Vichy France) during the Second World War.
Humphrey Bogart seemed to me to be perfectly cast as Rick Blaine - the owner of an American cafe in Casablanca who for the most part tries to stay out of politics, although his contempt for the Germans clearly comes across in a variety of scenes. Ingrid Bergman also did a great job as Ilsa, a former love interest of Rick's who desperately needs Rick's help to escape to America with her husband (played by Paul Henreid) who is a leader of the anti-Nazi underground and has escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. Bogart and Bergman were great together; to be honest I thought Bergman and Henreid were less so, although what I sensed as the awkwardness between them may well have been a deliberate way of portraying Ilsa's confusion about her feelings for Rick. Claude Rains I thought did a great job playing Police Prefect Renault. He seemed to capture the dilemma of most officials of Vichy France - as he said himself, he blows "with the wind, and for the moment the wind is blowing from Vichy." His relationship with the Germans is deferential, and yet one gets the impression that basically, trapped in a tough situation, he's looking out for himself, which is probably what many Vichy officials did.
With a strong cast and a strong story featuring believable characters you end up with a very strong movie. It's interesting rather than exciting, and much better than most of the standard anti-Nazi patriotic binges that I've seen from the war years.
Member Reviews
Read All...
casablanca - dsfan
this is a classic movie folks. if you want to see a great movie, it does not get much better than this, seriously folks, i am not kidding, this is one of the greatest movies ever made. if you don't believe me then go ahead and rent it. i know you will like ...For Me The Greatest Film Ever - Gregg
Why do I consider this to be the greatest film ever, Well its the most enjoyable film I have ever watched and the most re-watchable. The key ingredients in my mind include; wonderful dialogue (so many quotable oft repeated lines), amazing performances, a superb ...A Classic War Movie That Doesn't Seem Like A War Movie - revsdd
What I liked most about "Casablanca" was what it wasn't. Unlike most war movies that I've seen that were actually made during World War II, this has no battle scenes and no overtly patriotic binges (and what patriotism there is is French rather than American, ...