I like the film CASABLANCA.
No, I really like CASABLANCA.
The moment I see that map opening of the film, I stop blinking (except to dismiss the tears) until Rick and Inspector Renaud walk away from the camera into the fog.
Less happily, the moment I see a map opening of any film (Indiana Jones, Mister Moto, Marlin Perkins…), I expect to not blink until Rick and Inspector Renaud walk away from the camera into the fog.
Some days, if I’m asked to name a favorite movie, I will unhesitantly answer; CASABLANCA.
But how many times can you watch it until you have it memorized and inevitably clear every room by singing “As Time Goes By” and “La Marseillaise” with an execrable Vichy accent?
You eventually start longing for more.
Yes…
…more like CASABLANCA.
Thank goodness, they’re out there; films that are liberally flavored with spies, bazaars, boozey night-club piano-players, men in fezzes (who don’t ride miniature motorcycles), crooked police authorities, bumbling Nazis, and beautiful women with a back story that involves Paris. The movie may set in the Casbah, Greece, Portugal, Tangiers, or Martinique, but the beautiful women “always have Paris.” Films like PEPE LE MOKO (1937), THE MASK OF DIMITRIOS (1944), and TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT (1944) can assuage the longing to visit Rick’s Café Americaine for a couple of hours.
I’ve recently added two more flicks to this list.
THE GOLDEN SALAMANDER (1950) is set in Portugal and stars Trevor Howard. Mr. Howard’s fine, but others in the cast are more interesting to me. This is one of the first films of Anouk Aimée. She’s 18 years old, and while she’s not yet the luminous beauty she later became, you watch nothing but her when she’s on the screen.
Walter Rilla menaces convincingly, dripping with corruption and lethality. This is not a man I would wish wanted to hurt me or help me…just leave me alone, please.
Wilfrid Hyde-White plays the Hoagy Carmichael/Dooley Wilson piano-player with a soupçon of Walter Brennan. It’s a remarkable departure from the gentle aristocratic characters in which we are accustomed to see him. This ain’t MY FAIR LADY.
One villager rationalizes his lack of protest against the clear evil of local authorities;
“The world has more evil than a dog fleas. We were given eyes, but for our comfort, the wisdom of knowing when to shut them.”
Admirable?
No.
Redolent of segments of today’s American conundrums?
Most certainly.
CANDLELIGHT IN ALGERIA (1943) stars a young James Mason and, again, a wickedly driven Walter Rilla.
But a delightful moment is spun by Pamela Stirling as the tragic Yvette;
“Madame, in love, you can fool a man, you can fool yourself, but you cannot fool another woman.”
In 1943, WWII was still quite in doubt. This closing moment in the film must have been stirring, if troubling;
“I know when I light this candle, I light a flame that will drive the enemy out of Africa, a flame that will be carried across the waters and across the heart of Europe to the very heart of Berlin.”
Feel free to light that candle…and grab a tissue.
June's Boy 