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This isn't the first film - but I've not written the others up yet.
1 Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
Citizen Kane is frequently voted the best film ever (by voters whose memories go back beyond the latest equivalent of Twiglit), and parts of it for me are up there at the very top along with ... North by North West, Once Upon a Time in America and Mallrats ... but it has longeurs, whereas Casablanca just gets better with each viewing.
I mean, obviously, someone should insert new cgi footage of the planes taking off, and convert it to 3D, but otherwise it's cool.
I'd sort of assumed it was closer in date to Pearl Harbor, but it's released a year after that attack, although there's still an obvious subtext of isolationism versus involvement which Rick goes through as no doubt plenty of Americans still needed to go through.It's set after Pearl Harbor, too. [Nope] And it's the war story that dominates over the love story - the war effort becoming more significant than personal happiness. (I have had arguments with students over whether it's a war film. Which is rather like an argument that The Sparrow is not sf, though for different reasons.)
Unlike Hamlet, which is a plays full of quotations, this is full of misquotations, and I began to wonder whether "round up the usual suspects" might not be one of these, as Louis says several close versions before he hots that line.
I guess this is the twentieth or so rewatch, but things I noticed this time: the attempt to straighten Louis - I hadn't registered the commentary on how he could be sexually bribed before (and yes, I must have picked this up, but I didn't remember it), which may be a counter to Louis's very odd line "Well, Rick is the kind of man that... well, if I were a woman, and I were not around, I should be in love with Rick." Clearly Louis steals all the best lines, even if Rick is the main character.
And whilst there's the repeated use of kid for Ilsa, I don't think I'd registered how infantilised she is by the film: she's more like a daughter than a lover. But she's an image of a seducing daughter. I think Victor kisses her, but not the other way round - on a cheek or forehead, not the lips. Rick and Ilsa get to lock lips. She tends to be kept on the right hand side of the screen.
I had meant to note I don't recall seeing Don Siegel's name on the credits before. He worked on the montage sequences - I gather the opening sequence (and the flashbacks to France and stock footage?). Subtext for Invasion of the Body Snatchers?
1 Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
Citizen Kane is frequently voted the best film ever (by voters whose memories go back beyond the latest equivalent of Twiglit), and parts of it for me are up there at the very top along with ... North by North West, Once Upon a Time in America and Mallrats ... but it has longeurs, whereas Casablanca just gets better with each viewing.
I mean, obviously, someone should insert new cgi footage of the planes taking off, and convert it to 3D, but otherwise it's cool.
I'd sort of assumed it was closer in date to Pearl Harbor, but it's released a year after that attack, although there's still an obvious subtext of isolationism versus involvement which Rick goes through as no doubt plenty of Americans still needed to go through.
Unlike Hamlet, which is a plays full of quotations, this is full of misquotations, and I began to wonder whether "round up the usual suspects" might not be one of these, as Louis says several close versions before he hots that line.
I guess this is the twentieth or so rewatch, but things I noticed this time: the attempt to straighten Louis - I hadn't registered the commentary on how he could be sexually bribed before (and yes, I must have picked this up, but I didn't remember it), which may be a counter to Louis's very odd line "Well, Rick is the kind of man that... well, if I were a woman, and I were not around, I should be in love with Rick." Clearly Louis steals all the best lines, even if Rick is the main character.
And whilst there's the repeated use of kid for Ilsa, I don't think I'd registered how infantilised she is by the film: she's more like a daughter than a lover. But she's an image of a seducing daughter. I think Victor kisses her, but not the other way round - on a cheek or forehead, not the lips. Rick and Ilsa get to lock lips. She tends to be kept on the right hand side of the screen.
I had meant to note I don't recall seeing Don Siegel's name on the credits before. He worked on the montage sequences - I gather the opening sequence (and the flashbacks to France and stock footage?). Subtext for Invasion of the Body Snatchers?
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