Why casablanca is the greatest movie

His banter with Bogart throughout the film is priceless. The Dialogue. And Phillip became grandfather to a boy named Theo Epstein, who guided my beloved Boston Red Sox to World Series title in , ending an eighty-six year drought!!

Like this: Like Loading Love these old movies too. Norton — cracked rear viewer. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:. Email required Address never made public. Name required. Previous Post Previous Leave a Link. Follow Following. Sign me up. Already have a WordPress. Log in now. Loading Comments Ingrid Bergman , meanwhile, who plays the absurdly beautiful Ilsa Lund, brought a European sensibility to her part that feels sensual, rather than merely sexy.

Based on an unproduced play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison, the Casablanca script by twin brothers Julius and Philip Epstein, Howard Koch and the great Casey Robinson uncredited is a master-class of dialog, tone — somehow world-weary and earnest at once — and deftly handled mid-World War II propaganda that actually works as propaganda. Rick: My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters. Renault: The waters? What waters? Rick: I was misinformed. Bergman played the whole movie without knowing how it would end, and this had the subtle effect of making all of her scenes more emotionally convincing; she could not tilt in the direction she knew the wind was blowing.

Stylistically, the film is not so much brilliant as absolutely sound, rock-solid in its use of Hollywood studio craftsmanship. The director, Michael Curtiz, and the writers Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch all won Oscars.

One of their key contributions was to show us that Rick, Ilsa and the others lived in a complex time and place. The richness of the supporting characters Greenstreet as the corrupt club owner, Lorre as the sniveling cheat, Rains as the subtly homosexual police chief and minor characters like the young girl who will do anything to help her husband set the moral stage for the decisions of the major characters.

Seeing the film over and over again, year after year, I find it never grows over-familiar. It plays like a favorite musical album; the more I know it, the more I like it. The black-and-white cinematography has not aged as color would.

The dialogue is so spare and cynical it has not grown old-fashioned. Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from until his death in In , he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

Reviews Great Movies Casablanca. Roger Ebert September 15, Now streaming on:. Powered by JustWatch. Now playing.