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Summary
Summary
For the 75th anniversary of its premiere--the incredible story of how Casablanca was made and why it remains the most beloved of Hollywood films.
Casablanca was first released in 1942, just two weeks after the city of Casablanca itself surrendered to American troops led by General Patton. Featuring a pitch-perfect screenplay, a classic soundtrack, and unforgettable performances by Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and a deep supporting cast, Casablanca was hailed in the New York Times as "a picture that makes the spine tingle and the heart take a leap." The film won Oscars for best picture, best director, and best screenplay, and would go on to enjoy more revival screenings than any other movie in history. It became so firmly ensconced in the cultural imagination that, as Umberto Eco once said, Casablanca is "not one movie; it is 'movies.' "
We'll Always Have Casablanca is celebrated film historian Noah Isenberg's rich account of this most beloved movie's origins. Through extensive research and interviews with filmmakers, film critics, family members of the cast and crew, and diehard fans, Isenberg reveals the myths and realities behind Casablanca's production, exploring the transformation of the unproduced stage play into the classic screenplay, the controversial casting decisions, the battles with Production Code censors, and the effect of the war's progress on the movie's reception. Isenberg particularly focuses on the central role refugees from Hitler's Europe played in the production (nearly all of the actors and actresses cast in Casablanca were immigrants).
Finally, Isenberg turns to Casablanca's long afterlife and the reasons it remains so revered. From the Marx Brothers' 1946 spoof hit, A Night in Casablanca, to loving parodies in New Yorker cartoons, Saturday Night Live skits, and Simpsons episodes, Isenberg delves into the ways the movie has lodged itself in the American psyche.
Filled with fresh insights into Casablanca's creation, production, and legacy, We'll Always Have Casablanca is a magnificent account of what made the movie so popular and why it continues to dazzle audiences seventy-five years after its release.
Author Notes
Noah Isenberg is professor and chair of the department of radio-television-film at the University of Texas at Austin, the author of We'll Always Have Casablanca, Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins, editor of Weimar Cinema, and the recipient of an NEH Public Scholar Award.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Isenberg (Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins) has created a thorough and impassioned account of the making of the 1942 Hollywood classic starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. He begins with Casablanca's modest origins in an unproduced three-act play and ends with its lasting cultural impact. Along the way, he makes a strong case for the film as an ideal example of studio collaboration. Isenberg emphasizes the contributions of nearly everyone at Warner Brothers, including producer Hal B. Wallis, director Michael Curtiz, screenwriters Julius and Philip Epstein and Howard Koch, and some of the studio's best contract players (Sydney Greenstreet, Paul Henreid, Peter Lorre, and Claude Rains). Diligently researched and incorporating extensive interviews and documentation, the book is commendable for its attention to the most mundane details of filmmaking. Nevertheless, readers expecting a critical study might find the author's exhaustive admiration for his subject a bit wearing. As Irish film critic Paul Whitington astutely observes in the book's introduction, "Maybe there are better films than Casablanca, but there are probably none better loved." Agent: Zoe Pagnamenta, Zoe Pagnamenta Agency. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Here's the best thing about this book: whether you're a Casablanca devotee or just a film-history buff, the story of how the iconic movie got made and what the world made of it is downright fascinating, an absolute page-turner, even a kind of narrative nonfiction thriller. The 1942 film began life as an unproduced stage play, Everybody Comes to Rick's, conceived by a schoolteacher who wanted to voice his concerns over German anti-Semitism in the years leading up to WWII (a message to people who didn't think Hitler was a real threat). Warner Brothers bought the film rights, threw a lot of different writers at the project, changed the story around a bit, rushed the picture into theaters to capitalize on pro-American war news (the Allies had just invaded North Africa), and saw solid but not spectacular box-office returns. Isenberg capably recounts all this history, but his book isn't trying to compete with Aljean Harmetz's Round Up the Usual Suspects (1992), the definitive account of the making of Casablanca. Isenberg is telling a broader story about the history of the film and its cultural significance (it became a classic, he argues, in large part because it reinforced America's vision of itself as tough, resourceful, morally upstanding, and heroic). Along the way, the author dispels some cherished myths about the movie despite the legend, Ronald Reagan and George Raft were never serious contenders to play Rick Blaine and tosses in a few nifty surprises, such as the revelation that Dooley Wilson, who played Sam, couldn't actually play the piano. The author does some very nice detective work, too, poring over script drafts and production records to nail down who exactly wrote the movie. Yes, the credited screenwriters played roles, but some of the film's most famous lines probably came from others (unconfirmed stories, for example, suggest that director Michael Curtiz may have given us the line, Here's looking at you, kid). A valuable and insightful addition to the literature of film history.--Pitt, David Copyright 2016 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
IT'S A strange but serendipitous coincidence that two books devoted to Hollywood classics, "Casablanca" and "High Noon," are being published at the same time. The films, released a scant 10 years apart in 1942 and 1952 respectively, are perfect bookends, spot-on reflections of the times in which they were made, and therefore dramatically different. And in the era of the Trump presidency, these books are charged by an immediacy they otherwise might not enjoy. "Casablanca" arrived just short of a year after the United States declared war on Germany. In it, Humphrey Bogart's Rick Blaine, whose mantra is "I stick my neck out for nobody," famously does just that, shrugging off the neutrality that had been American policy until Pearl Harbor, and helping his former flame Ingrid Bergman and the Czech resistance hero Paul Henreid escape the Nazis. The film also includes a memorably inspirational episode of collective defiance, as the refugees, con men and adventurers in Rick's place join in a rousing rendition of the "Marseillaise," drowning out German officers who are singing "Die Wacht am Rhein." "High Noon," on the other hand, is a profile in collective cowardice. The United States was in the grip of the Red Scare, and the marshal, Will Kane (Gary Cooper), can't find a single good man in the dusty Western town of Hadleyville to help him confront the Miller brothers and their gang, who have sworn to kill him. Coop prevails, naturally, but his triumph fails to dispel the toxic fog of betrayal and disillusion that shrouds the story. "We'll Always Have Casablanca" was written by Noah Isenberg, the director of screen studies at the New School, and probably best known for a biography of Edgar G. Ulmer, a B-film director much beloved by cineastes. Here, Isenberg gives us the soup-to-nuts on "Casablanca," dutifully making his way through script, casting, production and reception, to the inevitable squabbling over credit, all the while trying to account for its enduring popularity. "Casablanca" was rooted in a trip that the aspiring playwright Murray Burnett and his wife took to Vienna in the summer of 1938, just after they were married. Austria had overwhelmingly voted to serve itself up to the German Anschluss that March, and was busy implementing the notorious Nuremberg Laws. Burnett quickly discovered that it was not the best place for Jews on their honeymoon. But getting out of Vienna was considerably harder than getting in, especially since Burnett, wearing diamond rings on every finger, and his wife, wearing a fur coat in August, were smuggling out valuables belonging to relatives. When they reached the South of France, they stopped at a cafe full of refugees and army officers. Burnett said to his wife, "What a setting for a play." Burnett developed his play with his writing partner, Joan Alison, but could not get it produced. He did, however, manage to sell it to Warner Brothers, generally known for its progressive pictures, and in particular a series of anti-Nazi films like "Confessions of a Nazi Spy," released in 1939, when other studios were still trying to protect their German assets. Nobody involved with "Casablanca" had high expectations for the picture, although it was written by the colorful Epstein twins, Julius and Philip, and Howard Koch. The Epsteins were widely admired for their witty dialogue, on and off screen. Of the film, Julius once said, "There wasn't one moment of reality in 'Casablanca.' We weren't making art. We were making a living." Nevertheless, when it was released, it became an instant hit, and won three Oscars, including best picture. It's all in Isenberg's account, and "Casablanca" fans will find it to be a treasure trove of facts and anecdotes. "High Noon" is a far deeper dig into the background and historical context of its subject; that is, the sorry history of the blacklist, instituted by the studios after the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) put a gun to their collective heads in 1947. Despite the voluminous literature on the subject, surprisingly little has been written about "High Noon." For many years, Billy Wilder's unfriendly words about the socalled Unfriendly Ten who took the Fifth Amendment before HUAC - "Only two of them have talent. The rest are just unfriendly" - passed for the conventional wisdom. Even though Carl Foreman, who hatched the story and wrote the script, had more - and better - credits than most of his blacklisted confreres, unlike them he didn't live to finish writing his memoirs. The director, Fred Zinnemann, never made it into the film critic Andrew Sarris's famous Pantheon, and the producer, Stanley Kramer, was condescended to by intellectuals for his message movies. Glenn Frankel comes to his subject with a widely praised book about John Ford's "The Searchers" and an impressive résumé in journalism, including a Pulitzer Prize. Although much of Frankel's material is familiar, the blacklist is a gift that keeps on giving. There always seems to be something new to chew on, in this case the transcripts of HUAC's secret executive sessions. Besides, it's a story that bears retelling because Hollywood, not to mention the rest of the country, is haunted by ghosts that won't go away (witness Newt Gingrich's recent call for a resurrection of HUAC, now to be wielded against ISIS, not Communists). At first HUAC was considered something of a joke, but as time passed, the committee's antics became more scary than risible. Like much of the Hollywood left, Humphrey Bogart supported the 19 "unfriendly" screenwriters initially called before the committee. He had backed Franklin Roosevelt in his 1944 presidential campaign, and when he was attacked by the right, he struck a defiant note in The Saturday Evening Post. Alluding to his role in "Casablanca," he wrote, "I'm going to keep right on sticking my neck out, without worrying about its possible effect upon my career." But a brief three years later, when the right turned up the heat, he published an abject apologia in Photoplay magazine entitled, "I'm No Communist," in which he distanced himself from the Ten. Likewise, Jack Warner, whose studio had invented the anti-fascist genre, gave HUAC the names of 16 screenwriters, including those of the Epstein twins, of whom he said, "Those boys are always on the side of the underdog." Foreman didn't intend his script to be the blacklist parable it became, but as he watched his friends fall around him, it was almost inevitable. Foreman felt like the Gary Cooper character. He regarded "High Noon" as a picture about "conscience" versus "compromise." SURPRISINGLY, IT IS GARY COOPER, a card-carrying conservative, who emerges as one of the few heroes of this story. Called before HUAC in the middle of production, Foreman gave his star the opportunity to leave the picture - guilt by association was de rigueur in those days - but Cooper refused. Foreman declined to name names, and Kramer fired him. In "Casablanca," the so-called refugee trail led from Europe to America. During the witch hunt years, it went the other way. Moving to London, Foreman said goodbye to his country, his livelihood and, eventually, his marriage. Cooper tried to help him by buying stock in his new company, but bullied by the likes of John Wayne and Hedda Hopper, he eventually pulled out, albeit cordially. If Foreman had thought that art was imitating life in "High Noon," once Cooper caved it seemed clear that at least in his life, unlike Marshal Will Kane's, there were no happy endings. Frankel narrates this story well. He has a sure ear for the telling anecdote, and a good eye for detail. (Parnell Thomas chaired the HUAC hearings sitting on a phone book covered by a red cushion to compensate for his diminutive stature.) The era has been labeled "the plague years," but Frankel is forgiving of those caught up in its tangle of principle and expediency, courage and cowardice. He adopts the verdict of Dalton Trumbo, another of the Unfriendly Ten: "There were only victims." PETER BISKIND is the author of several books on Hollywood and American film.
Kirkus Review
A film scholar explores the legendary history and lasting appeal of Casablanca (1942).Casablanca remains one of the most memorable films ever produced. A star-making vehicle for its two lead actors, Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, it has served as a textbook example of how the studio system, in this case Warner Brothers, applied its best efforts and assets in producing a film of exceptional merit. As Isenberg (Screen Studies/The New School; Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins, 2014, etc.) notes, the film required complex collaborations among several of Warner's most talented writers, composers, set decorators, and cinematographers, and it featured iconic performances by popular contract players such as Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, and Sydney Greenstreet. The original source, an unproduced play titled Everyone Comes to Rick's, didn't appear destined for greatness when it sold to the studio in late 1941. Yet under the guidance of studio heads Jack Warner and Hal Wallis, and aligning with the timely events of a country about to enter the war, the prescient material would have an urgent appeal. "Thanks not only to the fortuitous timing of its release," writes the author, "but also to the sly intermingling of history, politics, and fiction, Casablanca gave viewers the chance to reflect on the current state of the worldwhile also feeding their appetite for entertainment at the movieslarger-than-life characters, exotic backdrops, heart-wrenching romance, and plenty of glimpses of universally identifiable, basic humanity." Isenberg has scrupulously researched the developmental details of the production, and he offers an interesting dissection of the legendary script contributions and in-depth background histories of the many bit players featured in the film. However, in focusing the latter portion of the book on the film's continuing impact, he tends to broadly overstate his message, expansively recounting every film revival, TV and theatrical offshoot, parody, and just about every example where there has been occasion for reference over the last several years. These exhaustive details are likely to interest only the most die-hard fans of the film. A thoroughly researched and frequently enlightening but somewhat ponderous tribute to a beloved classic. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Born from the unproduced play Everybody Comes to Rick's, the 1942 film Casablanca quickly became one of the most quoted and beloved movies of all time. Although its plot of wartime refugees trapped in the north African city was most timely, it continues to speak to new generations of film buffs. This is an exhaustive look at the making of the film, its censorship battles, early pushback from isolationists, casting coups (contrary to legend, Ronald Reagan and George Raft were never considered for the role of saloon keeper Rick), later jockeying for credit after the film's success, and most particularly, real-life refugees from Hitler's Europe taking on several parts. Isenberg (culture & media, The New School; Edgar G. Ulmer) tracks down even the most insignificant detail on the creation of this film. He notes the many unsuccessful attempts to revive the work in remakes, reboots, sequels, television shows, even a musical. Finally, the book ponders why certain themes continue to be relevant today. VERDICT This highly recommended title thoroughly explores studio politics and the political realities, while giving new fans and critics a chance to weigh in on what Casablanca means to them. [See Prepub Alert, 8/26/16.]-Stephen Rees, formerly with Levittown Lib., PA © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Introduction | p. xiii |
| Chapter 1 Everybody Comes to Rick's | p. 1 |
| Chapter 2 Usual Suspects | p. 43 |
| Chapter 3 Stick My Neck Out for Nobody | p. 85 |
| Chapter 4 Such Much? | p. 123 |
| Chapter 5 We'll Always Have Paris | p. 163 |
| Chapter 6 Play it Again | p. 201 |
| Chapter 7 A beautiful friendship | p. 241 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 271 |
| Notes | p. 281 |
| Illustration Credits | p. 311 |
| Index | p. 313 |