In Swing Your Lady (1938), Bogart did not hide his unhappiness with this musical, calling it “the worst movie” he had ever made. Working with Bogart was not a pleasant experience. He had worked with its director Michael Curtiz on three previous films, and once Bogart won the role of Rick Blaine, it was almost certain that Moe would also get the job-he had worked with Bogart on eight earlier movies. It was not surprising that Moe was assigned to write songs for Casablanca. The song would become the official theme song of the Air Force’s brave men who sat in the vulnerable spot at the front of the airplane. He was working on “Song of the Bombardiers” for a Randolph Scott film titled Bombardier (1943). (Moe) Jerome, my grandfather, Casablanca was just another assignment, in some ways a bit of a letdown after working on James Cagney’s Yankee Doodle Dandy in 1942, where he had played an important role, writing new songs and helping Cagney to dance like George M. Those who were associated with the film (especially stars Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Claude Rains) did not live to hear CBS’s 60 Minutes declare in 1981 that Casablanca was “The Greatest Movie Ever Made.” Or that film buffs would celebrate its 80th anniversary in 2023.įor Warner Brothers songwriter M.K. In the beginning, and for many years afterward, Casablanca was just a movie. "The tears in her eyes are real.Excerpted from The Tunesmith: The Musical Journey of M.K. "They're not tears of glycerin shed by an actress," says Epstein. Lebeau had fled Paris with her husband, Marcel Dalio, just two years prior. As the refugees in the bar belt out their anthem, the film cuts to a closeup of the young French actress Madeleine Lebeau, tears streaming down her face. Later in the famous scene of the singing of La Marseillaise, Rick gives permission for the band to play the song of the resistance. In the scene with Dantine, for example, Rick's aid of young refugees is a sign he is not as cold-hearted as he leads people to believe. I'm the only cause I'm interested in."īut as the story progresses, cracks appear in that façade. Rick begins the film as an isolationist, telling Ilsa: "I'm not fighting for anything anymore, except myself. The character arc of Rick Blaine, played by Bogart, is a clear metaphor for the United States and foreign policy. "It's a propaganda film because the American public were not fully convinced of the moral imperative of fighting this war and the message is, this is a fight worth fighting." " Casablanca is a propaganda film," says Noah Isenberg, author of We'll Always Have Casablanca. Dalio was Jewish and he fled Paris in 1940 with his wife Madeleine Lebeau - who plays Yvonne in Casablanca. In France, Dalio was a star, known for his roles in Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion (1937) and The Rules of the Game (1939). Marcel Dalio plays Emil, the croupier.Members of his family died in the death camps and he escaped to Hollywood, where he was known as "cuddles" and often cast in comedic roles. Before the war, Sakall was a Hungarian cabaret actor. Lorre began his career as a stage actor in Vienna and Berlin, and became internationally known with his performance in Fritz Lang's M (1931) and in America for his role in The Maltese Falcon (1941). Peter Lorre plays Ugarte, a customer at Rick's Cafe who steals from German couriers at the start of the film.Like Dantine, he escaped the Nazis only to find success portraying them on screen. Veidt was a German actor whose wife was Jewish. Conrad Veidt plays Nazi officer Major Strasser.There were several other European-born actors in Casablanca who had made it to Hollywood after fleeing the Nazis. "Having been the leader of the anti-Nazi youth movement, to then be playing Nazis in film." "It must have been incredibly hard for him emotionally," Niki Dantine told Radio Diaries. In other wartime films, Dantine would be cast as the villain, playing Nazi officers opposite Errol Flynn in Northern Pursuit (1943) and Escape in the Desert (1945).
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