Casablanca
Academy Award × 3·AFI #3·BFI #63·National Film Registry
Rent/Purchase
In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.
What critics thought
Casablanca was near-universally embraced by critics on release and that verdict has only hardened over time into something close to consensus perfection. What contemporary reviewers singled out — the interplay of melodrama, comedy, and political urgency, and the way the film's anti-Axis sentiment emerges naturally from the story rather than overwhelming it — are still the qualities that make it hold up. The one wrinkle: a lone dissenting voice at the time found it merely tolerable, ranking it below Bogart's previous thriller, a judgment history has rather thoroughly buried.
“combination of sentiment, humor and pathos with taut melodrama and bristling intrigue”
Bosley Crowther·The New York Times
“Bogart, as might be expected, is more at ease as the bitter and cynical operator of a joint than as a lover, but handles both assignments with superb finesse”
Variety
Genres
Drama, Romance, War
Cast & Crew
DirectorMichael Curtiz
StarringHumphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt
ComposerMax Steiner
Casablanca
Academy Award × 3·AFI #3·BFI #63·National Film Registry
In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.
What critics thought
Casablanca was near-universally embraced by critics on release and that verdict has only hardened over time into something close to consensus perfection. What contemporary reviewers singled out — the interplay of melodrama, comedy, and political urgency, and the way the film's anti-Axis sentiment emerges naturally from the story rather than overwhelming it — are still the qualities that make it hold up. The one wrinkle: a lone dissenting voice at the time found it merely tolerable, ranking it below Bogart's previous thriller, a judgment history has rather thoroughly buried.
“combination of sentiment, humor and pathos with taut melodrama and bristling intrigue”
Bosley Crowther·The New York Times
“Bogart, as might be expected, is more at ease as the bitter and cynical operator of a joint than as a lover, but handles both assignments with superb finesse”
Variety
Genres
Drama, Romance, War
Cast & Crew
DirectorMichael Curtiz
StarringHumphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt
ComposerMax Steiner
Rent/Purchase