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Post by gerald424 on Jan 10, 2024 3:34:59 GMT
I realize this sounds preposterous but, this actually did happen during WWII. Here's an example: After the fall of France, the admiral of the French navy based at Oran, Algeria (not far from Casablanca, Morocco), was given two options: 1) Take the navy to a Caribbean port and sit out the war or 2) Join the British navy and fight against the axis.
The admiral's response was: As long as there is a French government, we will be loyal to it. He wasn't supporting the nazi per se. He was loyal to the vichy nazi puppet. Of course the British bombed the navy to the bottom of the sea. After Operation Torch, Allied invasion of North Africa, many French garrisons flipped sides instantly from the vichy to the Allies. Including the one Renault and Rick were supposedly heading to.
Another reason why I prefer classic films be kept as they are. Not only to see how things were in those days. But, also the mindsets of those days. They didn't know things we know now. A villain is supposed to be disliked. And Renault certainly fits that description. He's basically just backing the winner, whomever that may be.
I'm not following how this incidence of the French admiral relates to what is being discussed here. Ok, he was loyal to the Vichy nazi puppet government. Are you saying that after the end of the war this French admiral was rewarded or given a medal for service to the government of France? I.e. viewed as a hero by the post-war French government or the people of France? Also, I see nothing preposterous in the story or what this admiral did (since as you already noted people in power during wartime, make such decisions for various reasons, and I never disputed that). While I don't support his decision, I assume he didn't make it for personal gain (i.e. he was not rewarded by the Germans), but instead what I view as a misguided sense of loyalty. In that way it is much different than the actions of Renault which were all driven for self-centered, personal gain. E.g. when searching Rick's joint for the missing docs: he orders his men to really mess up the place and when Rick gets upset about it, tells him you know how the Nazis love such destruction. I.e. just another unnecessary, kiss ass action, by Renault to please the Nazis. Note that another Warner Bros. movie, that some view as a Casablanca sequel (mainly due to having Bogie, Rains, Lorre and Greenstreet and director Crutiz), is Passage to Marseille. In this film the Vichy\Nazis loyalist Major Duval (Greenstreet), gets what is coming to him, and the loyalist to France, Captain Freyciniet (Rains), with the help of French convicts from Devil's Island, do the right thing. I.e. convicts are the heroes, and not the borderline traitor Major Duval. Again, I'm not saying Casablanca should have had a different ending since it is more rom-com than war-drama. I.e. I clearly understand why WB had a romanticized ending to Casablanca and in that way, it works. I just don't see a need to try to rationalize the ending as somehow being logical as it relates to the 180-degree turnaround of Renault, especially given the time-period of the film (after the French surrender in June of 1940 and before the USA entered the war in December 1941). I.e. Renault would have still put his money on Germany. Now if in early 1944, I could see him moving to the other side. I don't know that Renault was ever considered a hero. He simply tried to back the winner, whether it was the nazis or free French. I wouldn't consider anyone in that film a hero except maybe Victor Laszlo. Practically everyone in this movie is an opportunist. And to me, that's the theme of the film. In those days loyalties were very fluid.
The movie ends but, the story continues on in some alternate fictional universe. Maybe Renault flips again toward the axis ? Maybe he's playing both sides to get the best deal for himself. Who knows ? All we have is what's portrayed in this film.
I see this very similar to a spaghetti western portrayal of the wild west frontier. Where there was no law to speak of. And people got away with many cruel things. This is how the real world is. Whether people want to acknowledge it or not.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 10, 2024 12:52:05 GMT
I don't think the issue is that there were people like Rains' character in the war. The issue, through a modern lens, is that his character got away with what he did in the movie and possibly went on to commit more crimes against innocent people. That's what today's audience can't accept. Also, the film continues to be adored by many, despite such an incorrect ending.
Personally I felt the ending was written the way it was, because they couldn't have Bergman's character dump the husband (Paul Henreid) who was more virtuous than Bogart's character. If they had made Henreid a villain, then he could have been killed off at the end to facilitate Bergman leaving with Bogart.
Because it doesn't play out that way (due to the fact they didn't structure the script to dispose of Henreid), they try to tack on this false ending of Bogart going off with Rains for their own little happy-ever-after. To make it "fit," the writers went back and modified earlier scenes to put in mild suggestions that Rains was crushing, almost flirting with Bogart, without making him explicitly bisexual. Ultimately, we are meant to believe that Rains gets the guy that Bergman should have had.
It could be seen as "progressive" by modern viewers, except for the fact that Rains is not a sympathetic character the way Bergman's character was. Throwing the bottle down in that scene near the end is not a full indication that he is even redeemable. It may be a start in the right direction, but he still has a lot to answer for in terms of his previous actions. The fact Bogart enters into a devil's bargain with him at the end undermines the more genuine and heroic aspects of our main character.
They should have done a rewrite and had Henreid's character appear to be virtuous but for him to be an impostor who was pretending to be a concentration camp survivor who was really in cahoots with Veidt to take a bomb on a plane to America. Something very evil, where he could have been thwarted with Veidt and disposed of, so that Bergman was free of all that to end up in Bogart's arms, which is really what the audience wanted.
The film as it is contains some unfulfilled romantic wish fulfillment...I sincerely believe that is why people like the film, because they see it in terms of what could have been, what should have been, instead of how it actually plays out with Bergman making a big sacrifice so that Rains can take her place.
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Post by BingFan on Jan 11, 2024 2:40:43 GMT
For what it’s worth, I’ve really been enjoying the discussion here about one of my favorite movies, in fact one of the first movies from the classic era that really hooked me. (After first seeing it, I unsuccessfully searched for a poster of Ingrid Bergman, who had quite captivated me. You couldn’t easily find that kind of thing back in the 70s, at least not in Cincinnati.) Probably because I think CASABLANCA is almost perfect the way it is, I’m fascinated by the widely varying “readings,” or even re-writings, of the movie in this thread. Like most great works of art, CASABLANCA is many things to many people.
I have to acknowledge that my own view of the film is probably very conventional and literal, but I have a tendency to take things too literally. As for the ending of CASABLANCA, I see Renault’s decision to head out with Rick as simply a matter of self-preservation. As I think I mentioned above, the Nazis will likely blame him for allowing Strasser to be killed on his watch, and it’s probably not a stretch to speculate that the Nazis might have eventually learned that Renault allowed the killer, Rick, to escape. It seems likely that the Nazis would have executed Renault for all of this, whether or not they captured Rick. In light of all this, it seems prudent for Renault to leave Casablanca with the resourceful Rick, who’d probably do a good job of figuring out how to stay ahead of the Nazis.
As for Ilsa leaving with Victor instead of staying with Rick, I think the filmmakers had to preserve the tragic nature of the Rick-Ilsa romance. It makes Rick even more of a hero that he voluntarily remained alone, instead of going off with Ilsa in an attempt to recreate their earlier romance. Much better that she should stay with her heroic husband and leave the loner Rick to go off to do his own heroic things.
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Jan 11, 2024 17:58:48 GMT
For what it’s worth, I’ve really been enjoying the discussion here about one of my favorite movies, in fact one of the first movies from the classic era that really hooked me. (After first seeing it, I unsuccessfully searched for a poster of Ingrid Bergman, who had quite captivated me. You couldn’t easily find that kind of thing back in the 70s, at least not in Cincinnati.) Probably because I think CASABLANCA is almost perfect the way it is, I’m fascinated by the widely varying “readings,” or even re-writings, of the movie in this thread. Like most great works of art, CASABLANCA is many things to many people.
I have to acknowledge that my own view of the film is probably very conventional and literal, but I have a tendency to take things too literally. As for the ending of CASABLANCA, I see Renault’s decision to head out with Rick as simply a matter of self-preservation. As I think I mentioned above, the Nazis will likely blame him for allowing Strasser to be killed on his watch, and it’s probably not a stretch to speculate that the Nazis might have eventually learned that Renault allowed the killer, Rick, to escape. It seems likely that the Nazis would have executed Renault for all of this, whether or not they captured Rick. In light of all this, it seems prudent for Renault to leave Casablanca with the resourceful Rick, who’d probably do a good job of figuring out how to stay ahead of the Nazis.
As for Ilsa leaving with Victor instead of staying with Rick, I think the filmmakers had to preserve the tragic nature of the Rick-Ilsa romance. It makes Rick even more of a hero that he voluntarily remained alone, instead of going off with Ilsa in an attempt to recreate their earlier romance. Much better that she should stay with her heroic husband and leave the loner Rick to go off to do his own heroic things. Yea, this has been a fun discussion about one of my favorite films. Have you seen Passage to Marseille? To me this follow-up film to Casablanca is much more realistic with regards to Frenchmen tore between the Vichy puppet government and loyalties to an independent, just defeated, France. But hey that film is more of a straight up war drama. |
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Post by BingFan on Jan 12, 2024 17:32:25 GMT
For what it’s worth, I’ve really been enjoying the discussion here about one of my favorite movies, in fact one of the first movies from the classic era that really hooked me. ... Yea, this has been a fun discussion about one of my favorite films. Have you seen Passage to Marseille? To me this follow-up film to Casablanca is much more realistic with regards to Frenchmen tore between the Vichy puppet government and loyalties to an independent, just defeated, France. But hey that film is more of a straight up war drama.
I think the whole situation with Vichy early in the war is fascinating because until the US entered the war, we had diplomatic relations with the Vichy government and Americans could be found in the unoccupied part of France. (Herman Wouk used that scenario as part of the plot for his excellent book The Winds Of War.) Of course, PASSAGE examines the equally fascinating issue of Frenchmen fighting their own Vichy-aligned countrymen. The cast there does a great job portraying the two sides of that conflict. |
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Jan 12, 2024 18:00:32 GMT
Yea, this has been a fun discussion about one of my favorite films. Have you seen Passage to Marseille? To me this follow-up film to Casablanca is much more realistic with regards to Frenchmen tore between the Vichy puppet government and loyalties to an independent, just defeated, France. But hey that film is more of a straight up war drama.
I think the whole situation with Vichy early in the war is fascinating because until the US entered the war, we had diplomatic relations with the Vichy government and Americans could be found in the unoccupied part of France. (Herman Wouk used that scenario as part of the plot for his excellent book The Winds Of War.) Of course, PASSAGE examines the equally fascinating issue of Frenchmen fighting their own Vichy-aligned countrymen. The cast there does a great job portraying the two sides of that conflict.The time-period of the months after the French surrender in June of 1940 and before the USA entered the war in December 1941, is an interesting and fascinating one, as it related to how America and Americans overseas dealt with the Nazi aggression and how the Nazis viewed us. |
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Post by marysara1 on Jan 12, 2024 20:24:11 GMT
Maybe it was that way tp make the public feel better. Rationing was going on. Sugar, gas etc ,Rick gave up the woman he loved so giving up sugar wasn't such a sacrifice in comparative.I wonder if people saw something in Rick. Lorre's character gave him the papers and Raine's character wanted to use Rick as a character reference, with the wife.That's why she asked Rick if Raine's character would keep his word.
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