Ellis
Richard Ellis
Dr. Debra Buenting
COM1251N2
3 April, 2016
Casablanca Film Critique
Casablanca was made in 1942, and is regarded as one of the greatest movies ever made.
The movie is based on an unproduced play written by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison in 1940,
after they visited the area in 1938 and saw how the area was affected by the French-resistance
and the Nazi occupation. Burnett and Alison sold their movie to Warner Brothers for $20,000.
Warner Brothers made the movie with their own screenwriters: the Epstein brothers and Howard
Koch, who won an Oscar while the original writers went mainly unrecognized.
The movie is about an American expatriate, Rick Blaine, who’s past is unclear though we
find out he fought fascists in Spain and was always on the good side, is living in and owns a bar
in Casablanca, the largest city in Morocco. Rick is heartbroken over losing the movies main
female protagonist Ilsa when he was living in Paris. Due to it’s location near the Mediterranean,
Rick’s Café Americaine in Morocco, attracts a wide variety of clientele, most important of
which, during World War 2, were refugees fleeing the Nazi occupation and German officials
there to prey on them. A crook shows up named Ugarte who says he has, “letters of transit” that
were obtained by murdering German couriers. Letters of transit that would allow free travel
throughout German controlled Europe, and are obviously, very valuable to the refugees in
Casablanca. Ugarte plans to sell them and asks Rick to hold on to them, but then he is arrested
and dies in custody.
Shortly after Rick’s former lover, Ilsa Lund shows up at his bar with her fugitive Czech
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Resistance Leader Victor Laszlo. Isla and Laszlo have come to Casablanca to purchase Letters of
Transit so that he may escape to America and continue his work. After they find out that Rick has
the letters, they ask to buy them, but Rick refuses to sell them because she left him without
explanation when they were together before in Paris. Later in the movie it is revealed that Isla
was married when she was with Rick in Paris, to Laszlo, but she thought that he was dead, after
she got word that her husband was alive, she left Rick. Rick’s bitterness fades when he learns the
truth and agrees to give them the letters of transit.
This movie has tons of examples of communication as most movies made before the
science fiction special effects boom of the 50s and on. They didn’t need to rest on flashy action
sequences in order to tell a story. This movie is made in pretty much one location, with a few
exceptions, it pretty much all takes place at Rick’s bar in Casablanca. There are approximately
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