This is a thread about CASABLANCA because it is utterly awesome and the best black and white film ever.

why the quotes?

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Pretty hard to be super-Borgesian, Miguel.

Ha! I never imagined... Is it any less arbitrary and peculiar than his criticism?

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By day, he is a mild blind librarian...

Not a champion lepidopterist, eh?

"Count Alexey Kirillovitch Vronsky, auteur of Showgirls"

Casablanca is still great though!

Dario Argento and Mario Bava are not so much 'avant-garde' as incapable of telling a story in 'classical Hollywood cinema'-style - this is both their strength and weakness, obv ('Suspiria ' is frightening at least partly because it so swiftly flees from narrative 'common-sense')

srsly haters, if you don't tear up at the Marseillaise scene, u probly like Joe Biden.

good job on the calum revive

it's definitely a great movie tho

im sorry. i just hate ingrid bergman.

i've always imagined a great rick & louis witty action sequel, fucking shit up in algiers before operation torch.

How long do you think their beautiful friendship lasted?

as soon as Rick realized that vaseline was involved.

they stay best friends for the rest of the war, and then agree to take a boat to Marseille together. Rick is waiting on the docks as the boat is just about to leave and he's handed a note from Louis that says he won't be coming with him after all and gives no explanation.

years later, Rick owns a bar on Fire Island. out of the blue one day Louis walks in and their passionate affair is commenced anew.

FIN

I like this, but, yeah, it's overrated.

Curtiz seems to have been an odd character. I don't really know that much about him except for the bit in "Hollywood" where they describe him filming the flood scene in "Noah's Ark", and in his frantic desire to make the scene real or memorable or w/e, he put a load of extras into a giant water tank, with a load of animals and poured gallons of water into it. IIRC he killed a couple of extras making the film. Pretty fucked up, eh? His filmography:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002031/

Has a few striking films (Casablanca, Noah's Ark, angels w/Dirty Faces, Female) including 2 of my top "I wish it was on DVD" titles - "Noah's Ark" itself and "The Egyptian". I don't recall seeing most of the titles. Was he a hack who struck lucky a few times, or are there a bunch of films there I shd look out for?

I've watched "Casablanca" a couple of times since C-man kicked this off and I must say I enjoyed it loads both times it's grown on me even more. I think it is one of the best films, and one I'd always want on hand so I can watch it when the fancy takes me.

The list I made upthread would probably now go:

"Ninochka"
"Andrei Rubylev"
"Broken Blossoms" "Way Down East"
"Pandora's Box""Beggars of Life"
"Orphans of the Storm"
"Victim" "Sunset Blvd"
"Sabrina"
"Valley of Song"
"Kind Hearts and Coronets"
"Passport to Piml1co"
"Night of the Demon" "42nd Street"

...tho obv the "black and white" thing is a bit facile. And IIRC bits of "Way Down East" were colour when it came out.

"Sabrina" "Hotel Imperial"

There was a big public screening of this two days ago in a big outdoor square in the heart of what is probably the most commercial part of Toronto, complete with outright hideous sound quality and a stack of lights blocking my view. Seeing it again for the first time since was like 12, these conditions probably are a good way to ruin a filmgoing experience (My friend brought me along with him), and while yes it is very good, I don't see what about it puts it so clearly ahead of the other handful of canonical Classic Hollywood 'best film evers'. Also, best black and white film ever seems like a not so good best-ever category.

As I discovered in class a few years ago, much of its reputation with the young (one of the few "old movies" you'll find in their DVD collections) rests on its enshrinement as a proto-Pulp Fiction: lotsa hip patter with actors good enough to deliver it.

yeah when ice craem was ragging on old movies on that one thread this was one that really stood out as an exeption to the rule - i think it can really be enjoyed by people who dont 'get' old movies without much distance at all

why are you talking about "ice cream" and this "rule" as if it's anything close to "right"

anyway i think its rep with young people comes from being saturated in the culture for 65+ years and being actually very good.

i dont mean its 'right' but its...honest? like how many dramas pre casablanca would you recommend to people who dont watch black & white movies?

it's honestly stupid imo

to someone who refused to watch (if that's what is meant by "don't watch") b&w movies i'd just tell them to rent sin city or some bullshit because that's probably the only b&w movie they'd like anyway, if they have that attitude