Directed by the talented Michael Curtiz and shot almost entirely on studio sets, the film moves quickly through a surprisingly tightly constructed plot. The script for this film was written from day to day as the filming progressed and no one knew how the film would end [Would Ilsa stay with Rick or leave with Laszlo?]. Its collaborative screenplay was mainly the result of the efforts of Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch - and producer Hal Wallis contributed the film's final line. Except for the initial airport sequence, the entire studio-oriented film was shot in a Warner Bros. Hollywood/Burbank studio.

Thematically, the film is typical in its appropriation of an official h

Casablanca is a film about the personal tragedy of occupation and war. It speaks to the oppression of the one side - and the heroism and self-deprecation of the other. From opportunists, to isolationists - from patriots to disenchanted lovers - the film has everything a man or woman would enjoy, bravery, courage, intrigue, romance, beauty and love. Leading actors to please any appetite. Watching this film is to step back to a world that doesn't exist - yet to know it. It is to experience lives that have never been lived - but are "real to you." It is to know pain and joy, pride and pity for characters that are a fiction - yet are so real that you can't help but get lost in their story.

Stylistically, the film is not so much brilliant as absolutely sound, rock-solid in its use of Hollywood studio craftsmanship. One of the key contributions was to show us that Rick, Ilsa and the others lived in a complex time and place. The richness of the supporting characters (Greenstreet as the corrupt club owner, Lorre as the sniveling cheat, Rains as the subtly homosexual police chief and minor characters like the young girl who will do anything to help her husband) set the moral stage for the decisions of the major characters.

Basically, Casablanca asks you to believe that Rick, a man seems to have a great setup and who claims to stick out his neck for no one, is willing to give up EVERYTHING for the cause of the movement. To make this truly believable, the movie HAS to be perfect. We are to believe that Rick's love for Ilsa was so great that he would have risked capture in Fr

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)