Good evening and welcome to the Hollywood Babylonians. Hello, Hello, Hello friends.
This is your Happy Hollywood History host mister Ben Burke here with another episode
of the Hollywood Babylonians, your Favorite Classic Film in Hollywood History podcast, in
which we talk about the greatest classic films of old Hollywood and the history behind
them. And today we are privileged, we are lucky, we are blessed
to have an amazing person with us today, the host of the front Row
Classics podcast, which is a national public radio podcast, mister Brandon Davis.
Brandon, how are you. I am doing great, Ben, Thank you
so much for having me. This is a thrill. Oh of course it's
a thrill for me too. When you first messaged me several months ago and
we're like I love your content, I was just like, ah, this
is a because you Brandon has he not only discusses classic films, but he
has some of the best guests on. In my opinion, Ben Makaway,
it's Patricia Kelly Ward, who's Gene Kelly's widow. All of those Brandon,
I am amazed at how you get those people? Do you just like find
how do you now? Well, it's it's pretty remarkable. We one of
my best friends started our podcast network. It's called the front Row Network,
and originally it was just him and a couple of his friends talking about the
newest releases, and then he wanted to expand it, and so then I
was always the classic film fan, and so he asked me to start my
own show, front Row Classics. So I I did it for a couple
of years and then you know, just went fine. We just discussed movies
and did movie reviews. And then during the pandemic, one of my other
friends who hosts our Disney podcast, just started reaching out to various you know,
Disney legends and things like that. And really the pandemic, for as
much as we wish it didn't happen, it really did sort of help us
out because people who usually sat at home, who usually were busy, I
mean, we're kind of just saying at home doing nothing, so they had
time to give us. So that kind of that kind of just started the
ball rolling. And when one person said yes, just more happened. And
so yeah, I just started getting more and more contacts, and you know,
the ability to contact publicists and things like that, and that's how it
got started. That is amazing. Yeah, and I this podcast definitely came
out of the pandemic. I you know, just sitting at home with my
parents and having nothing to do and coming up with as a podcast. And
I'm quite the perfectionist, so you know, for every movie, it's like
I have to read every book and watch every documentary and create a twenty page
report before I can do any podcast. So sometimes it moves a bit slower
than I'd like it too, and at times is like, is that all
of this really worth it? But I think at the end it is because
you to see growth and you start to see interest in different people wan to
be a part of it, which is awesome, like the amazing Brandon Davis
from Illinois. But I am, and that's awesome that you have. You
have like an entire network of podcast friends. So he's you just chopped on
that train and you wrote it. You're still writing it. Yeah, we
do. We've got, like I mentioned, we have a Disney show.
We have a group that does a show called Flashbacks, which is more sort
of eighties nineties fair and then we have we have a host named lou Hair.
He does a show called Guilty Pleasures, which really deals with sort of
the seedier side of movie going, but it's a lot of fun and so
yeah, we cover all the bases. Awesome. That is so cool.
Okay, So starting out, I want to ask you, just just so
we can feel out Brandon Davis and get to know who he is. I
want to know your history with classic film, your kind of introduction. How
was it indoctrinated into you since childhood? What happened? Well, I think,
like most everybody from you know, birth, you know you who,
I think everyone's first sort of introduction to classic films would be sort of through
Disney, through the older Disney classics and then of course the Wizard of Oz
and things like that. So that was always my basis. But then I
want to say, around the time I was probably like eight or nine,
I spent a lot of time with my grandma and she loved movies growing up,
and so anytime I would go visit her or whatever, she would always
have a new VHS of some you know, it started out kind of with
classic musicals. So it started out with things like it started out with the
Rogers and Hammerstein stuff, so Sound of Music, Oklahoma King and I and
then really with me, I don't know exactly what it was, but it
grabbed me and all of a sudden, I would latch on to like a
star in a certain movie and be like, Oh, I want to see
what else they did, or I want to see, you know, other
things like this. So it was really kind of more self discovery on my
part, with her sort of being my introduction into everything that is awesome.
And yeah, it was. It was similar for me. I spent a
lot of time growing up with my grandparents and it was either TV Land or
TCM on all of the time. And then we started going to the public
library and Hastings and I would I started towarding VHS's. I still have a
lot of those. I will not get rid of them because of sentimental reasons.
But yeah, and it started out with classic musicals for me, and
it grew and it grew in, it grew in. As you get older,
you get interested in more of the mature work, which is kind of
what happened to me with this film that we are about to talk about.
Also, we are here to discuss a very very important film today. I
think it's our tenth film with the Hollywood Babylonians. By the time this episode
comes out, it'll be our tenth film, and it is Casablanca from Warner
Brothers in nineteen forty two, is starring Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart, directed
by Michael Kurtiz, with Peter Lori, Scizakal, Sydney green Street, Paul
Henrid, you know, you name it, they got it. So I
wanted to know first and foremost because and we were talking about classic film messaging.
You Brandon, you said Classablanca is your favorite. I want to know
out of why all of these millions, not millions, but thousands of other
classic films, why this is your favorite. It sounds like a cliche for
a classic film fan to say that Casablanca is their favorite, but honestly,
honest truth, it is because I don't. I can't think of another movie.
It's funny if you ask me, like what my favorite performance in a
movie is, or what my favorite screenplay of a movie is, I might
say All About Eve is my favorite screenplay, or Jimmy Stewart's performance of Vertigo
is my favorite performance. But when you add every single piece and every single
element that it took to make Casablanca, it is like this perfect souffle and
everything just compliments each other. And somehow, somehow, all of these different
elements came together. And I don't necessarily buy the theory that it was such
an accident that everything happened. I think these were craftsmen who knew what they
were doing. But they I mean, they certainly didn't know they had,
you know, you know, a masterpiece for the Ages on their hands.
But everything about it works. And I said this when we talked about this
on my show. It's for me, it's like a favorite like music album.
It's like when you put on like the Beatles White Album or Carol King's
Tapestry or something. The more I watch it and the more I listen to
it, the more I love it, and the more I'm familiar with it,
and it doesn't get old, and you know, the performances still work,
and everything about it is just it is just great. I mean,
even the even it's such a high stakes, dramatic setting and the look of
it and everything it's it just all works. It does. It works perfectly.
It's almost like, well, I don't want to call it an anomaly,
but it almost feels like that's what it is. Because every every element
that was that was working in the Warner Brothers studio is a part of this
film. I mean, you have the Golden Boys, Michael Curtiz and producer
Hal Wallace working together. You have Arthur Edison, who was a Warner Brothers
cinematographer for years and years and years. Yes, Humphrey Bogart, you know.
And it is at When I first saw it in fifth grade, I
was like, Oh, this is, you know, kind of Warner Brothers
Warner Brothers stock melodrama. As I got older, I realized that somehow all
of these different elements came together in a perfect Warner Brothers melodrama. And I
think it has something to do with not only the fact that it was a
melodrama, but the fact that you're layering on all of these real life things
that were happening at the time. And it's not just a love story between
Bogart and Bergmant. It is an ensemble film, and without the ensemble you
don't have the full effect of the film. When was the first time you
saw Casablanca? It was I want to say I was in junior high probably
it was around like six seventh eighth grade, somewhere around there. But I
got I got a DVD of it for Christmas, and I put it in
and watched it, and I know, I mean, certainly I had seen
pieces of it before then, but this is the first time I actually and
and that age is sort of around the time when you can really appreciate,
you know. I was sort of a veteran classic film fan by that time,
but mainly like in the musical category or comedies or things like that,
And so now I was maturing the other fair. And so I had seen
Bogart before because I knew The African Queen by then, and I knew I
knew a couple of other of his work, but actually sit down and watch
it, and I think somehow I had been immune to you know, when
when you show somebody something like Casablanca or Citizen Kane or something like that,
and there was so much hype around that movie, you almost feel like you're
in for a disappointment because people build up so many expectations in their mind.
I didn't have too many expectations when I watched it, so I really watched
it fresh, and it captured me right away, and I just I fell
in love with the setting. I fell in love with the characters, and
it has always held on to my imagination in my heart ever since. Then,
right, well that is awesome. Yeah, And it's like you said
very first thing, you know, say that you're a classic film lover and
you love Casablanca. Is seems so cliche because we're classic film lovers, so
we like to say that we love things that are more obscure than that.
And everybody is, you know, everybody talks about Casablanca like, you know,
it's the best thing ever, and it really is. I don't think
it's a cliche to say that, I mean talking about you. You also
said that Round Up the Usual Suspects was which I just finished reading, which
was a trip. Is your favorite Casablanca book? Have you read any others
I read? We'll always have Casablanca, which came out a couple of years
ago and is a really good book too. I recommend that that came out
I want to say, like four or five years ago. And then I've
read several of the Warner Brothers books, and I've read books on Boguard.
But Eric Lax, who's a great biographer of Bogart, I recommend any of
his stuff. But I think Round up the usual suspects as the most complete
and I think gives you the best sort of all around detail of you just
the production and the politics of Warner Brothers and the politics in the US at
the time. It just covers everything, right. And I messaged you,
I said, Warner Brothers did not sound like a place I want to work
in the thirties and forties. I mean, you hear stories from the studio
system and just the stories that you've heard before Olivia de Hablin came in with
her law and the Paramount deal in nineteen forty eight. You're like, whoo,
that sounded like just a toxic work environment, but even more so Warner
Brothers because it was it was a very structured work environment. It sounded like,
you know, the biggest stars were having to fight their way to their
favorite projects, except Daryl Flynn, who I don't really think cared, which
is fine. Yeah, we still love him. I watched I love watching
old Dick Cavot shows and I of course one of the uh one of his
best interviewees was Betty Davis, and she was talking about how, you know,
Jack Warner, you know, lost all of his hair early because he
had to deal with me, Bogart and Cagney because he said, she said,
I think between the three of us, we all had dozens of suspensions.
Yes, which is perfectly fine. I think it's well worth those suspensions
were well worth it for the films that we did get. Oh yeah,
yeah, yeah, definitely and definitely the fact yeah, also hol Wallace,
the fact so many of those great films that we love he produced, and
he was producing back to back to back. A lot of Cosablanca was,
you know, put on hold, the schedule was or people came in late
because they were all working on Now Voyager, which is another great Warner Brothers
film. I don't know if it holds up as well as Constant. Constant
Blanca almost feels timeless, like there is something about it that still feels modern,
whereas Now Voyager it has a great emotional arc of you know, finding
yourself in the world. But maybe it's just Betty Davis's acting, which I'm
a fan of. But you need you need some context for Now Voyager,
because I think Betty Davis's performance is fine. I think it's it's its view
of psychiatry is a little more primitive than what we're used to nowadays, So
you really have to sort of put yourself in a nineteen forty two mindset when
you watch that movie. Yes, for sure, for sure. Yeah,
I think her performance that yeah, being Betty Davis, Oh my goodness,
love her film so much. But I wanted to also talk about round Up
the Usual Suspects. One of the things that I think this book does so
well to put the film into historical context and kind of understanding because it can
also relate to today, is that it you know, every almost every person
on this film was some sort of a European refugee who had fled from Europe
because of Hitler, and that's exactly what the entire film was about. And
I listened to your set. You did two podcasts on Casablanca, I think
on Frentroal Classics, and I listened to the second one today and one interesting
thing that one of your co hosts, I'm sorry, I don't know their
names that I but loved listening to both of them. But one of them
said, you know, you know, people always call Hollywood, you know,
liberal Hollywood these days, and they're like, oh, what happened to
the good old days? Like that, you know, the forties and fifties,
and it's like, no, no, it was still liberal Hollywood because
the Warners had both been Jewish were you know, they were against Hitler what
he stood for. And there were many members of the Republican Party at the
time that had allied themselves with a Nazi regime and a certain Nazi agent who
was using Congress to send out Nazi propaganda to the American people. So this
film that vilified Nazis actually was considered leftist because a lot of the people on
the right ally themselves with the Nazis. Anyway, I was wondering what some
of your favorite Well, first of all, do you have a favorite character
in this movie? Oh? That's hard. I mean, okay, Rick
aside, I think you know, I think you know. Rick is who
you identify with, It's who you pull for the whole movie. I love
I love claud Raines as Louis Renault. That it's he's He's somebody who if
you knew in real life, you would find despicable, but on the screen
you cannot get enough he and I think we mentioned it in our podcast.
You were as much invested in the Rick and Louis relationship as you are in
the Rick and Elsa relationship. Oh yeah, because throughout the movie there is
such an unspoken subtext between the two of them because they can't say what they
really feel right throughout the whole movie, even even in the privacy to each
other, they don't dare say it. And so finally at the end,
when they finally can show their real allegiance to each other, and when they
walk off together at the end, you feel, you feel vindicated. And
I think that's why the movie works, because you know, Rick loses Elsa
and the love story we've been rooting for ends tragically, and yet this other
relationship we're invested in is going on, and so I think that that that
gives it such a cathartic feel at the end. And so yeah, I
think I that's one of the all time great movie characters. Louis Renault.
Yeah, well Renault also, yeah, and beautifully played by Claude Rains.
He's every time people ask me who's my favorite old Hollywood actor, I always
say Claude Raids and they're like, really, because he wasn't He wasn't a
you know, he wasn't like Gregory Peck or Carry Grant, Ye, right,
But I think but look at every look at the span of work he
did, I know every kind of character, and I think this pret well
notorious is very haunting. But I think this performance, and even though it's
not considered a great film, his his performance and deception very good. Oh
yeah, it's phenomenal a party, indeed, yes it is. And mister
Skeffington he's really good. Oh yes, well, yeah, he's really good
in everything. And I feel like, I don't know, he says some
stuff about Rick, like, you know, if I were a woman,
he'd be the first man I would want to go to. And they say
stuff back back and forth like that, so you're you know that there's undertones
of that. And then the overtone of him and Elsa and Ingrid Bergmann,
which is just perfect chemistry, even though they I don't think they like fought
it out, but they never did really get They were ever fast friends,
is my understanding. Right, well, and what's what's Ingrid Bergman's line that
she used to say, I kissed Bogart but I never knew him, yeah,
or something like that. So I don't think I think they were just
I think they were both very different people who were incredibly professional and did their
jobs very well. And you know, Bogart was going through a tough time
at the time. He was good. He was in a rocky marriage which
would eventually end, and you know, a couple of years later he would,
you know, meet Lauren McCall and that would become history. But I
you know, and then and then, you know, this is a movie
that no one, but no one really I think, put much stock in.
So I think everyone was just ready to move on to the next thing.
It's pretty well documented that Ingrid Bergmann really wanted to do for Whom The
Belt Holes, which was the next movie that she did, And so I
just think everyone came, did their job and went home. And you know,
I'm sure Bogart and Rains and green Street and Lorie they were all good
friends, so they all kind of but but Bergmann, I'm sure just kind
of felt, you know, this is a job and I'm ready just to
get it done and move on, right. I've read some of her autobiography.
I know at the time she really wanted for Whom The Bell Belt Holes,
and their last filming week in August she got the call from I think
it was paramount that she had gotten the job after they had given it to
somebody else that I can't remember her name, but I know she was European
and nobody could understand her. So they got they got rid of her.
Ingrid Bergmann took that role. But beginning before Casablanca, she had made films
for David O. Selsney. I think she made that one intermetso yeah,
and then she made she made you know, Doctor Jekyl and Mister Hide with
Metro, And I know she didn't all of a sudden, there was kind
of a stall out on her career and she did not get along with her
husband that well, and she felt like she was trapped up in New York.
So she wrote, I think it was a friend or like an acting
coach, that she just belongs for the day when she can go back to
work. And I don't ever think Casa Blanca was her you know what,
was her ever favorite project. But I think she was thankful to be back
on set. I know, and you talked about on your podcast too,
the fact that she people always told her how much they loved her in Casablanca,
which her daughter said made her angry because she never because they kept rewriting
the script over and over and over again. She never knew who she was
going to be in love with. But I think the name of the game
in Casablanca is ambiguity, which makes it still feel like a modern film.
You because she never knew exactly who she was in love with, who she
was supposed to be in love with. Neither do we, And that's what
makes the ending feel okay, is that she goes, she goes. We
don't know, she doesn't even know who she's in love with. But I
know that the production code because at the end she leaves Rick and she goes
away with Paul Henrid. The production code wouldn't have allowed her in that day
and time to run away with Rick. Yeah, definitely, And I think,
like you said, I think the ambiguity it makes everything feel like it's
all in real time and we're we're we're figuring it out as she's figuring it
out. So so that's that's part of why the movie stays fresh. And
then yeah, you're right, I think, you know, we hear all
the time about how the Epstein's and Howard Koch, who were doing the screenplay,
couldn't figure out who she was going to end up with, and that
may meant that may very well be true. But in the in the end,
you know, the production code is, you know, husbands have to
stay with their wives and if they don't, they get punished somehow. So
so she went off with Bogart. They probably would both have to die in
a plane crash exactly to punish them for their actions. It's just ridiculous.
But I yeah, oh oh, we were talking. Okay, First,
I want to address like ambiguity this film. Everybody is, they're their own
flawed character. Nobody is white, nobody is black, which is very different
from other films. Everybody is practically grey. And Rick, I mean Rick
is of course, I don't want to say one of the first, but
you know, one of the first anti heroes on film. I don't think
we truly get film noir until the following year with the Woman in the Window.
You never That's what makes it feel so modernist because so many modern movies
there's no good guys, there's no bad guys. Everybody has their own flaws,
and that is definitely true for everybody living in Casablanca, which brings us
to our next point. As time goes by. Well, okay, first,
I'm sorry all over the Place, Oh, go ahead. But the
the movie was based on the play Everybody Comes to Rick, which was an
unpublished play by I Think a man named his last name was Murray Murray Burnette,
Murray Burnette. Yes, and then is it Joan Joan Joan Allison,
Joan Allison. Yeah, not June Allison, but Joan Allison. Another another
interesting I know that would have been interesting. That would have been a lot,
a lot happier plays. But yeah, it was based on Everybody Comes
to Rack. The song as Time Goes By was an old song that had
been written in the early thirties from a play that was on Broadway called Everybody's
Welcome and As Time Goes By was one of the highlights for that Broadway play.
It It did very well for the play, and I know Anne Southern
was one of the stars. And that's before she took on the Metro Goldwyn
Mayor role of Ann Southern. I can't even remember what her name was before
Ann Southern. I know, you're you got the look on. I'm trying
to think of it too. I couldn't remember, well, I'm well,
And I'm also trying to think was a Southern with r ko or MGM.
First, I can't remember, you're like, I think she went I think
she went to MGM. Yeah, and then she went, yeah, Okay.
Her real name was Harriet Lake. That's what it was. There,
we go Harriet, That's what it was. But the fact that all of
these characters seem real. Everybody's welcomed. It was speculated in the you know,
round Up the Usual Suspects, the book that Everybody Comes to Ricks was
kind of a takeoff on Everybody's Welcome because they used a song from Everybody's Welcome
and everybody being like all of these different refugees, all of these different types
of people. There's a very moving moment in the film when they're singing,
you know, the Nazis are singing their song and then the French are singing
the Marseilles that it's it's like all of these different conflicting people have all come
together and you know, us, being human beings, we're all flawed.
There's no good, there's no bad, which is a part of that.
You know, it's a Rick's Cafe. American is a symbol for the world
in general, which I think is why it it touched so many people,
because it was so ridiculously did such a wonderful job at the box office for
Warner Brothers more than other Bogart films had definitely Yeah, I mean, if
you think about it, Bogart had been kind of he was the heavy you
know until until Maltese Falcon. But you know, Sam Spain's not a shining
character either, so so you know, this is really the first time he's
playing a romantic lead. And so this was sort of out of the realm
for Bogart and he I mean, it's funny when you look at some of
the stuff he did in the late thirties. You know, he did he
didn't you know, horror movies, He did westerns, and it's so he
plays Benny Davis's stable boy, the stable with an iron with a bad Irish
accent. Yeah, and uh and so yeah, I think this is the
movie. Well, Malti's Falcon is and he starts to really get into the
Bogart persona. But this is when he steps into sort of Bogart the icon
and he never loses that until, you know, until he passes away about
fifteen years after this. But you're right, yeah, this is pure Bogart,
and he nobody was better at walking that line between black and white like
he did, and it's a fascinating character. And it's so amazing to me
because he is such a perfect screen actor. It's hard for me to think
of him on the stage the way that he started out, because he's so
good at being subtle, and the camera just picks up every little movement that
he does so well, and he knows how to work the camera and yeah,
I mean, it's just and this is one of those perfect screen performances.
Oh yeah, And I think you were saying that on what the podcast
I was listening to today, is that he is fantastic because he is so
subtle. I think so many of the great Hollywood male stars of the time,
the fantastic ones, Spencer Tracy, Claude, Rain's, Humphrey Bogart were
fantastic because they were subtle. I know, Spencer Tracy said acting as the
easiest thing in the world as long as you don't let anybody catch you doing
it, especially on film, and you know, for the time also,
you get somebody like Betty Davis who had come from the New York theater and
you're like, I wonder what these guys looked like on stage, you know,
if they were anything like Betty Davis. But yeah, I know the
Maltese Falcon, I guess, you know, iconic Bogart. Really the class
that we see comes from Casablanca. I know a lot of the films that
he took at Warner Brothers were b pictures that have been turned down by George
Raft. And by the time they got they finished the Maltese Fultcan. Because
that was I think a little bit more successful than they had planned it to
be. The Warner Brothers press department wrote a letter I'm not sure if it
was Hal Wallace or Jack Warner that said we need to start looking at projects
for Bogart, not George Raft, you know, not George Raft to Bogo.
George Raft had the worst taste and taking roles because what is it?
He turned down this, He turned down Malty's Falcon, and then he turned
down the Fred mc murray rolling Double Indemnity. I mean, obviously the guy
had no, no, no idea what a good script was. I know,
I haven't seen many George Raft films. The only one I can think
up off the top of my head is I think he was in Oh,
it was either Hell on Frisco Bay or was he in that or was he
Black Widow? I can't remember what it was like, you know, either
Warner Brothers or fox Feld for the mid fifties. But the only thing I
know much about George Raft is that when Lucy first came to Hollywood and was
fired by Samuel Goldwyn, he was one of the ones that got her the
job at RKO. He was smart enough to take the role of Spats Colombo
and some like it hot years later though, is that? What are your
some of your favorite moments from this film, the entire film? The big
the easier question would be what are not my favorite? Okay, you know,
no, no, no, it's I go back and forth so much.
But my favorite moment in the movie really it's the moment that gives me
chills and gives me a lump in the throat every time. And it's the
it's as time goes by moment when when Ilsa first reconnects with Sam and and
it's like I said, this movie is so great at unspoken subtext, and
and it's the unspoken thing subtext between them, and then of course you know
it's it's the famous you know, play it, Sam play as Time goes
by and he's weary about playing it, but he does, and Duley Wilson
is so great at singing that song. And then Rick walks in, and
the and that whole section where the two of them reconnect and you the first
time viewing, you don't know the history between them, but you feel the
history between them, and then the second time you watch it, when you
know the history between them, it's an even greater meaning. And so and
so that's what I love about this movie is it's it rewards you both times,
on your first viewing and on subsequent viewings. But yeah, that that
is Time goes By moment in a a in a sea of great moments,
I think that's that's the one that always sticks out to me. Yeah,
for sure, I think that is a beautiful moment. I think the exposition
of this film is so fantastically well done, more than other films except maybe
the Letter that just scares the tar out of you from the very first right.
But yeah, this the fact, you know, it starts off like
a documentary, and the fact it's almost like watching the sequence in Chindler's List
when you're watching all of the these Jews being boarded onto this train. It's
like the exposition of all of these refugees that have been affected by this war.
iiO and then whoever wrote it, I know, it does a beautiful
job of introducing all of the characters. At the very beginning of the film.
You learn everything you need to know about everything, and it seems like
everybody has a purpose in that opening scene, even though it is just exposition.
I know Sydney green Street was not supposed to be in the opening scene.
How By Wallace could only get him if he gave him an extra scene,
so that's why he put him in that introduction. But yeah, that
the cafe takes on its own world, which is what I appreciate so much.
It may not be a specific moment, but just being in the cafe
and knowing that there's all sorts of different types of people in there at all
times. And you mentioned it a little bit earlier, it is like kind
of it's an amalgamation of the world's cafe right there. And because nobody can
get in and out of Casablanca without you know, specifically following these crazy rules
in order to get out and to have those you know, magical letters of
transit it's like everybody is stuck in this location. And I think that's why
this movie also fascinates everybody. It's that I can't think of another movie that
has such a setting that has you know, high stakes and romance and intrigue,
everything all at the same time. And it looks fantastic, you know,
when here you are in the middle of you know, northern Africa and
you're in this glamorous nightclub that looks like it would be in New York or
someplace like that, and everyone is dressed to the nines. And then also
you have got that what a brilliant touch it was. I don't know if
it was Kurtiz or Arthur Edison or who it was to have you know,
the searchlight constantly going around too, and which gives it that sort of extra
bit of suspense as well. It's just everything, like we said before,
every decision that was made with this movie just works and it all came together,
oh for sure. And you know, everybody being in that nightclub,
there are so many people in Casablanca, they're basically in limbo ye and major
Strassa says that Elsa, he said, it's something like lives are cheap or
human Life is in Casablanca. Yeah, it's because everybody who's anybody is there,
and it it almost reminds me. Have you seen Between Two Worlds,
which is I think two years there? Yes, yes, with Paul Henry
Eleanor Parker, and that actually had Sidney green Street and oh Edmund is it
Edmund not Edmund for Edmund, Gwen John Garfield. Yeah, but they're all
caught in limbo too. It's because they've been you know, they've been killed
in a London bombing rate and they're on the trip to the afterlife. I
don't know if that was very successful. I just know I saw it on
TC HIM a long time ago and I thought was it It was absolutely brilliant.
But yeah, And another relationship I wanted to talk about because people taught
I think Renault and Rick is it is a it's a perfect relationship. Renault,
he's kind of you know, he's gonna be anybody's little bitch who's going
to help him, Wong he's going to you know, and just the fact,
I don't know completely how got away with it with the production code,
but he was you know, sleeping with women to get you know, so
they could get their letters of transet, and when you watch it, it's
like, you know, I always say on my show, you know,
the production code was stringent, but the really clever writers and directors knew how
to get around things very very well, because a lot of things would go
over censor's heads, it would go over you know, Middle America's heads or
whatever. But a lot of the stuff that Louis Renou does in this movie
is pretty blatant, and they really spell it out. So I don't know,
I don't know if it's just that this is, you know, this
is a movie where there's such moral ambiguity and everybody is sort of jockeying for
position, and so they just kind of overlook it. I don't know if
it's you know, the fact that you know, it was wartime and this
movie, you know, really was, you know, explaining the evils of
war. It's just really fascinating to me how they let some of the stuff
get by, because you know, it's incredibly clear that Louis slept with the
Bulgarian, a girl who's who just got married or what. It's very clear,
I know, And she asks Rick, would you forgive a girl that
did something very very terrible to protect you if you knew that she loved you
and you know that she's done that. I think part of that moral ambiguity,
I know that it was the script was finished, not completely finished,
but the majority of it was finished and submitted to the Production Code before the
Office of War Information Motion Bureau, the Motion bre the Motion Picture Bureau was
set up on Hollywood and buying and a lot of the you know, almost
Sacharine flag waving that you get from films like Tinder Comrade and Since You went
Away was because of the Office of War Information. You know, they wanted
to make the war look as spectacular as they possibly could, and it wasn't
until they went away that we got movies like Battleground where we're like, what
in the heck are we actually doing here? So I think being able to
kind of exploit the evils of war was the fact that the ow I had
not been set up yet. And I think part of it just kind of
because Okay, according to Round Up the Usual Suspects, they say that like
Joseph Breen wrote a letter to I can't I can't remember who he is communicating
with, Helbi Wallace or Jack Warner, that said, because there were lines
that pointed to Louie having sex with the women so that they could get their
letters of transit. There was something that pointed to that that said, you
know, we can't have this in the movie. That that is bad because
people don't have sex, you know, according to the according to the yeah,
the Hayes code. But he also after after they okayed the script and
they made the film, they submitted the film to Joseph Breen. He saw
it and then he immediately called Halby Wallace and told him how fantastic it was,
how much he loved it, which is it is a great movie.
But some of the things in it, you're like, are you sure this
was okay with you? Are you just passing it by? Because it all
works so well together, I don't exactly know what happened from point A to
point B, And yeah, a lot of the details in the making of
these films are lost. It also makes it not as much as with Louis,
but it also kind of spells out a little bit that Rick and Elsa
slept together in Paris two, that there are moments in the flashback where you
where you see them, you know, you know, almost almost going to
bed together the night or being somewhere the morning after. So you really it
spells that out pretty well too. So so, yeah, this movie gets
away with many things that I don't think. Yeah, you're right, A
movie a year or two later would have it kind of hit it right in
that sweet spot, right exactly. Well, and yeah in Paris, I
mean, in a film made today, they'd sleep together and we'd watch every
moment of it. Yeah, But I do, and I do enjoy the
mystery of did didn't they? Yeah, exactly. I know that it would
have been looked down on the production code for her because she was apparently married
to Laslow when she was having the affair with Bogart. So at the time,
I think she thought that Victor Laslow was dead because he had he was
reportedly shot at a concentration camp, which shoudn't end up happening because he he
was he came to Casablanca with Elsa. But I think if they had not
put the plot point in there that she thought he was dead, she wouldn't
have gotten away with it, because you know, that kind of adulterous affair
would have been very looked down upon. True talking about wonderful relationships. I
think so many people talk about Rick and Louis as we were a while ago,
which I think is a wonderful relationship. I think a true friendship is
between Rick and Duley Wilson because Juley Wilson is not it's a strange character for
that time because he's not exactly a butler. He doesn't. He's almost like
just a best friend that goes around where Rick is and you know, plays
the piano wherever he is. And I think part of it, you know,
if they've been able to enlarge the character, which I don't know if
they would have or not, but I think we would have seen that he
knows Rick better than anybody else does possibly eat and Elsa. He's the only
one to really he's the only one you really ever see can fight and Rick
at all, or Rick can fight in you know, Rick and Carl have
a few nice moments c Sacal's character, but but yeah, it really,
it really is interesting how because Sam Sam's a paid employee, just like everybody
else in Rix Cafe is, but he's part of Rix' center circle and the
others aren't, which is fascinating. And you know, the two of them,
the two of them in Paris. You know, they're you know,
they travel together, they you know, they they they spend a lot of
their time together. It's a really fascinating character and really sort of forward for
nineteen forty two. The only the only thing that sticks out to me that's
kind of a little blemish is when Elsa refers to him as a boy,
which she when she tells them, But that is the only I mean,
in this entire movie. I think that's the only blemish on this otherwise perfect
movie. Well, yeah, she asked too, as the boy playing the
piano list like, you want to restate that before I answer it. But
I know, well, and that's kind of strange to me. You look
at like the history. I know, the ow I encouraged films to put
characters of color in positions that were not Butler's and we're not maids. You
still got that throughout the war, and they also wanted characters of color working
or fighting side by side, you know, Caucasian characters, which I don't
think always worked out that well. I know, I think it was the
previous year and forty one there were several giant mobs that attacked theaters in the
South because Kevin and the Sky came out, which is all black cast,
and none of those characters are maids and butlers. They're living their own lives.
So the fact that you have a character Julie Wilson that is obviously not
he's not any kind of man of it for Rick, and it's more of
a friend. I'm wondering if there were any because I haven't been able to
look if there were any stories, Probably I don't know it, you know,
any bad stories, not that I've heard. Yeah, I know,
like Lena Horne coming to MGM, she couldn't touch white actors in scenes because
they had to cut out all of her scenes for when they show them in
the South, which is one reason why she only sang in movies. It's
the same thing with the Nicholas brothers at Fox. They had, Yeah,
you know that they cut all of their numbers out of the movies. I
think, well, finally and The Pirate, you know, Gene Kelly,
you know, made it so that you couldn't take them out because some of
his biggest numbers are with them, right. Well, oh no, I
was just gonna say, yeah, I mean, but but you know,
Sam is so nicely integrated into the story and Casablanca it's you know, it's
he's embedded. It's impossible. But yeah, in musicals it was a lot
easier because you can easily take musical numbers out, which doesn't make sense for
a musical, but well for the like the musical Golden Age of entertainment,
where so many musicals it was just for the sake of entertainment, not for
furthering the plot. I know that in the one of the original drafts of
the Pirate, I've read that Lena Horn was supposed to be Judy Garland's best
friend, and finally they decided just to completely cut her out because they thought
this would be just too too much of a problem. So I know Lena
Horn. The hairdressers would not touch her hair at MGM. They had to
hire someone of color specifically to come in and do her hair, which is
very unfortunate. But also Lena Horn has a very interesting story with Bogart.
While we're talking about Bogart that when she moved into Oh, I forget what
neighborhood was it, Hombi Hills, Holmby Hills, Homby Hills. The neighborhood
she was Humphrey Bogart's neighbor and when he was married to Mayo, which is
why he was having such a bad problem, bad problems when he was making
this movie, because they were constantly ripping each other's faces off, quite literally.
She said that once she had to sneak in in the middle of the
night, and once they found out that she and her I think maybe her
aunt or her mother and her two babies were living in that house. There
is a petition that went around the Hombie Hills neighborhood to get them kicked out.
And Bogart, you know, said I if he threatened this petition that
you know, should you have any problems, you should come talk to me.
And he told her if anybody should threaten you, you send them right
my way and I'll take care of them, which is which is I think
is a wonderful, wonderful gesture of who Brogart actually was. I know he
was. You can watch him in this movie. He's a he's a very
slight man. He's very intimidating because of the persona he's come up with.
But he's he's not huge, and obviously he wasn't, you know, just
incredibly healthy. But I know that many times in bars after he started making
films like this, people would always pick fights with him because they thought he
was the bad guy, bad tough guy, Humphrey Bogart, right, and
he but just like in the movie, he has this he has this rough
exterior and yet you know, everyone is poking at him saying, you know,
it's that famous line that Lewis says, underneath that cynical shell, you're
a hardest sentimentalist. And so that that is always at the core of Bogart
in every movie except maybe Treasure of the Sarah Madreyer in a Lonely Place.
But but Bogart always has this prickly exterior. But inside there is this you
know that there's this heart of gold, there's this sentimentality. And I think
that's why audiences have, you know, drawn, been drawn to him so
much, because there are so many layers to peel back with him, and
you're constantly doing that and all of his work. Oh, for sure,
do you have while we're just kind of talking about Bogart, do you have
any other favorites of Bogarts that you've seen? Oh? So many? I
Bogart, I you know, I could I could do a whole show about
Bogart's work. But I love you know, like certainly, certainly The African
Queen is one of my favorites. Certainly, I think he's brilliant in The
Cane Mutiny. Yeah, I think that one of my favorite film noirs is
In a Lonely Place with him and Gloria Graham I and and of It's Funny.
Of the four, I love all four movies he did with Lauren McCall,
but I think my I think my favorite is probably their least known,
and that's Dark Passage where you don't see him for the first half of the
movie. The camera is him, right, But I won't spoil it for
anyone who hasn't seen it. But it's a quirky, fun movie if you
haven't seen it. But yeah, Agnes Moorehead is just a trap. I
mean, who else would fly off the handle and throw themselves out of an
apartment building? But like I but like I said, Cassle Blank is my
favorite movie. But if you were to put a gun to my head and
say, what's Bogart's best performance, Treasure of the Sarah Maud Right, He's
brilliant. He is brilliant. He is really brilliant. I haven't seen that
in quite a while. I watched it on TCM maybe about five or six
years ago. I need to get back into that. He has so many
wonderful films. I get so caught up and just like researching and watching this
one specific film over and over and over again that I've found that it's like
I don't have time to watch all of the classic films I would like to,
But he is somebody that I really need to go back and watch.
Yes, but Dark Passage, I think visually, anybody who's listening who wants
to kind of look into the Warner archive all for all four of their films
to have and have not. The Big Sleep, Dark Passage and Key Largo
are all of the available in Blu ray. I think visually it is the
most interesting because it is like walking into a noir nightmare. Yeah yeah,
I for me, the most suspenseful, the one that always keeps me in
my seat the longest is Key Largo. It's it's yeah, riveting and disturbing,
Oh my goodness, And you know, nobody else but Edward g Robinson
would be able to pull that off. And everg Robinson and Claire Trevor those
two and that movie. Oh my god, the scene where he forces her
to sing is so uncomfortable and she's so brilliant. Have you heard that story
behind it? The director, I can't remember who directed it at John Houston,
John Houston of course, of course, as John Houston Claire Trevor was.
She kept asking him, Okay, so when are we going to rehearse
the song I'm gonna have to sing? And he didn't until the very day
that they were shooting it. He was like, Okay, get up and
see it. But have you seen two weeks in another town? Yes,
and that is I think that is Claire Trevor's revenge on Eberg. She's terrible
to him and she's off there the Yeah, it's one of those. It's
one of those almost brilliant Vincent Manelli melodramas that you're like, oh, you
got so close to it being it's like the cobweb, so close to it
being so great, but it just kind of veers into camp. It's yeah,
it's it's it's a great companion piece. It's not nearly as good as
The Bad and the Beautiful, but it's a nice companion piece to watch with
The Bat and the Beautiful. There's a lot of connections. The use of
panavision and metro color is very interesting in that movie. But I'm sorry,
I got us way off track. From across the block eye you and I
could probably do this all night. It's like, finally somebody I can talk
to old movies about. But yeah, I was gonna say, you brought
up you know, it's a fantastic ensemble cast, which I said more towards
the beginning of the movie. I think one thing that made how Wallace such
a fantastic producer is he realized talent and he realized like everybody comes to Rick.
When it finally was produced on the London stage, I think around nineteen
ninety six, it got terrible, terrible reviews because I think it focused more
on Rick and Elsa, who was Lois in the play, and she was
actually more kind of She wasn't a likable character, I don't think in the
play, which Ingrid Bergmann made her likable, and so did the Epstein's and
Howard that's the way they wrote her. But the fact that you have all
of these tiny little ensemble characters running around Holb Wallace knew even though he was
gonna have to dish out more money that if he could get some strong characters
such as Peter Laurie as he's a call, Sidney green Street, even Paul
Henrid to play these smaller parts, that he was going to have a piece
that is so much more fleshed out. Isn't it funny that we we associate,
you know, Peter Laurie and Sidney green Street with the lore of this
movie, and they all have very limited screen time, and yet they are
so indelible in the little bits of screen time that they get. You just
think that they're on screen longer. But you know, Peter Laurie, we
associate so much with this movie, and he's dead within the first fifteen minutes.
And Sidney green Street, you know, he has, you know,
three small scenes, but he's unforgettable too. And and you know sc Sikl
has more screen time I think than green Street and Laurie probably put together right,
And it's I think that's all this movie. It's like all my favorite
character actors in one movie together too, exactly. And we could talk the
rest of the night about like our actual favorite movies of each of it.
Like all I mean, I associate him so much more with like Christmas in
Connecticut and in the good old summertime. Yeah, he's got a great little
scene in a Yankee Doodle Dandy with the James Cagney he does. Yeah,
he's he's perfect in all of them. And talking about Flamingo Roads Sydney Green
Street is one of his strongest. It's one of his I mean, it's
despicable. He's despicable. It just makes you want to root for Joan Crawford,
who isn't that great herself. No, but yeah, it's it's almost
like, you know, the good producers, because it was the producers ran
the shows in the studios. It was not the directors, which is very
different today, someone like you know, John Houseman. I don't know if
you've ever heard of Nina Fosch talk about executive suite. When John Houseman asked
her shortly after she signed her contract with Metro well several years because she had
been at Columbia's for so long, he said, I want you to do
this part in this film I'm producing at Metro and she was like, okay,
great. She was like, can I read the script? And he
was like no, go ahead and sign and then I'll get you the script.
She signed. She read the script and her part in Executive Suite is
tiny and yeah, and she said she got mad at him because it was
so small, and he was like, just look into the character. And
she spent all this time doing this research and building this character, and you
know, producers, new actors that were going to do that and add and
she was. She was nominated for an Academy Award even though she barely had
any screen time. And Executive Suite, well, I just just a plug,
I guess for my own podcast. But we just did. We just
did an episode on Network which I dropped at the at the time of us
recording this, and two performances in that movie that only have one scene,
Ned Baty and Beatrice Strait both got nominated and Beatrice Strain ends up winning.
But yeah, you make the most of what screen time you're given and sometimes
it sometimes an audience will remember you more than someone who maybe has more screen
time. My first experience with Casa Blanca was I got the DVD for Christmas.
I think I was in fifth sixth grade, and it was like the
Delexe Special to Disc edition. I still have it, probably won't watch it
after watching The four K Blu Ray won't ever watch it again because I'm like,
yeah, anyway, picture quality, but I like, I think I
said this. I felt like it was another stock kind of Warner Brothers melodrama
at the time, And as I got older and learned more about the Holocaust,
what the war was going what the world was going through with the war
at that point, it became so much more, so much more impactful.
And it's like, you know, the script is just ridiculously corny. These
these films, these lines that we say are so corny, they work together
so well when they're put together. And I think it was one of the
Epstein's Epstein's or Howard Kotch who called it slick shit. They were like,
we never expected it to be any good, but they just got it down
to a fine polish. It just works, like I said, And and
I think it's because you're putting these lines in the mouths of actors who aren't
to their core melodramatic, because this movie is pure melodrama. But Bogart is
never going to sound melodramatic because he's too salt of the earth to do that.
Yea, And Ingrid and Ingrid Bergmann is too sincere, dude, to
make it sound like that as well. If you put if you put if
you put these lines in the mouths of someone like Betty Davis, we keep
picking on Betty Davis. I love Betty Davis, or or you know or
or or you know people like that, it certainly would come off as over
the top. But because it's in the mouths of people who really believe what
they're saying and sort of take you off kilter and don't necessarily meet your expectations
of what they're going to do, it really works. Because if you I
mean the final scene, if you read that whole speech just on paper,
it does sound really corny, but out of the mouth of Humphrey Bogart,
it just sounds right, and it just sounds perfect, and it gives you
chills every time you watch it, exactly and it's his subtlety that adds so
much to it. And for so many of these people, so many of
these actors, it was easy. It was just like breathing their delivery on
these speeches, and it was so beautiful. One thing that you mentioned,
you said, this very beautiful and glamorous night Cup Club in Casablanca. I
know that the original costumes that Ory Kelly had designed were much more glamorous than
what we originally saw in the finished film, even though we see them today
and you know, it's like we never dress up that much anymore unless we
were going to the met Gala. But still, I know that a lot
of Holbie Wallace had a problem with them being so beautiful, and like Ingrid
Bergmann was going to be in furs and jewels and silts and satins, which
first and foremost right because this was being made, This went into production almost
like four or five months right after Pearl Harbor was his Parl Harbor. Yeah,
and so then the United States government started to ration everything, and so
they're like, not only do we not have the materials anymore, this does
not make sense for like Paul Henrid and Ingrid Bergmann to be traveling with all
of his finery because they've literally been refugees themselves, have been on the right.
Yeah. I was. I was watching one of the documentaries on the
Blu Ray and it is interesting, you know, and like you mentioned,
it compared to us today, where you know, we're at a time where
nobody dresses up for anything anymore, and so it does look extra glamorous to
us, but I think Ingrid Bergmann, she looks glamorous enough. But everything
is so simple. It looks like stuff you could travel in, and it
looks like stuff that is easy to put on. But also everyone kind of
also has their own color palette. You know Bogart, you know, Bogart
and Henried are always in sort of white or cream. And then you've got
you know, the Nazis, who are always sort of in darker outfits,
and Claude Rains is a little more ambiguous, so he's got a mix of
stuff. So yeah, it's really it really is smart, and it really
is like we mentioned before, it's a lot of it's a lot of studio
craftsmen who knew exactly what they were doing. They might not have all been
like on the same page at the same time, but every decision that was
made comes together. One thing that one of your co hosts said today that
I was listening, was like, you know, the studio system may not
have always been a great way to make art. I do not especially think
it was a very it was a very uplifting environment for anybody. It was
just a bunch of people that were some of them were underpaid, some of
them were overpaid, that were all running towards a finished goal. But somehow
they all came together in so many films to create different beautiful works of art.
Yes, yeah, and it's like they were their giant repertory companies.
Well well, and it's interesting the studio system is so full of just contradictions
because, you know, we think of maybe nowadays we get more artsy product,
you know, just because there's more independent or in the seventies and eighties,
and yet we've got corporations running movie studios. You know, we've got
people who aren't artistic whatsoever. And back then you had men, you know,
you know, one or two men running each studio who actually had theatrical
backgrounds and knew what they were talking about, right, and knew what scripts
worked and what didn't and everything. And so so you would think that,
you know, more artistic product would be turned out back then because you actually
had people who had theatrical backgrounds and all of that. So so many contradictions
about that time. But you're right, I mean, like everything, they
wanted to make money, and yet because there were so many talented people doing
what they did best. Masterpieces were created exactly, and yeah, masterpieces with
their own identity, depending on what studio they were with. Yes, I
think one thing that we're talking we've been talking about with Cosablanca is you know,
the studio Warner Brothers in particular, was considered so progressive, so socially
edgy, you know, compared to other studios because the Warners were even though
Harry Warner was much more of a conservative Christian than Jack was, they were
very much against the, like I said, the Nazi regime, whereas Louis
b. Mayer was, well he was. I think they were all against
the Nazi regime. It just they all were. It just I think it
took a little longer for some people to do that, just because they wanted
their product to still play in Germany, I think. Right. Well,
and I mean, you know, talking about Warner Brothers in Marches or Warner
Archivers releasing Confessions of a Nazi Spy, which is really the first Hollywood film
that came out of Warner Brothers with Edward g. Robinson, who I had
believe was a Jewish refugee. Yeah, it was the first film because they
were in nineteen thirty nine to vilify the Nazis, and they were terrified of
losing that business, which is a reason so many nineteen forty films were not
shot in technicolor. Yeah, and it's the and what you know you're talking
about, you know, the differences in studios and you know, if you
look at you know, Warner Brothers does something like Confessions of a Nazi Spy
to speak out against the Nazis, whereas across town, Louis b. Mayor
does something like Missus Miniver to speak I guess so's it's just a it's a
difference in style. It's a difference in approach, but with the same goal,
just a different way of going about it, I know exactly. And
that's another that's another thing. You know, so much Hollywood being towards FT
because it was FDR's war the time, is what it was considered. So
it was considered a leftist war even you know, and that's where the Academy
Awards war because in nineteen forty three, Missus Miniver won for Best Picture and
in nineteen forty four across a bloc of one, so you can see,
you know, they were all trying to push the war effort, and it
wasn't just because they were about the war. They were phenomenal films. Oh
yeah, yeah, it's so much, so many movies made during that time.
I've said before, I think I think the World War two era is
one of my favorite eras of filmmaking, just because you know, so much
of it was propaganda. But when you watch it, so many of those
movies still hold up so well and they still work, and you can always
pick which of those studios appeal to you the most, you know, I
you know, I love MGM, I love the gloss, I love everything,
but I also love the realism of Warner Brothers, and so that I
think that was fun, and I think that was what was so great about
that time is you kind of knew what you were getting from every studio,
and if you were in the for something gritty, you would go see Warner
Brothers. And if you wanted to escape and not think about something for two
hours, you went to an MGM or a Fox movie. So yeah,
right, yeah. Betty Davis always said, you know, the grass is
always greener, but I heard her say on the Dickkevitt interview. Also,
of course, I've watched the entire thing as well. But she always said,
now, MGM, that is where they made real women's pictures. And
in my mind, it's like, you might have had to fight harder at
Warner Brothers to get your movies made, but I feel like they were socially.
Socially they were better movies. They pushed harder than the MGM movies did.
Oh yeah, Greer Garson and Katherine Hepburn might have had some phenomenal chances
to play some phenomenal women, but none of them had the grit and the
passion that Betty Davis did. And I feel like that was allowed because she
was working at Warner Brothers. She was at the studio of Bogart, Cagney
and Flynn, so they weren't as interested in making, you know, women's
movies. So she andt Haviland and you know, they had to They just
had to extra hard, whereas at MGM they just kind of passed out the
women's scripts like they were going out of style, almost exactly. Well,
yeah and yeah, and by the time Joan Crawford got to Warner Brothers,
Betty Davis had gotten it down to a fine art. So she was just
that's another story that is another story. You want to spend the next two
hours talking about Joe Crawford at Warner Brothers. But okay, so let's get
back because I've read that book. I was just going to sit down and
talk to you, just talk to you about why you love this movie,
and I think we've definitely gotten this. I don't. I was going to
say, I don't think this movie would have existed without, which is a
terrible thing to say. It's like, you know, this podcast wouldn't have
happened without the pandemic. This movie wouldn't have existed without Pearl Harbor being bombed,
because you know, the funny thing is that this script came to the
story department at Warner Brothers on December eighth, nineteen forty one. So that's
when they knew that the world was in war. You know, in war
in like everything, Hollywood has to exploit everything for money, and they knew
they could exploit this war to make money, which is one reason why Cossablanca
got its way in well, and there's so much serendipity with what happened with
this movie, which is another reason why it's you know, there's so much
lore and everything because When this movie opened, the Allies landed in Casablanca,
so it was on the front page of every paper. And also, you
know, just put yourself in the shoes of a moviegover in nineteen forty two,
the war is not going well for us and who you know, And
I heard Steven Spielberg on the documentary on the Blue Rays say people were wondering
if there was still going to be USA two to three years after that.
So watching this movie and you know, you're sort of walking off into the
unknown like Rick and Louis at the end. So it took on a much
different meaning than it does now because we know actually what happens. But to
be a moviego or at the time and for it to be so relevant then
and it's still relevant now because it's a movie about sacrifice, and it's a
movie about putting the needs of others above yours, and it's still you know,
those themes are timeless, but they were incredibly timeless in nineteen forty two
and forty three, oh for sure. And I mean it's like you know
nowadays, in twenty twenty, we thought, okay, so where do we
go from here? Is this the end of it all? And you know,
audiences in nineteen forty two could have been thinking the same thing. I've
heard that it did, like the Ally Well the Spring the film was slated
for a nineteen forty three spring release, but because the Allies landed in Crossablanca,
Warner Brothers was like, now release it now, Yes, and so
it So that's why so many people say it was made and forty it's either
forty two or forty three, but it was made and for well, yeah,
wherever it's funny, wherever you look it up, it's always different.
Sometimes it'll have a nineteen forty two in parentheses. Sometimes I'll have in nineteen
forty three in parentheses, no matter what it Yeah, it was up for
the forty or well, yeah, the Oscar in forty four, the forty
three oscars that were presented in forty four years exactly. Yeah, it had
so it had to wait a long time for it to again oscars. So
really, I mean the movie stayed on the minds of Academy voters for a
long time, which, yeah, which is is the It means it was
a great movie because the other that I think one of the biggest box office
hits in forty three was Song of Bernadette, which everybody thought was going to
sweep the Oscars, which it practically did, I think until I mean Best
Screenplay and Best Picture, and Warner Brothers took those home, and Michael Curtiz
got Best Director. Yeah, best, yes, best, as he should.
We didn't even get to talk about Michael Kurtiz. I love Michael Curtiz.
He he's He and Victor Fleming are the two directors which you know are
not on the tips of a lot of people's tongues, and yet they directed
so many great movies. If you look at if you like well, first
of all, if you look at Michael Curtiz's career, you think he directed
this. He directed The Adventures of Robinhood. He directed Mildred Pearce. He
directed Yankee Doodle Dandy. He directed Elizabeth and Essex. He directed White Christmas.
Yeah, I mean, It's Captain Blood. So many different movies,
with so many different genres. And he may not have had a certain visual
style or a certain or a certain literary style like Hitchcock or Billy Wilder or
something like that, but he knew how to take the material he had and
utilize it to its best potential. And that I mean he was I put
him right up with those masters at that time. Oh for sure. Yeah,
Like you said, you know, he didn't have a specific style completely,
but he knew how to adapt to the material that he was working with.
I know that when we did our Adventures of Robinhood episode episode, because
Adventures of Robinhood was the very first film where Jack Warner was like actually,
like, oh, this is a master director. Because Eryl Flynn had asked
for William Keeley, which was not working out, so they brought in Michael
Kurtiz and he got the picture done well and also his sets. They would
spend sometime seventeen or eighteen hours a day on the set working. Halbi Wallace
was very worried at first with Michael Curtiz on The Adventures of Robinhood because he
knew he liked to be very, very prop and scenery heavy, and he
was afraid that they were going to get caught so caught up in the props
and the scenery that you were going to lose the action that was going on
screen. And I think after the Adventures of Robinhood came out is when Jack
Warner signed him to a very long contract and gave him a lot of money.
And yeah, I know he was a German Jewish refugee, well not
exactly a refugee. He came in nineteen twenty six, before Hitler had come
to power. But I know by the time they made Casablanca he had had
I think he had had several loved ones that had died in concentration camps.
Yeah, most of the people in that film did, so it was it
was very, very close to them. Yeah, Victor Fleming and Michael Kurtiz
though both definitely fabulous directors. I know Victor Fleming most of course from Wizard
of Oz and Got with the Wind and but like Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde
things like that as well. A guy, a guy named Joe Yes Brett
red Dust Yet you know, so he did he some gabled, did some
of his best work with Victor Fleming, and he did a lot of The
Treasure Island with Wallace Bury and Jackie Cooper, so that he did some solid
work too. He died. He died fairly young in the late forties,
so he didn't get he didn't get to do as huge of a body work.
But what he did during his time is pretty solid. Oh for sure.
Yeah, yeah, and that yeah, so many of those Unfortunately,
like Herbert is it Herbert Stothart who wrote, who underscored all of the films
that Metro died the late forties and then in the early six these some of
those people that worked on the artists that work behind the scenes on those films
at Metro, especially MGA musicals, just started dropping off like flies, which
it was like, I guess this is the signal that we're coming to the
end of this. So yeah, yeah, yeah, we will. You
and I need to do just a whole episode on MGM musical we do.
I tell you, we'll talk about it for five hours. Yeah, But
I mean, I appreciate you so much sitting down and talking with me.
I really appreciate all of your input. I love meeting you, I love
talking with you. Thank you so much for sitting down with me today.
It was awesome to meet you. Brandon. We are. If you've listened
to this episode today and you have a problem, like there's something you'd like
to add to the conversation, or you heard something that you were like,
oh, I'm not completely sure if that's true, feel free to write into
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