Thousands would end up in Casablanca
Have just learned, chatting on Twitter, that a friend has never seen Casablanca. The tragedy of it!
Nearly all the bit players in that scene are refugees from the Nazis.
Casablanca made its debut two-and-half years after Germany marched into France, triggering a massive refugee exodus. As the Nazis advanced, the population of France fled south, hoping to avoid being swallowed up by Hitler’s burgeoning empire. Hungarians, Poles, Russians, Austrians, and Spanish Republicans who had fled their homelands to seek sanctuary in France before the war, once again found themselves on the run. Thousands would end up in Casablanca.
In July of 1940, more than two hundred ships arrived off the coast of Casablanca, the largest port in Africa on the Atlantic coast. The captains stocked only enough supplies to transport their passengers from Marseille, Bordeaux, or Oran. They didn’t plan on baking under the scorching North African sun for weeks as they waited to disembark their passengers. Both refugees and sailors suffered from dehydration and illness as water and food ran out. Once the refugees made it ashore, they had to find housing and navigate the French Protectorate of Morocco’s bureaucracy.
To deal with refugee influx, the Protectorate established an internment camp at Aïn Chok, an area approximately five miles southeast of the city center. George Kelber, a passenger on the SS Chateau Yquem, was shunted into its makeshift quarters along with seven hundred other recently arrived refugees. “People are getting exhausted, many of them are ill, and hygienic conditions are far from being satisfactory,” he wrote. “All these people have suffered a lot since four weeks and many of them are morally and physically broken.”
The film Casablanca is crowded with refugees. There’s Carl, the affable German-speaking waiter, and Sascha, the Russian bartender. A Dutch banker boasts of having run “the second largest banking house in Amsterdam.” Annina, a Bulgarian bride with doe eyes, resigns herself to selling her virtue to obtain the exit visas she and her husband need.
No one should be going to sleep tonight never having seen Casablanca.
That moment when the band leader looks hesitantly as Rick, and Rick gives that nod, just moments after he’s turned down Lazlo’s offer of money.
Sad to say, almost none of my students have ever seen it, or even heard of it. They don’t know when WWII started, when it ended, or what countries were involved. I know they are taught some of this in school; for some reason, they remember little, and care about less.
We should not lose the memory of this terrible war, nor the memory of the Civil War. These are events we must always be on our guard against. Maybe next year I should show Casablanca instead of the movies I show about plastic in the ocean and the formation of the San Andreas fault. No, probably not. It was just a thought.
We should especially be keeping the memory of this terrible war alive now, because we are drifting into (or briskly stampeding into) another Global Rise of Fascism.
Okay, now you’ve done it. I’m going to have to watch Casablanca this week (as soon as I get my grading done, and grades submitted, that is).
Well I’ve managed 19,797 bedtimes give or take, and I’ll probably (well, hopefully) manage another 10K without seeing it. Not so much that I don’t trust everyone’s judgement but I have to say I’ve never ever heard it described as any sort of historically accurate events beyond the setting. Mostly to the contrary if anything. Many years ago I read about all the refugees that had been cast which does give it an interesting angle and really the only reason I can think of that would compel me to view it.
I am admittedly a bit contrarian in that “You have to see X!” or “You haven’t seen X?!” doesn’t motivate me, unless I know something about it already that interests me. Casablanca may be the oldest movie in that category. OTOH I respect and often share OB’s and many commentator’s opinions here so I will reconsider.
Oh, god no, of course it’s not historically accurate. I didn’t mean to suggest that; sorry if I did. No no. It’s more that it loomed large at the time, and the time was a terrifying one which I have learned to feel lucky for having been born too late to experience. And its afterlife was interesting, and the politics of it are interesting (Hollywood very corporate but some screenwriters were lefty – I think the Epstein brothers were). Stuff like that.
Plus…I didn’t mean to leave this out…it’s good. It’s Hollywoody and schmaltzy and of its time, but it’s good. It was part of the very busy Warner Brothers pipeline and they thought it was just another little picture, but it turned out to be bigger than they expected, partly because it’s good. It’s sentimental, in a Warner Brothers tough guy way, but it’s good.
Thanks for the update, I suppose I read too much into what you said about it. I already put it on my tivo wish list, might as well check it out next time it airs.
Well I did include that whole big chunk of historical background, but that was for general interest as opposed to because the movie represented it…but I didn’t say that. My enthusiasm ran away with me.
The first time I saw the full movie was in college a the law school, which had a film series of classic movies (always preceded by a short, which often involved Bugs Bunny commenting “What a maroon”; that always got a huge laugh as that was the school’s nickname). It seemed like I already knew half the dialog.
Trivia for any Red Sox or Cubs fan: Theo Epstein is the grandson of one the Epstein brothers (Philip).