Originally Posted by
Graham Breeze
Casablanca (1942 dir Michael Curtiz)
The Daily Telegraph suggests that this will be the best film to be shown on TV during the holiday. Well as a timeless, flawless masterpiece it will be.
Like the Mona Lisa or the Taj Mahal it suffers from an apparent over-familiarity but, like them, it needs unjaundiced eyes (and ears) to appreciate its wonders. People may remember the perfect performances of a stellar cast-Bergman, Bogart, Lorre, Veight, Greenstreet- or As Time Goes By- but a great film starts with a great script and in this case Warner Brothers paid 75% of the total fees paid to all the actors for the original play and to the script writers.
And what they got in return is one of the most quoted film scripts in cinema history and a film of perfection.