They tried, with an updated and Americanized story-line, starring (ahem) Pamela Anderson. It was a box office disaster, with the star winning the “worst new actress” golden raspberry.
But it does the Bechdel Test (which Casablanca does not), so that’s something.
“Casablanca shows us how cold and hard Rick is…”
I just noticed a few days ago that Rick is sitting in behind the black chess pieces, I’ll bet as some subtle suggestion of the same. Or maybe I’m over-thinking it.
Edit: I forgot the best part. The setup of the pieces was a real game Bogie was playing against someone. Of course, I was looking it up because everything is chess now.
https://starsandletters.blogspot.com/2016/02/bogie-chess-casablanca.html
Rick Blaine despises parasites, one of which is entertainingly played be Pere Lorre! Yet, Rick runs a gambling parlor, which is nothing more than a useless, non-productive way to skim money without actually adding any value to his society.
The man is an intellectually contradicting, moral genius!
Two points - first of all, Casablanca is, in my opinion, the greatest movie yet created. Everything just comes together and gels perfectly. I don’t care that there are plot holes like why would anything like letters of transit even exist - it’s a movie, and sometimes you have to let go of reality a little.
Secondly, and more important than my thinking that Casablanca is such a fantastic movie is that in the second clip, it reminds us of what real patriotism looks like, not like the thinly disguised racism, anti-semitism, nationalistic and exclusionary hatred that we see today.
I watched that movie many, many years ago not knowing anything about it, other than it being some low-brow sci-fi when I was in that kind of mood. It didn’t take me long to say, “Hey, I know this!” The makers earned a little more of my respect for their chutzpah, and I found myself enjoying the ride.
From deep in the memory banks, didn’t the father of the great Anne Sofie Von Otter, a Swedish diplomat, use his position to provide letters of transit to Jews to allow them to go to safe countries? It seems to have been a thing, at least.
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