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Literary Criticism and Theories

Notes particularly inasmuch as the propaganda is strictly a by-product of the principal action and
contributes to it instead of getting in the way.” Some other reviews were less enthusiastic: The
New Yorker rated it only “pretty tolerable”.
Lasting Impact
The film has grown in popularity. Murray Burnett called it “true yesterday, true today, true
tomorrow”. By 1955, the film had brought in $6.8 million, making it only the third most successful
of Warners’ wartime movies (behind Shine On, Harvest Moon and This is the Army). On April 21,

1957, the Brattle Theater of Cambridge, Massachusetts, showed the film as part of a season of old
movies. It was so popular that it began a tradition of screening Casablanca during the week of final
exams at Harvard University which continues to the present day, and is emulated by many
colleges across the United States. Todd Gitlin, a professor of sociology who himself attended one
of these screenings, had said that the experience was, “the acting out of my own personal rite of
passage”. The tradition helped the movie remain popular while other famous films of the 1940s
have faded away, and by 1977, Casablanca was the most frequently broadcast film on American
television.
On the film’s 50th anniversary, the Los Angeles Times called Casablanca’s great strength “the purity
of its Golden Age Hollywoodness [and] the enduring craftsmanship of its resonantly hokey
dialogue”. The newspaper believed the film achieved a “near-perfect entertainment balance” of
comedy, romance, and suspense.
According to Roger Ebert, Casablanca is “probably on more lists of the greatest films of all time
than any other single title, including Citizen Kane” because of its wider appeal. Ebert opined that
Citizen Kane is generally considered to be a “greater” film but Casablanca is more loved. Ebert said
that he has never heard of a negative review of the film, even though individual elements can be
criticized, citing unrealistic special effects and the stiff character/portrayal of Laszlo. Rudy Behlmer
emphasized the variety in the picture: “it’s a blend of drama, melodrama, comedy [and] intrigue”.
Ebert has said that the film is popular because “the people in it are all so good” and that it is “a
wonderful gem”. As the Resistance hero, Laszlo is ostensibly the most noble, although he is so stiff
that he is hard to like. The other characters, in Behlmer’s words, are “not cut and dried”: they
come into their goodness in the course of the film. Renault begins the film as a collaborator with
the Nazis, who extorts sexual favors from refugees and has Ugarte killed. Rick, according to
Behlmer, is “not a hero,... not a bad guy”: he does what is necessary to get along with the authorities
and “sticks his neck out for nobody”. Even Ilsa, the least active of the main characters, is “caught
in the emotional struggle” over which man she really loves. By the end of the film, however,
“everybody is sacrificing.”
There are a few dissenting reviewers. According to Pauline Kael, “It’s far from a great film, but it
has a special appealingly schlocky romanticism...” Umberto Eco wrote that “by any strict critical
[70]
standards... Casablanca is a very mediocre film.” He viewed the changes the characters undergo as
inconsistent rather than complex: “It is a comic strip, a hotch-potch, low on psychological credibility,
and with little continuity in its dramatic effects.”
There is anecdotal evidence that Casablanca may have made a deeper impression among film-
lovers than within the professional movie-making establishment. In the November/December
1982 issue of American Film, Chuck Ross claimed that he retyped the screenplay to Casablanca, only
changing the title back to Everybody Comes to Rick’s and the name of the piano player to Dooley
Wilson, and submitted it to 217 agencies. Eighty-five of them read it; of those, thirty-eight rejected
it outright, thirty-three generally recognized it (but only eight specifically as Casablanca), three
declared it commercially viable, and one suggested turning it into a novel. Hugh Hefner cited it as
part of his motivation to open up the Playboy Club.

Influence on Later Works
Many subsequent films have drawn on elements of Casablanca. Passage to Marseille reunited Bogart,
Rains, Curtiz, Greenstreet and Lorre in 1944, while there are many similarities between Casablanca

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