#37: CASABLANCA (1942)

THRILL SCALE 1-10

3.5

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

Yes, a couple of times at least

BEST SEQUENCE

A heart-stirring rendition of the French national anthem, "La Marseillaise"

BEST LINE

"Well always have Paris"

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

99%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"An undisputed masterpiece and perhaps Hollywood's quintessential statement on love and romance, Casablanca has only improved with age, boasting career-defining performances from Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman."

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"A cynical expatriate American cafe owner struggles to decide whether or not to help his former lover and her fugitive husband escape the Nazis in French Morocco."

DIRECTOR

Michael Curtiz

MAIN CAST

Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre

THOUGHTS

• As I've done before, I want to emphasize that I'm giving Casablanca a 3.5/10 based on thrills alone. It's really a terrific movie, tremendously entertaining and touching, and as a movie it's much better than 3.5/10. That's actually still pretty impressive as a thrill score, though, considering the movie is more focused on the romance, for the most part, and that's probably how most people remember it. A lot of tension is wrung out of the simple question of who will end up with whom in the end, and if you can think of a more exciting movie sequence that's based on duelling national anthems, I'd love to hear about it
• The performances are all wonderful, but especially Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault, who's not quite a villain, but he's definitely not a hero. He does some terrible things in this movie, including collaborating with the Nazis and extorting women who are trying to escape to safety (and the movie is fairly artful in making it very obvious that this is what he's doing, while not making it explicit). Rains plays Louis with such a wry way about him that you still kind of like him in spite of it all, and it's a small touch, but I love the way he refers to Rick as Ricky throughout the movie
• My runner-up favourite moment is when Rick shows us he's a different kind of man than Louis, and purposefully allows a young couple to win enough money at roulette so that Louis can't extort them any further
• We're discussing the American Film Institute's 100 Thrills list, but it won't be surprising to hear that the AFI has many other lists, and it shouldn't be surprising to hear that Casablanca is high on many of them. As of the most recent update it's #3 on their list of the greatest movies ever, and it's #1 on their ranking of love stories in film. What I want to emphasize, however, is that Casablanca appears a whopping six times on their list of greatest movie quotes
• This is certainly one of the most quotable movies I've ever seen. The script is sharp and funny when appropriate, and emotionally stirring when it needs to be. It feels like every other scene has a line that we're still quoting today, and even the lines that haven't entered the lexicon are still snappy and clever. Another one of my favourite lines comes when Captain Renault orders an expensive bottle of champagne, and when his companion protests, Renault says, "Oh, please, monsieur. It is a little game we play. They put it on the bill, I tear up the bill. It is very convenient"
• Finally, here are the six lines that were singled out by the AFI as some of the most memorable movie quotes of all time:
• "Here's looking at you, kid"
• "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship"
• "Round up the usual suspects" (which, yes, inspired the name of the movie The Usual Suspects)
• "We'll always have Paris," my favourite line, because it conveys so much emotion and so much heartbreak and so much hope in just four words
• "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine"
• And before we go on, I want you to take a moment and think about the last famous line that is missing from this list. If you thought of "Play it again, Sam," well, you're wrong
• Because the line is actually, "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By'." There are other variations on this line, but the words "Play it again" are never uttered in this movie. This is probably a fairly well known trivia fact at this point, but hey, if it's news to you, you learned something today!

Up next: A new one for me, it's Steve McQueen in Bullitt from 1968

BONUS REVIEW: FRIDAY THE 13TH: A NEW BEGINNING (1985)

THRILL SCALE 1-10

5

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

Yes, once, in July of 2018

BEST SEQUENCE

Sick dance moves, Violet!

BEST LINE

"You big dildo. Eat your fucking slop."

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

15%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

None available for this one

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"Still haunted by his past, Tommy Jarvis, who, as a child, killed Jason Voorhees, is sent to a secluded halfway house in the countryside, where the killing of a young man triggers a brutal series of murders in the area."

DIRECTOR

Danny Steinmann

MAIN CAST

John Shepherd, Melanie Kinnaman, Shavar Ross, Richard Young

THOUGHTS

• This is not considered to be a top-tier Friday the 13th movie, but I have to admit, I had fun with it. There were some good kills and it was over the top in an entertaining way. However, we're at the point in this franchise where some good kills do not a thrilling movie make
• The vast majority of the characters in this movie will slip from my memory without a trace before the weekend is over. If I remember anyone at all it will just be because they were so cartoonishly exaggerated
• Several instances of characters singing some great made-up songs, though, which is kind of an oddly funny through line
• Best kill: Head crushed against a tree with a belt
• Runner-up: Road flare in mouth
• As is my wont, I watched this movie with friends, and here are some one-sentence reviews:
• Ashley P: "Not my Jason"
• Ashley H: "Underwhelmingly scary and overwhelmingly adventurous"
• Analisa: "Crap my ass!"
• And it's my duty to inform you that that is a direct quote from the movie itself, so that kind of tells you what we're working with here
• Won't be long until the next one! Our next Friday the 13th is exactly 28 days from today

#38: NOTORIOUS (1946)

THRILL SCALE 1-10

5.5

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

Never (although I have seen Mission: Impossible 2, which is apparently somewhat of a remake of Notorious)

BEST SEQUENCE

The moment when Alicia realizes how much danger she's in

BEST LINE

"Alex, will you come in, please? I wish to talk to you"

- Last line of the movie

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

96%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"Sublime direction from Hitchcock, and terrific central performances from Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant make this a bona-fide classic worthy of a re-visit."

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"The daughter of a convicted German spy is asked by American agents to gather information on a ring of German scientists in South America. How far will she have to go to ingratiate herself with them?"

DIRECTOR

Alfred Hitchcock

MAIN CAST

Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant, Claude Rains, Leopoldine Konstantin

THOUGHTS

• The filmmaking is great and the actors are excellent and yet, for whatever reason, this didn't fully grab me. I think this is likely another example of a movie whose groundbreaking qualities are less obviously groundbreaking when watching it today
• Hitchcock includes some very impressive shots, but they're impressive in kind of an unshowy way, to the point that I didn't immediately realize how impressive they were. This shot is a good example of that:
  
• I also didn't even realize that Ingrid Bergman's character, Alicia, was meant to have a distinctly "notorious" reputation as a woman who drinks and socializes with men. Watching her in this movie, I just saw her...drinking and socializing with men. It didn't really occur to me how differently she may have been viewed back in 1946
• I quite liked Claude Rains as the villain, especially the way that some might see him as pitiable despite being a Nazi. Claude Rains is tied with Harrison Ford for the most movies on this list at four apiece, but we haven't seen Rains since the very beginning: movie #100, The Adventures of Robin Hood (in which he was also very good)
• And that's about all I have to say about Notorious! Considered one of Hitchcock's best, but it's a movie that I gained a greater appreciation for while reading about it after watching it

Up next: We won't have to wait long to see Claude Rains again! Or Ingrid Bergman, for that matter. It's a movie that I think of as more romantic than thrilling, but we'll see how Casablanca stacks up