Casablanca as a Relic of World War II

There have been many films detailing World War II from a variety of different perspectives, but many of the best known films were made after the war ended. Movies like Saving Private Ryan and Das Boot were even made decades after the war ended. Many of these films therefore have a very retroactive perspective on the war. A film like Saving Private Ryan, made in the 1990's, depicts the war as it is perceived by filmmakers looking back on what happened. This is what makes a film like Michael Curtiz's Casablanca stand out from the others.

Unlike many other iconic war films, Casablanca was released in 1943 while the war was still happening. Many have noted how the film is a thinly-veiled allegory for America's reluctance to join the war effort, but it is also an incredible historical document on the grounds that it offers insight into the war from a contemporary standpoint. In other words, to understand Casablanca is to understand how World War II would have been perceived while it was still happening. In some ways, the film is rather progressive for the era, presenting not only a strong female lead but also also providing work for a black actor in Sam, a character who is treated with respect throughout.

Casablanca's obvious dislike for the Nazis also makes it a very agreeable film today, largely because most people today would agree that the Nazis were horrible people who needed to be stopped. However, on some level the film's depictions of the Nazis has not aged so well. This is most notable through the fact that the film continues to mention "concentration camps" despite seemingly not knowing what the term actually means. Victor Lazlo claims to have been held in a "concentration camp" and the characters speak of the danger of being thrown into "concentration camps" but judging by the dialogue it sounds more like they are speaking of Nazi political prisons than actual concentration camps.

A Nazi political prison would not have been much better, but it is still very different from a concentration camp. The former would have been a place for political prisoners, i.e. anyone who defied the Nazis. The latter was a term used to describe multiple horrific camps designed specifically for killing entire groups of people in massive numbers at a time. To provide a more cinematic analogy, imagine a contrast between Robert Bresson's A Man Escaped and Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List. The term "concentration camp" as used by the characters in Casablanca would today describe something one might expect to see in Schindler's List, a film about the Holocaust, but what is described sounds more like the type of prison depicted in A Man Escaped.

When seen today, the apparent misuse of the word "concentration camp" looks like a blatant oversight on the part of the filmmakers, but it does illustrate the mindset of a very different era. The actions of the Nazis are currently public knowledge. Thanks to the internet it is very easy to find photographs of concentration camps, and most people at some point in their lives get at the very least a general idea of the atrocities committed during the Holocaust, an event now remembered as one of history's darkest moments. However, this was not always the case, and much of what may be common knowledge today was not so obvious in 1943.

While the war was still going on, the actions of the Nazi party were in large part kept secret. For obvious reasons Hitler did not want the public to know about the ethically questionable activities that were going on behind closed doors, and this included the Holocaust. Any contemporary information on it outside of what was known only to the Nazi party would have been vague at best. All anyone really knew was that Hitler had a list of people to be "relocated" and that there were serious consequences for anyone who tried to hide a person who fit the list. Nobody would have known for sure precisely what happened to those people once they were taken. It was only at the end of the war in 1945, when Allied forces invaded Germany and discovered the concentration camps, that the public became aware of the mass genocide that was really going on.

The reason a phrase like "concentration camp" is so heavily used in the wrong context in Casablanca is literally because the filmmakers obviously did not know what it meant and misunderstood its intended definition. Very few people in Nazi-controlled territory had even the slightest idea of what a concentration camp was, America would have known even less. All they would have had to go on at most would have been vague rumours of the Nazis putting people into "concentration camps" without much more information on what they were or how they worked. Michael Curtiz could have easily misunderstood and took this term to mean a political prison.

Today, one might argue that this little detail seems like a strange oversight in an otherwise finely-crafted movie, and something to be dismissed simply as a product of the era. However, it is because this detail is a product of the era that it is important to bring it to the forefront. This slight error in the dialogue serves as a very clear window into the past and allows a glimpse into the mind of people who lived at the height of World War II and how they perceived the conflict around them. Casablanca is therefore very much a relic of World War II.

Dreaming of a White Christmas

Well, it's Christmas Eve and it seems to make sense that I finally fill out my obligatory quota of holiday-themed articles. I've already gotten away with a review/analysis of Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, but let's look at a less sexual holiday classic, something a bit out of my usual comfort zone. About two years ago now (three including this year), I was still in college and encountered a man was selling low-priced DVDs. Seeing as that is something of a secret weakness of mine, I couldn't resist buying a whole bunch, and one of the ones I found was White Christmas, featuring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye. Now after two years of failing to get around to watching it, I finally managed to see this classic, and it's great.

I knew its two leading actors to an extant already. Danny Kaye was a comedian who did a lot of funny movies, though the two I best know him from are The Inspector General and The Court Jester. Both films are a lot of fun if you get the chance, with Danny Kaye playing a bumbling everyman who gets caught up in extraordinary situations but ultimately proves to be the one person that can save the day (so basically an early predecessor to the "Die Hard on an X film", at least in the case of The Court Jester). I was a bit more limited in my exposure to Bing Crosby. The one thing I'd really seen him in was the wonderful special he did in which he performed with David Bowie.

During World War II, Bob Wallace (Bing Crosby) and Phil Davis (Danny Kaye) are soldiers who like to provide entertainment for the men in their division. On Christmas Eve, they perform a fantastic show only to learn that their commanding officer, General Waverly (Dean Jagger), is being relieved of command. After saying goodbye in the form of an elaborate musical number, the division is attacked. Bob is nearly killed when a break wall is destroyed, but he is saved by Phil. To repay Phil for saving his life, Wallace agrees to try out a duet son his friend wrote. Fast forward a few years later and the two men are now a successful singing duo. They receive a (forged) invitation from an old army buddy to see a performance by his sisters, Betty and Judy (Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen). 

These two turn out to be very attractive, with Judy quickly attracting Phil's attention. Both are also hugely successful performers despite the fact that they apparently only know one song. A series of convoluted mix-ups and situations that includes Bob and Phil donning partial drag and lip-synching to the sisters' music leads to all four of them ending up in a hotel at Vermont where there doesn't seem to be as much snow as they expected. Said hotel turns out to be owned by Waverly, and is not doing very good financially. Our four performers naturally conclude there is only one logical solution: bring Bob and Phil's entire show from New York to the hotel and invite as many old army buddies as possible. In the vein of a Shakespearean comedy, misunderstandings and romances ensue.

As you can see, there are some odd things about the story, like the fact that Betty and Judy are somehow as successful as they are even though they only seem to know how to perform one song, that happens to be about the fact that they are sisters. I also won't pretend that White Christmas is not a product of its time. As far as movies displaying 1950's standards goes, there are far worse, but it does have its moments that might be jarring to a modern viewer, usually in the form of specific lines that may have made sense at the time but can easily be taken the wrong way now.

For instance, there is an early scene where Danny Kaye remarks about a female performer wanting to settle down being "refreshing" (or for that matter, even the notion that either of the women getting married means they will have to give up their musical careers). It's meant to refer to an earlier conversation between them about how female singers are more interested in their careers, but can easily come off as sexist today. Later on we also have Vera-Ellen deciding to stage an engagement with somebody, and concluding it "has to be a man" (this was of course during the production code, so her even considering the possibility of being engaged to a woman would have been seen as unacceptable). After pressuring Kaye into pretending to be her fiancée, he tries to announce their fake engagement at a party, but it is played as embarrassing when he accidentally says that it was the girl who proposed to him (a radical idea for 1954). The all-male military may also be jarring to any modern viewer used to female soldiers being permitted in combat roles.

Fortunately, these moments are few and far between, so they are a lot easier to forgive. I've seen far worse. It helps that the two female leads are given some actual depth beyond simply having a pretty face, and that there is one other memorable female character in the form of Mary Wickes as the housekeeper Emma Allen, who is hinted to have some prior experience in espionage. Among other things she has a habit of listening in on phone calls, and gets plenty of great lines. My one criticism would be that there is one female character, Susan Waverly, who is a bit underdeveloped, but that is more of a story issue than anything to do when the movie was made.

In spite of the offhanded moments of... period-appropriate dialogue, Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye are still very good together and make a great duo. I'm not normally a fan of musicals; in many cases the way the characters spontaneously break out into elaborate musical numbers takes me out of it, but here it worked. The songs fit right in (it probably helps that the central characters are established as musical performers), and in general fit the tone of the scenes in which they are played. The film also spaces out the numbers, allowing room for character development and advancement of the plot.

White Christmas is a fun movie and one I would recommend as a film to get into the holiday spirit. It's flawed, there are the weird story problems and moments that remind you of how people at the time saw the world, but it is still an enjoyable film with some good songs and likeable characters. Definitely worth a watch if you get the chance. You won't regret it, unless of course you can't stand the song "White Christmas". In that case, you might want to pass on this film since that song is guaranteed to get stuck in your head after you watch it.