Reviews of Two Ancient Movies

I saw Casablanca for the first time last night.

It’s one of those movies that, as a theatre guy, I’m supposed to have already seen. But I’ve never really wanted to see it, and now that I no longer pretend to be artsy, I’ve felt no obligation to watch it. I’ve also never seen Citizen Kane. It’s supposedly the best movie ever made, yet I don’t know anyone personally who loves it. I think it’s one of those things that highbrow people are compelled to appreciate, so no one wants to admit that they’ve either not seen it or have seen it and didn’t care much about it.

Casablanca, though, is different. People love Casablanca. Even my wife, who maes no attempt to appear artsy, had good things to say about it. So last night, while we folded the laundry, we cranked up Bogart’s classic and watched it after the kids went to sleep.

Did I like it?

Well, it was interesting in the same sense that going to a fine museum is interesting, but I can’t say that the flick really did anything for me.

In the first place, it’s very hard to overlook that everyone is smoking all the time. That’s consistent with most films of the ‘40s, but all I could think about was how Humphrey Bogart must have reeked. Even in the love scenes, Humphrey is chugging away like a wood-burning stove. It’s distracting and unpleasant. Bogart is undeniably charismatic, but he also looks 327 years old, especially in the flashback scenes where he’s supposed to be young and in love.

And Bergman? I just don’t get it. First off, she’s not that pretty. She’s not ugly, certainly, but everyone in the film is so gaga over a fairly plain-looking woman that I just didn’t understand the appeal. And why would you fall head over heels for a chick who cries a lot and not much else? There’s a sort of distinguished elegance to her, but the stilted formality of her line delivery became tedious very quickly.

And what to make of the plot? It’s actually quite thrilling to think that this movie was made during World War II, several years before anyone was sure whether the Allies or the Axis were going to win. Now, in hindsight, it feels creaky and labored. It’s indisputably a fine example of filmmaking of its time, but the whole thing feels frozen in amber. There’s no immediacy to it, no life.

Sam was good, though. Although it’s jarring, in our politically correct culture, to hear Ingrid Bergman refer to him as a “boy,” despite the fact that he’s probably twenty years older than she is. Racist anachronisms abound in old movies.

Compare Casablanca to another old classic I saw recently – Arsenic and Old Lace. I had seen the play done well at the Utah Shakespearean Festival years ago, and I’d always wanted to see the Cary Grant version.

I was startled by how dark the film was.

The premise is black comedy to begin with – two unassuming old ladies who murder unsuspecting travelers and bury them in their basement - but I assumed they’d have brightened the thing up to make it an appropriate 1940s feel good comedy about happy people with happy problems.

They didn’t.

At one point, Cary Grant’s character is tied up and shown the instruments that are going to be used to torture him in the most gruesome way possible. And while the torture never actually happens, it’s remarkable that they let the character be so violently descriptive.

There is some softening from the stage version. Cary Grant rejoices about being the “son of a sea cook” instead of a “bastard,” which his character announces in the play – and the old ladies are dragged off to the sanitarium before they can kill one final time like they do in the play. (Which yields one of the play’s best exchanges: The victim says “I can’t remember my last glass of elderberry wine,” to which one of the old ladies says “Here it is!”)

Unlike Casablanca, this movie feels almost contemporary. Certainly Cary Grant has more life to him than Bogart does, and nobody on earth wears clothes better than Cary Grant. It’s just not the frothy romantic comedy that one would usually associate with Cary Grant. Maybe that’s why I liked it so much.

I still haven’t seen Citizen Kane, though.