Casablanca

As I have been a Hugh Hefner fan in my adult life, I have always wanted to watch one of his personal favorite movies which is Casablanca. Although I am skeptical always of watching classical films, I found the plot of this movie to be very interesting. I found that this movie wasn’t about a love story or an action move but a movie with both aspects better classified as one man redemption.

Like most people who see Casablanca for the first time, I was memorized by it and the dialogue was amazing. I believed that the plot of the movie is what kept my attention. First, I had a hard time following the fast dialect between characters. I also didn’t find that the transitions between different scenes were effective on me because they went from one scene to the next and next. This at first was hard for me to follow what the plot was about however in turn it made to pay more attention and I noticed the “small” things within the movie that helped me understand the movie better.

Some of my favorite dialoue are Claude Rains believing Bogie left America for killing someone because Rains is a romantic, and Bogie telling Veidt that there are some neighborhoods in New York City the Nazis shouldn’t try to invade. I like the dialogue but due to the fact that I normally don’t watch classical films, it took more attention on my part to watch and understand this movie.

One thing that I shouldn’t have done prior to watching this movie was to have a negative outlook on the movie due to me not watching classical films or taken the time to watch and understand them. This movie outright was very well written and the plot was very good. I really liked during the movie at the train station. This part of the movie showed that Rick had respected his Ilsa enough to give her over the paperwork so that Victor could get out of Casablanca.

One time that I didn’t like within the movie was the “cheesy” bar scenes. I lost interest in the movie when they moved from the bar, outside, and back in. I found that throughout the movie, that I liked concepts about the movie but again I had a hard time following exactly what was going on during a large portion of the movie. During the beginning of the movie, if I hadn’t read about Casablanca prior to watching it, I would have never known what it was about. I could tell that Rick was having issues with Ilsa but I didn’t understand what about, as he sent her home.

While I watching the movie, the theme was hard for me to identify. However I found the theme to be that no matter what life throws at you there is always someone who is worse off that you. You have to put your problems into prospective and get your priorities straight. You can't live in a bubble and let the world sail on past you without getting involved. Life requires some commitment and some sacrifice.

Lastly, I had questions during the film and why the director did what they did. First, why did Ilsa jilt Rick in Paris when she was in love with him? Second, what are the main messages of the movie? These are two common questions when watching the movie but they are some I had when watching Casablanca.