Casablanca

Casablanca is a movie that will always be in the top 5 movies ever made I think. It has so many things in it that are still used or at least referanced to today. I enjoyed the movie with my favorite part being at the end where they are walking into the fog with the memorable line of "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." Other main parts or scenes that stick out in my mind are of Ricks Cafe Americain with everyone in it and how he has all the power in it, the part where he is drinking alone with just Sam in there and Ilsa walks in, one more being where he tells the kid what to be on so he can get enough money to get out of Casablanca. You can always pick out Ricks look, with his white suit coat and smoke.
The text had some good points in it also. It made me realize how much success the film has gained over the years and how big of hit it was when it was released. The first text I read just titled "Casablanca." I thought it was neat how when Merlock was trying to get a copy of the play and sent a letter to Burnett, that Burnett actually called back instead. It was cool to see how they decided on the closing scene for the movie with them saying "round up the usual suspects" so that the movie would end with an upbeat conculsion as they put it.
There is a big differance between what would be allowed now and what was allowed then in terms of the play. For instance they never produced one play of it back then because it was considered to racy for the times but now days the worst that would get rated would be PG. I never realized the scale of the movie until I read this article when they were saying how it incluence other movies with the its theme of "with romantic triangles and characters caught in catastrophic events larger than themselves" such as Titanic and Star Wars.
The second text I read was "Playing it Again and Again." I liked this article better because I felt that it showed how popular it still is today and how people are still trying to get its merchandice. When watching the movie I picked up on a few of the key phrases that are still used today but after reading the part of the article where it went through the characters and their key phrases I started to recognize a few more of them.
When they tried to turn it into a TV show the people were hating it and it didnt last long. Im glad that then Warner Bros tried to make a sequel MGM wouldnt let the actress to it so the film never went through. I dont think that it could have been close to as good at the original. Sequels dont have a good track record for being as good as the original.
It seems that clubs and restaraunts have had good success with Casablanca themes. They have popped up all over the world.
When the movie was made there wasnt much for merchandise to collect except for a few posters and things like that. Since there wasnt much merchandise, collectors went to collecting artifacts from the movie instead. Some of the vehicals and props from the show have brought in large amounts of money.
Overall I can see why the movie rates as good as it does with its collection of memorable line and main plot. It was an instant classic when it was release because of what was happeing during that time frame and what the movie represented.