Trailer Tuesday: CASABLANCA

Trailer Tuesday began with someone's suggestion to flood Facebook with cool movies and then trailers from your favorite movies, and I thought that was a really good idea. Lee Goldberg posts TV opening title sequences on his blog, so why not spend every Tuesday looking at a movie trailer? This will obviously be a mix of my favorite movies plus some movies that I love but you may never have heard of... and I'm sure that as some awesome trailers from upcoming movies pop up online, I may post them here.

Because this is New Year's Eve, I thought I'd start with one of the most romantic movies ever made... which also is an Oscar Winner. Hey, two birds with one trailer! Like many other romantic movies like ANNIE HALL, the couple does not end up with each other at the end! Maybe that's the key to romance! In PRINCESS BRIDE they, um, don't necessarily end up with each other at the end. Most romantic films *end* with the "Happily Ever After" and skip the part where he leaves his socks on the floor or love fades. CASABLANCA is great because it's *two* love stories, in a romantic triangle. So one guy doesn't get the girl and the other guy does. But the *sacrifice* for the love and happiness of the other person is more romantic than any scene where they live happily ever after.



Don't you love how old trailers didn't feel like they had to show you the whole movie including the ending? Oh, wait...

The great thing about CASABLANCA is that it has a rich cast (everyone under contract to Warners seemed to show up) and every single scene and moment and line of dialogue is great. The scene with "Cuddles" Sakall where he buys a drink for the older couple who have studied English so they fit in when they get to America, the flirting between Yvonne and Sasha, and the scene that always makes me cry: the "battle of the bands" where Yvonne belts out the French National Anthem, "La Marseillaise". The film was nominated for 8 Oscars, and won 3: Best Picture, Best Director... and Best Screenplay (Howard Koch and the Epstein Twins). The great thing about this film is that people still watch it and love it more than 70 years after it was first released. It still works.

(This has been in the "garage" for a decade, but in 2024 everyone is getting ready to party today, so why not rerun it?)



Bill