Casablanca Mon Ami- With Bergman and Bogart’s Casablanca in Mind

 

By Zack James

 

Funny how the power of suggestion works sometimes. Take the situation with Fritz Taylor who ever since he was a kid, a kid in high school, unlike his old-time friend from those times, Frank Jackman, avoided going to movie houses like the plague. Said he had had his fill of going to the shows back in the day when they were a refuge against the storms in the Taylor house-hold. Meaning he had to high-tail it out when his father started on one of his three day toots, three day drinking bouts with demon whiskey who would use Fritz, the youngest boy, as a whipping post for all the frustration that he had in a world that had been closing down on him once the steady work at the Adamsville Shipyard began to dry up in the late 1950s as the industry headed for the cheaper foreign shores. Meaning having to get away from nagging Ma who always had some case against him, some why did he do that or more frequently later what didn’t he do this, and would not let it go. Meaning that from about fifth grade on all the way through high school he would seek refuge and solace in the darkness of a movie theater, many times with Frank who had his own home battles to confront. So Fritz had had enough of that kind of darkness by the time he had finished high school, gone in the military service during the Vietnam War, had come out in one piece, mainly, and then headed out on his own moving away from his old hometown to get a fresh start in Riverdale. And he had ambled along on that film abstinence path for a long time, many years going to the theater very infrequently and only when some dame that he was interested in insisted, or else, the “or else” being depriving him of some fun time under her linen sheets.

Then one day Fritz was reading another schoolboy old friend Sam Lowell’s Paris Notebooks where Sam had mentioned after returning from Paris a couple of years before that he and his long-time companion would “always have Paris” after they had had a wonderful time there, revitalizing their affair and so Sam had written about the whole trip to express what those moments meant to him. Sam had regaled some of the old corner boys, Fritz, Bart Webber, Frank Jackman, Jimmy Jenkins, and Jack Callahan who still hung out together at The Dublin Grille in Gloversville on occasion with his Paris tales and invited each man to peruse a copy of the notebooks. Fritz, not much of a reader as a general rule had been intrigued by the thought of reading Sam’s take on Paris since he had not been there since the late 1970s when he was looking for some dope in the days when Paris was a serious opium depot. One night with his wife, Melinda, away in Fox-dale caring for the grandkids while their parents, his son Jason and his son’s wife Mona, were on a weekend getaway to New York City he decided to read Sam’s material. He had chuckled when he came up that “always have Paris” reference toward the end of the story.

Of course Sam had “stolen,” if that was the right way to describe the offense, criminal or not, the expression from the film classic starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca. That reference made him think about all the memorable lines from that film, “Play it again, Sam,” “here’s looking at you kid,” “Louie, I think this is the start of a great friendship,” “the troubles of three people in this cock-eyed world,” “of all the gin joints in all the world,” “round up the usual suspect,” and some others that he had half-remembered. Half-remembered from the days at the Strand Theater in downtown North Adamsville where they played nothing but second runs and because of that was a favorite hang-out of town drunks (who slept through the features on the cheap on cold winter nights in the days before homeless shelters came to North Adamsville with a vengeance with the closing of the shipyards), 1930s and 1940s movie aficionados, the nostalgic and kids like Fritz and Frank seeking refuge from stormy home lives. Fritz was not sure how many times he had seen the movie but probably ten time including a couple of dates with some “hot” girls who once he told them the plotline were eager to see the film, a blessing for him and his cheap date expenses (and getting plenty of plenty when they got all weepy and he had to console them).              

Fritz wasn’t sure whether it was age or just a whole scattered life since the last time he had seen Casablanca but he sensed that there were more famous lines than he had been able to remember. He also wondered whether that film had held up over time as a classic or its classic status was just a figment of his imagination, thrilling to the nonchalant tough guy Bogie character, Rick, and on those cheap date occasions the romance with the Bergman character, Ilsa. Of course these days it is as easy as pie to grab a copy of virtually any old-time film via the Internet or some other commercial outlet. He and Melinda belonged to the Netflix movie service mostly for Melinda’s benefit to see her various made-for-television series and an occasional film she wanted to watch the grandkids came over from Fox-dale for a night or two. Fritz ordered the film and a couple of days later it arrived in the mail. That afternoon he asked Melinda if she would like to watch the film with him after supper. She was thrilled that he had asked her since this was a favorite “tear-jerker” of hers back in her own youth in Fairhaven, had seen it back then three or four time when she and a couple of girlfriends would travel up to Harvard Square in Cambridge where it played in repertoire with a million other old films at the Brattle Theater all through the 1960s and early 1970.  

Although Fritz was not much more into writing than reading as a rule he decided after seeing this update version of Casablanca to write his “take” on the film to present to the guys the next time they gathered at their favorite watering hole. It might be good for a few laughs or maybe a few deep breathes from old Frank Jackman. Here’s what he wanted the guys to get out of the movie (with a little editing help from Sam Lowell):

Funny how the beginning of the movie Casablanca originally released in 1942 during the height of World War II in Europe and elsewhere started with the plight of refugees, refugees leaving Europe to get to America, or at least get out from under the jackboot of the Nazis who were rumbling over every people in every possible just then. It was not then, like now, a time to be on the planet without a passport or a visa. Hey, as we shall find out letters of transit would do even better wonders for your future. So at the most general level this film is about people in need, desperate need, of lots of dough and lots of decent passable paperwork. But no Hollywood, Bollywood, French film product would ever get off the ground if it was only about refugees desperate for decent passable paperwork and so those damn letters of transit which were once in the possession of  a couple of German couriers need some romantic boosting. And they will before all is said and done get plenty of that.    

Casablanca was one of those transit points that in normal times would not make sense as an international  gathering place but when the world was being turned upside down and the normal and more direct routes out of Europe were blocked by German occupations or threats of occupations the most varied lot of refugees pushed their luck and headed to the African frontier town even if the place was being administered by Vichy forces friendly with those self-same Germans. That was how people as diverse as Rick Blaine (Bogie’s character), owner of Rick’s American Café, along with sideman piano player Sam (Dooley Wilson of “Play It Again, Sam” fame) who pulled out of Paris one step ahead of the German advance with a price on his head from the days when he fought for the underdogs of the world in places like Ethiopia and Republican Spain as a “pre-mature anti-Fascist wound up there. Guys too like Victor Lazlo (played by Paul Henried), the great anti-Fascist fighter and symbol of European resistance and his escort the lovely Ilsa, (Bergman’s character). Of course when desperate people are seeking ways out of Europe for a whole range of reasons from anti-Fascist resistance to fear of living under the German jackboots (or of its vicious allies in all the ports and capitals of Europe) every con man, hustler, hooker and hit man will show up (or already be there really to fleece the golden sheep). So there is rogue’s gallery of nefarious types like Bagatti, make that the late Bagatti when Vichy and the Gestapo finally caught up with him, the guy who originally had those good as gold letters of transit, crooked native saloon owners, pawnbrokers, snitches, informants, grifters, other lumpen elements and of course the local law, in the person of on-the-take from all sides Vichy gendarme Louie (played by Claude Rains). That sets the cast, that sets the die is cast really.        

The story played out like this. American ex-patriate Rick, owner of that famous café, was going about his business, going about his business as best he could while under some unspoken grief cloud that had made him a tough hombre without sentiment. Strictly business, strictly pay up or get out for booze, broads or gambling. Then his world got very weird, got out of hand really when Brother Bagatti asked him to hold the letters of transit that got, and will get, many people killed before the end of the day. First the German military envoys start to get interested in his checkered past. He could deal with that, no sweat, after all he grew up in New York City for chrissake. Then he had to cater (pay-off) to the Vichy authorities. Again a piece of cake.        

Then she came in, or her fragrance, jasmine he thought, just like that last god forsaken time drifted in and she followed, Yes of all the goddam places in the world that she could have plunked down in it had to be at his big ass old gin mill in the middle of nowhere. Yes, Ilsa didn’t know what storms she would churn up by showing up with the heroic anti-Fascist fighter Victor Lazlo at his front door. That last Paris scene between Rick and Ilsa had been a disaster, she had blown him off at the train station by not showing up as they were supposed to catch the last train out of Paris before the Germans came swarming in to raise hell. No more, Jesus, no more. But as fate would have it there was one more play left in their story.

See Lazlo, now a pariah in Europe, a hunted man by the Nazis across the continent needed to get out of the place, needed to get out of Casablanca like a million other refugees not quite so heroic, get to Lisbon and from there to America to continue the fight. But he needed those damn letters of transit especially as the local Nazi military leader some jackass Major was pressing Louie to round up Lazlo and throw away the keys. Rick though still sore about the whole lost love affair with Ilsa said “no go.” No go until she went up to his room and tried persuade him in the way only a woman could, although remember this is a 1940s post-Code film and so the “shocking, shocking sex” scenes would be left to the imagination of the Fritzes and Franks of the world. That deal sealed the Rick-Ilsa pairing were prepared to go off into the sunset and happiness. Nice ending, right.  

Except the world was on fire just then and the romantic problems of three people, maybe four, didn’t mean much in the world scale of things, and they didn’t. See Rick pulled a switch, got Louie to get Lazlo out of detention, and instead of Ilsa and him as the plane left the fog-bound Casablanca airport it left with Lazlo and his wife. Rick, well, Rick somehow made Louie see the light, made him see that Rick’s having had to kill that German Major who wanted to stop Lazlo in his tracks was not going to be good for his career and so they blew under fog-cover old corrupt Casablanca together. Friends, bosom buddies.               

Yeah, funny how the power of suggestion works.