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UHD Review Casablanca UHD Review (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Todd Erwin
- Start date
A nice review! Also, the Roger Ebert commentary is highly recommended to those that don't understand the film's premise or are seeing it for the first time.
Ebert recorded some wonderful and insightful commentary tracks in the 1990s. I think his track on Citizen Kane is often played in film appreciation courses.
Lee Sandersen
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I prefer watching the old black and white classics in my home theater. Makes me feel like its 1939 or something. Don't get me wrong, I also like watching them on the 55 inch 4Kin the bedroom, or in my bathroom even, while soaking in the tub. (pretty much anytime is a good time and place for a movie),, but somehow that huge screen makes me enjoy the movie all that much more.
Tony Bensley
Senior HTF Member
Off topic, but one film I wish Roger Ebert had done feature length commentary for is A HARD DAY'S NIGHT (1964), as it was in his Top 25 Movies of all time, and he also shared Sir Paul McCartney's Date of Birth (June 18, 1942). Hard to believe that Macca is now 80 years young!!
And now, back to CASABLANCA!!
CHEERS!
benbess
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With the original negative long gone, I wondered if it was worthwhile to get this recent 4K UHD release. After all, I bought Casablanca on VHS in the early 1990s, on DVD in the early 2000s, the first blu-ray release in 2009, and the second one in 2012. But my love for the movie, this positive review, and the fact that I myself had contributed a tiny bit over the years to the funding of this new release influenced me to pick it up. Watched it last night, and for me it was an improvement in sound quality and picture quality, enveloping me in the movie more. Like for many people, viewing Casablanca can be emotional for me, and it was nice to read that it was also emotional for Sheri Eisenberg, who has the title "Senior Colorist" at Warner, and who was in charge of the restoration. This involved a new 16-bit 4K scan and frame-by-frame digital remastering of the best-surviving nitrate film elements, more subtle color grading than the previous releases, plus restored sound and music. She told of the experience of finally watching the new restoration with her family:
After completing the Casablanca restoration, Eisenberg watched the film with her 18-year-old son and her own parents. "We watched the movie. We get to the end, and I'm crying, my mom's crying, and I turn to my son and ask, 'Well?' And my son said, 'That was a really great film.'" For Eisenberg, that's the hope of any restoration. "That it still speaks to somebody," she says. "That's how it continues to live on."
aframe.oscars.org
It seems like some say that Casablanca wasn't really recognized at the time of its first release for how good it was. Although its reputation has grown over the decades, it did win Oscars for Best Picture, Best Screenplay, and Best Director for Michael Curtiz. In addition there were nominations for Bogart, Rains, Max Steiner for his beautiful and amazing score, Owen Marks for his fantastic editing, and one of my personal heroes on the film, Arthur Edeson for his wonderful cinematography.
On November 27th, 1942, sometimes cranky critic Bowley Crowther gave Casablanca a rave review, the day after it opened in the Hollywood theater in New York City:
"....Yes, indeed, the Warners here have a picture which makes the spine tingle and the heart take a leap. For once more, as in recent Bogart pictures, they have turned the incisive trick of draping a tender love story within the folds of a tight topical theme. They have used Mr. Bogart's personality, so well established in other brilliant films, to inject a cold point of tough resistance to evil forces afoot in Europe today. And they have so combined sentiment, humor and pathos with taut melodrama and bristling intrigue that the result is a highly entertaining and even inspiring film....
But we will tell you that the urbane detail and the crackling dialogue which has been packed into this film by the scriptwriters, the Epstein brothers and Howard Koch, is of the best. We will tell you that Michael Curtiz has directed for slow suspense and that his camera is always conveying grim tension and uncertainty. Some of the significant incidents, too, are affecting—such as that in which the passionate Czech patriot rouses the customers in Rick's cafe to drown out a chorus of Nazis by singing the Marseillaise, or any moment in which Dooley Wilson is remembering past popular songs in a hushed room. We will tell you also that the performances of the actors are all of the first order, but especially those of Mr. Bogart and Miss Bergman in the leading roles. Mr. Bogart is, as usual, the cool, cynical, efficient and super-wise guy who operates his business strictly for profit but has a core of sentiment and idealism inside. Conflict becomes his inner character, and he handles it credibly. Miss Bergman is surpassingly lovely, crisp and natural as the girl and lights the romantic passages with a warm and genuine glow. Mr. Rains is properly slippery and crafty as a minion of Vichy perfidy, and Mr. Veidt plays again a Nazi officer with cold and implacable resolve. Very little is demanded of Mr. Greenstreet as a shrewd black-market trader, but that is good, and Mr. Henreid is forthright and simple as the imperiled Czech patriot. Mr. Wilson's performance as Rick's devoted friend, though rather brief, is filled with a sweetness and compassion which lend a helpful mood to the whole film, and other small roles are played ably by S. Z. Sakall, Joy Page, Leonid Kinskey and Mr. Lorre. In short, we will say that "Casablanca" is one of the year's most exciting and trenchant films. It certainly won't make Vichy happy—but that's just another point for it."
www.nytimes.com
In this new restoration, you can see more clearly that when Ingrid Bergman weeps, and it's something like three times in this picture, there's sometimes a tiny bit of barely visible perspiration on her upper lip. These are genuine tears, which she's bringing up through her devotion to the role and to her craft. It's part of what made the movie more emotional this time for me. I feel she should have been awarded an Academy Award for this role, but somehow she wasn't even nominated.
Cinematographer Arthur Edeson's work went back to the dawn of Hollywood in 1914, and included such titles as Robin Hood in 1922, Frankenstein in 1931, Mutiny on the Bounty in 1935, and the Maltese Falcon in 1941. At a few points Hall Wallis, in part pressured by Jack Warner, brought the distinguished but slight-of-build Edeson to tears with his constant bullying about the incredible care Edeson took in setting up the lighting and camera angles. Wallis wanted Casablanca to be mostly brightly lit. Can you imagine. Thank goodness Edeson and Curtiz resisted this nearly constant pressure on them, and they worked together well and cooperatively. Wallis brought a lot of good to many of his movies, including Casablanca, by getting Bergman, Rains, Greenstreet, and many others. But his corporate memos are for me sometimes exasperating to read, as he berates Curtiz (who mostly ignored them) and others over costs, and criticizes people who take too much care in their artistic choices.
One of the things that Edeson did was use catch lights to make Ingrid Bergman's eyes (and tears) sparkle.
Anyway, I recommend this release, and I also recommend the making of book on Casablanca. Below is also a picture of the outside and inside of the Hollywood theater in New York City where Bosley Crowther saw it on opening day, as well as pix of Arthur Edeson.
After completing the Casablanca restoration, Eisenberg watched the film with her 18-year-old son and her own parents. "We watched the movie. We get to the end, and I'm crying, my mom's crying, and I turn to my son and ask, 'Well?' And my son said, 'That was a really great film.'" For Eisenberg, that's the hope of any restoration. "That it still speaks to somebody," she says. "That's how it continues to live on."
Inside 'Casablanca's 80th Anniversary Restoration: 'The Difference Is Nothing Short of Miraculous' (Exclusive) | A.frame
Colorist Sheri Eisenberg discusses the Oscar-winning classic's update to 4K UHD.
It seems like some say that Casablanca wasn't really recognized at the time of its first release for how good it was. Although its reputation has grown over the decades, it did win Oscars for Best Picture, Best Screenplay, and Best Director for Michael Curtiz. In addition there were nominations for Bogart, Rains, Max Steiner for his beautiful and amazing score, Owen Marks for his fantastic editing, and one of my personal heroes on the film, Arthur Edeson for his wonderful cinematography.
On November 27th, 1942, sometimes cranky critic Bowley Crowther gave Casablanca a rave review, the day after it opened in the Hollywood theater in New York City:
"....Yes, indeed, the Warners here have a picture which makes the spine tingle and the heart take a leap. For once more, as in recent Bogart pictures, they have turned the incisive trick of draping a tender love story within the folds of a tight topical theme. They have used Mr. Bogart's personality, so well established in other brilliant films, to inject a cold point of tough resistance to evil forces afoot in Europe today. And they have so combined sentiment, humor and pathos with taut melodrama and bristling intrigue that the result is a highly entertaining and even inspiring film....
But we will tell you that the urbane detail and the crackling dialogue which has been packed into this film by the scriptwriters, the Epstein brothers and Howard Koch, is of the best. We will tell you that Michael Curtiz has directed for slow suspense and that his camera is always conveying grim tension and uncertainty. Some of the significant incidents, too, are affecting—such as that in which the passionate Czech patriot rouses the customers in Rick's cafe to drown out a chorus of Nazis by singing the Marseillaise, or any moment in which Dooley Wilson is remembering past popular songs in a hushed room. We will tell you also that the performances of the actors are all of the first order, but especially those of Mr. Bogart and Miss Bergman in the leading roles. Mr. Bogart is, as usual, the cool, cynical, efficient and super-wise guy who operates his business strictly for profit but has a core of sentiment and idealism inside. Conflict becomes his inner character, and he handles it credibly. Miss Bergman is surpassingly lovely, crisp and natural as the girl and lights the romantic passages with a warm and genuine glow. Mr. Rains is properly slippery and crafty as a minion of Vichy perfidy, and Mr. Veidt plays again a Nazi officer with cold and implacable resolve. Very little is demanded of Mr. Greenstreet as a shrewd black-market trader, but that is good, and Mr. Henreid is forthright and simple as the imperiled Czech patriot. Mr. Wilson's performance as Rick's devoted friend, though rather brief, is filled with a sweetness and compassion which lend a helpful mood to the whole film, and other small roles are played ably by S. Z. Sakall, Joy Page, Leonid Kinskey and Mr. Lorre. In short, we will say that "Casablanca" is one of the year's most exciting and trenchant films. It certainly won't make Vichy happy—but that's just another point for it."
' Casablanca,' With Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, at Hollywood -- 'White Cargo' and 'Ravaged Earth' Open (Published 1942)
Rick's place. Still fabulous.
In this new restoration, you can see more clearly that when Ingrid Bergman weeps, and it's something like three times in this picture, there's sometimes a tiny bit of barely visible perspiration on her upper lip. These are genuine tears, which she's bringing up through her devotion to the role and to her craft. It's part of what made the movie more emotional this time for me. I feel she should have been awarded an Academy Award for this role, but somehow she wasn't even nominated.
Cinematographer Arthur Edeson's work went back to the dawn of Hollywood in 1914, and included such titles as Robin Hood in 1922, Frankenstein in 1931, Mutiny on the Bounty in 1935, and the Maltese Falcon in 1941. At a few points Hall Wallis, in part pressured by Jack Warner, brought the distinguished but slight-of-build Edeson to tears with his constant bullying about the incredible care Edeson took in setting up the lighting and camera angles. Wallis wanted Casablanca to be mostly brightly lit. Can you imagine. Thank goodness Edeson and Curtiz resisted this nearly constant pressure on them, and they worked together well and cooperatively. Wallis brought a lot of good to many of his movies, including Casablanca, by getting Bergman, Rains, Greenstreet, and many others. But his corporate memos are for me sometimes exasperating to read, as he berates Curtiz (who mostly ignored them) and others over costs, and criticizes people who take too much care in their artistic choices.
One of the things that Edeson did was use catch lights to make Ingrid Bergman's eyes (and tears) sparkle.
Anyway, I recommend this release, and I also recommend the making of book on Casablanca. Below is also a picture of the outside and inside of the Hollywood theater in New York City where Bosley Crowther saw it on opening day, as well as pix of Arthur Edeson.
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benbess
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I've been listening again to this excellent biography of Michael Curtiz by Alan Rode, which is wonderfully read by Grover Gardner. Highly recommended. Anyway, although Hal Wallis sent an amazing number of memos on scores of movies urging speed and low cost, in fact I was misremembering that Wallis disagreed with Arthur Edeson about the lighting level of Rick's. He did badger Edeson to do everything much faster somehow, but actually Wallis approved of lower lighting levels, because he thought it helped disguise that it was a set. Sorry about that. Edeson and others did fantastic work with the moody lighting and shadows.
Hal Wallis did have a great deal to do to do with the success of the movie, of course. While supervising other movies, Wallis worked with several writers over many months on Casablanca's screenplay, and as is well known new pages were often arriving on almost a daily basis. Also, Wallis was the one in a sense masterminding Bogart's transformation in this movie, from heavy to romantic lead. Wallis had been thinking about that for a couple of years, as the Hermetz book details.
As the movie was being finished, miraculously the real city of Casablanca was liberated by the Allies, and then a summit was planned there for FDR and Churchill. With the name of the city in the headlines, Wallis suddenly wondered if a new ending for the film might be needed, and he even thought one up. But as the Rode book details, David Selznick, who had lent Ingrid Bergman to the movie in a complicated deal, said after an early screening that the movie was fantastic as it was, and not to tamper with it. Selznick sent a telegram with a glowing review of how good the movie was, and how wonderfully it portrayed Bergman. Selznick also praised Curtiz as clearly one of the best directors in Hollywood. Jack Warner read this note, and squashed any ideas of a new ending.
Below is a photo General Henri Giraud, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Charles de Gaulle, and Winston Churchill at the Casablanca Conference in January of 1943. I wonder if anyone mentioned the movie? FDR sometimes got early screenings of films in the White House theater, and so it's perhaps possible.
Hal Wallis did have a great deal to do to do with the success of the movie, of course. While supervising other movies, Wallis worked with several writers over many months on Casablanca's screenplay, and as is well known new pages were often arriving on almost a daily basis. Also, Wallis was the one in a sense masterminding Bogart's transformation in this movie, from heavy to romantic lead. Wallis had been thinking about that for a couple of years, as the Hermetz book details.
As the movie was being finished, miraculously the real city of Casablanca was liberated by the Allies, and then a summit was planned there for FDR and Churchill. With the name of the city in the headlines, Wallis suddenly wondered if a new ending for the film might be needed, and he even thought one up. But as the Rode book details, David Selznick, who had lent Ingrid Bergman to the movie in a complicated deal, said after an early screening that the movie was fantastic as it was, and not to tamper with it. Selznick sent a telegram with a glowing review of how good the movie was, and how wonderfully it portrayed Bergman. Selznick also praised Curtiz as clearly one of the best directors in Hollywood. Jack Warner read this note, and squashed any ideas of a new ending.
Below is a photo General Henri Giraud, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Charles de Gaulle, and Winston Churchill at the Casablanca Conference in January of 1943. I wonder if anyone mentioned the movie? FDR sometimes got early screenings of films in the White House theater, and so it's perhaps possible.
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Yes, it's an excellent book that I have a physical copy of in my book library.
benbess
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Right after Casablanca wrapped, Ingrid Bergman started filming For Whom the Bell Tolls, co-starring of course with Gary Cooper. This somber epic, with a screenplay that removes much of the political context and meaning of the novel by Ernest Hemingway, is still moving to me. It was Bergman's first color movie, and was the top movie at the box office for 1943. For Whom the Bell Tolls was nominated for several Oscars, including Best Picture.
Universal purchased For Whom the Bell Tolls in 1958, along with hundreds of other early Paramount movies, for broadcast on television. I imagine over the decades some at Paramount have regretted that those execs sold part of their history in a quick cash grab. Anyway, Universal released a blu-ray of For Whom the Bell Tolls a few years ago, and it has terrible picture quality. I don't know if the three-strip Technicolor negatives For Whom the Bell Tolls still exist, but if they do it shows the difference between what Universal sometimes does with its movies from this era, and what Warner does (although there are exceptions, like the really good 4K releases Universal has done of some Hitchcock movies.). Warner must have spent a huge amount on this new restoration of Casablanca, and as we know they've also spectacularly restored many of their 3-strip Technicolor movies from the 30s, 40s, and 50s. It's rare than anyone outside of Warner does a good job with their 3-strip Technicolor movies, which is a shame. But it makes me value what Warner does all the more.
Btw, the book and movie's title is taken from John Donne's "Meditation XVII" from 1624: ..."No man is an island, entire of itself... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." There's something of this idea, by the end, in Casablanca as well.
Universal purchased For Whom the Bell Tolls in 1958, along with hundreds of other early Paramount movies, for broadcast on television. I imagine over the decades some at Paramount have regretted that those execs sold part of their history in a quick cash grab. Anyway, Universal released a blu-ray of For Whom the Bell Tolls a few years ago, and it has terrible picture quality. I don't know if the three-strip Technicolor negatives For Whom the Bell Tolls still exist, but if they do it shows the difference between what Universal sometimes does with its movies from this era, and what Warner does (although there are exceptions, like the really good 4K releases Universal has done of some Hitchcock movies.). Warner must have spent a huge amount on this new restoration of Casablanca, and as we know they've also spectacularly restored many of their 3-strip Technicolor movies from the 30s, 40s, and 50s. It's rare than anyone outside of Warner does a good job with their 3-strip Technicolor movies, which is a shame. But it makes me value what Warner does all the more.
Btw, the book and movie's title is taken from John Donne's "Meditation XVII" from 1624: ..."No man is an island, entire of itself... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." There's something of this idea, by the end, in Casablanca as well.
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benbess
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Last week I took my first trip to the LA area in 15 years, and decided to go to the new Academy Museum with a friend and fellow movie buff. It's a good museum, and our favorite exhibit was on Casablanca. We were somewhat surprised at how small the piano is. A regular piano has 88 keys, but this one has just 58. It's also quite colorful, as you can see.
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Hmmm... when I was in L.A. a few years ago, I took the Warner Bros Studio tour, and I saw the piano from Casablanca!Last week I took my first trip to the LA area in 15 years, and decided to go to the new Academy Museum with a friend and fellow movie buff. It's a good museum, and our favorite exhibit was on Casablanca. We were somewhat surprised at how small the piano is. A regular piano has 88 keys, but this one has just 58. It's also quite colorful, as you can see.
View attachment 182078 View attachment 182079 View attachment 182080 View attachment 182081
...along with the sign from Rick's and many other artifacts.
KPmusmag
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When I went on the Warner Bros tour, they also showed us the facade of Cafe Aurore. It was dressed differently, but fun to know it is still there.
Robert Saccone
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That piano has 88 keys. Is it possible there was more than one piano?
It sure looks like it.
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This would have been such a great extra
compson
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The sign on it says the piano was created for the 1955 television show.
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