Revisiting a classic after 70 years

Nostalgia has a certain lasting quality about it. Every movie Majnu remembers the exact time, date and venue associated with his first look at Casablanca — the classic 1942 romance which 70 years later will spawn a sequel, according to an official announcement by a major Hollywood studio. Naturally, there’s high anxiety that the follow-up will invoke the wrath of the film’s loyal constituency across the world.

To soften the blow, the plot premise of the new age Casablanca has been outlined: the son of Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lund incarnated by Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman — conceived during a night of adulterous passion — will now set out to locate his father. Whether the son will carry the baggage of resentment against his dad will, of course, depend on the scriptwriters.
Indeed, it is being said that the original’s co-writer Howard Koch had authored a story treatment for the sequel before he passed away in 1995. None of the legendary names involved in the classic, survive: Bogart, Bergman, director Michael Curtiz and the supporting cast topped by the suave Claude Rains and the menacing Peter Lorre are no longer around to express their views on the sequel — anti- or pro — even from hospital wheelchairs.
I first saw the black-and-white milestone, remarkable for its close-ups and dialogue endearments such as, “Here’s looking at you, kid,” at a screening at Mumbai’s American Centre back in the late 1960s. There was no question of being under- or overwhelmed. Here’s one of those rare examples of cinema that is irresistible, despite its implausibilities and wishful romanticism.
Pauline Kael, the high priestess of film criticism, may have passed some uncharitable remarks about the manner is which Ingrid Bergman is treated by a misogynistic Humphrey Bogart. She pointed out that their screen romance was certified by a collection of Academy Awards but they didn’t push their luck and never appeared together again. “Rick, the most famous saloon-keeper in screen history, treated her like a whore,” Kael had carped. “In the role of the cynic redeemed by love, Bogart became the great adventurer lover during the war years… he established the figure of the rebellious hero — the lone wolf who hates and defies officialdom… and he fulfilled a universal fantasy: he got away with it.”
For me, growing up on the movies, Kael’s words wouldn’t have mattered then. They still don’t. The experience of watching Casablanca was to surrender oneself unconditionally to a love story, with a bittersweet ending that still resounds in the heart and mind. And the song As time goes by plays on to minimal piano accompaniment.
It isn’t an option for me at least, to revisit and reassess Casablanca. What if it has dated? What if it seems stodgy, in this age of flash-cutting and studio-enhanced colours? Some films are best stored in the vault of first impressions. Perhaps that’s why one’s initial responses to the epochal Gone With The Wind, Ben-Hur and Lawrence of Arabia are the purest. Their marathon lengths demand attentive viewing, not always possible in multiplexes with a shifting, restless audience. To re-see them on the DVD format, too, dilutes their original impact.
Incidentally, quite hilariously Casablanca was spoofed by the Marx Brothers and then Woody Allen. And it was not so smartly rehashed into a Bollywood version in 1981. The Ramanand Sagar-produced Armaan featured Raj Babbar-Ranjeeta in the Bogart-Bergman parts. The adaptation tanked, and if it is remembered at all, it is for its cabaret set piece Rambha ho.
As for Casablanca, the city, it has been Morocco’s business hub, and continues to be identified with the classic. Of course, the city and film, recreated in the studios, bear no visual resemblance. Congested streets and bazaars overrun by parrot and hookah sellers are conspicuous by their absence, and if there is an overt reference to the film it is in the recreation of Rick’s Café in an upscale hotel. Yet, it is generally agreed that the iconic film placed the city on the international map. Think Casablanca, and one thinks of its yesteryear Hollywoodisation.
On the film’s initial release, New Yorker magazine had said that “the coerced romance was just about bearable,” while a critic had predicted that it would “be a movie for yesterday, today and tomorrow”. The sequel has been titled Return to Casablanca. Market belief is that a film, which has been loved already, has an in-built audience. There will be curiosity about what has been done to the masterwork. But I don’t know if market predictions always come true. To say that the original Bogart-Bergman chemistry will be a tough act to follow would be the understatement of the year. Or should one say of the century?

The writer is a journalist, film critic and film director