Casablanca: Behind the Scenes

When I got this book I wanted to compare it to a book I already have "Round Up the Usual Suspects" which seemed to go into deep detail about everything related to the movie. As I got into reading I realized that there were a lot of things that I didn't know about the movie and it seems every book has another aspect of the subject. There are things that are not directly related to the movie such as the style and English language capacity of Michael Curtiz, the humorous play of Peter Lorre, and so on. I was endlessly fascinated with the minutiae of the making of "Casablanca". It did write about the Academy Awards where Jack Warner got up and almost ran to the stage to accept the Oscar for Best Picture, to pre-empt Hal Wallis who was the rightful recipient, and went into some detail about Wallis's decision to put an end to his association with Warner Brothers (keeping his anger at Warner out of the news media), an example of what books about movies like "Casablanca" are full of.

An excellent book.

A solid, amiable account of the making of one of Hollywood's most beloved films, "Casablanca: Behind The Scenes" presents at its core a fascinating notion: That a film filled with talent, drive, and imagination may well have benefited as well from a giant helping of luck.How did the idea of turning popular film baddie Humphrey Bogart into a romantic lead pay off so handsomely? How could a script reader know that a play that never made it on Broadway could be such a hit on the silver screen? Who could have thought the film’s title city would play so prominently in the headlines in the year of its premiere, first as the site of the first American assault against Nazi Germany, then as the first meeting place for the Allied troika of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin?Harlan Lebo's 1992 account of the making of "Casablanca" is almost as fun as re-watching the movie. Lebo presents a detailed yet breezy examination of how the 1943 Academy Award winner came to be, from its origins as a script that found its way to a Warner Bros. story analyst the Monday after Pearl Harbor (the same month in which the movie itself would be later set) to the famously hectic last days of shooting, when Bogart and director Michael Curtiz were locked in an hours-long argument regarding whether Bogart's character should or shouldn't shoot a Nazi villain in the back."I felt like a weary traveler who had arrived at a destination but with only the foggiest notion where or how he had got there," Lebo quotes one of the film's writers remembering.Lebo offers a pretty good idea, with the help of some then-surviving production hands as well as interoffice memos from Warner studio honco Hal Wallis, who oversaw "Casablanca" from its first treatment. He works hard to separate fact from legend; for example, while Ronald Reagan was initially mentioned as the film's prospective lead, he was never seriously considered for the role of Rick. Also, while the final lines of the film were practically written on the spot, there was never any doubt from the start of production how the film would end, with Rick and Ilsa taking a sad but necessary leave of one another.Actually, one of the most famous lines in the film was written weeks after production wrapped. As Rick and Captain Renault (Claude Rains) walk away in the final shot, several alternative pieces of dialogue were looped in during editing, until Wallis himself suggested they try something he called “wild”: “This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”The luck of “Casablanca” was not only in what made it in but what didn’t. An early script included this howler of a come-on, from Ilsa to Rick: “Hitler or no Hitler – kiss me.”Lebo does drift from the central topic a bit too much at times, especially at the beginning when he spends a lot of time on the rise of Warner Bros. There are some brief anecdotes about Peter Lorre, not nearly as much as I would have liked – though it was amusing to read how anxious the studio about whether his character Ugarte was Italian or Spanish.For people who love “Casablanca,” and can replay scenes from memory, Lebo’s book is enjoyable company, very much something one can tuck into and put down, yet still offering a focused narrative for those wanting the full story on one of Hollywood’s finest moments.

Interesting historical account behind the scenes of this iconic movie!

Outstanding tmless theme universal emotions

Great, great, great!

I purchased this book along with "Casablanca, Script and Legend," in order to introduce this great movie at my community's "Friday Night at the Movies." See my review of this other, less useful book.This book outlines every aspect of the making of the movie, from original conception to finished product, to public reception and the fortuitous timing of its release.Along with "The Making of Casablanca," this book provides all the insight and interesting details you might want to know about this classic movie.As an added bonus missing from many books focused upon individual movies, this book includes a detailed index, allowing the reader to easily access specific topics of interest.In contrast to the other book I purchased at the same time, this one provided insight and details that allowed me to outline a useful introduction to first time viewers and long time fans of this film.