Why Casablanca is a great movie

[xiphias]

Because it's absolutely chock-full of logic errors and plot holes that you just plain don't notice, and, when they're pointed out to you, you just don't care.

Okay, people have often pointed out that there's absolutely no reason that the Nazis would respect "Letters of Transit" signed by "General de Gaulle". But there's all sorts of things like that. Like, nobody ever LOOKS AT the letters of transit. Or, as Ebert points out in the final scene, "Now, right here -- is there anybody here who would prevent all four of them, Louis, Rick, Victor AND Ilsa from getting on the plane?"

And, of course, there's that final scene itself. There's the main characters, in the fog, Rick in his raincoat, the wet tarmac glistening . . . in the desert.

But you know, I really don't care. I'm perfectly happy to believe that Rick was wearing his raincoat because it had been raining out there on the tarmac in the desert, which is why it was so foggy. That shows it's a great movie.

Comments

It does rain in deserts

[zachkessin.livejournal.com]

At least in the Judean desert around Jerusalem in winter it sometimes rains very hard. I assume Morroco is similar, and it does rain from time to time.

But your right, its a great movie

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

I can't speak for other deserts, but I can attest to the fact that it does, occasionally, rain and, even more occasionally, get foggy, in the Arizona desert.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Casablanca is also a great movie, in part, because it can include ludicrous lines like "Is that cannon fire, or is it my heart pounding?" - without destroying the mood.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Well, there are two or three really bad clinker lines in the movie -- that being just about the worst. I just wince and get on with it.

[yehoshua.livejournal.com]

All a letter of transit was in this era of the war was a voucher that the country issuing would take the holder in regardless of nationality. As such, Chuck de Gaulle's signature was as good as any and better than most. It was also clear proof that the papers were forged. The letters functioned like a one-way passport. The Nazis accepted thousands of these during their initial (bloodless) invasions of their European neighbors because, among other things, it was simpler than figuring out what to do with all those Jews (remember, Jews automatically were stateless under the Nazis, but there was no Final Solution yet). Louis would be happy, I'm sure, to honor the letters even in 1942 because they made the bearers Someone Else's Problem. Those are magical words to every bureaucrat in the world.

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

As others have mentioned, you get plenty of fog in the dessert. It's a direct result of the huge temperature differences between night and day - of up 30 degrees Centigrade (54 Fahrenheit). Desserts being flat and open, with no ground cover can't retain heat at all (not to mention that sand is a better heat-conductor than "normal dirt"). So when the heat drops suddenly you get fog.

TTBOMK, the only two cold-related deaths in the Israeli army was a pair of guards that froze to death, at night, in the middle of the Sinai dessert.

And even more importantly... Casablanca is a sea-side city! On the Atlantic coast at that, plenty of wet air coming in all the time.