Robert Siodmak's The Killers (1946)

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Disney's Fantasia (1940)

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Dave Fleischer's Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941)

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Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca (1942)

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.
Play it once, Sam. For old times' sake.
Round up the usual suspects.
Here's looking at you, kid.

There is perhaps no film that is quoted more often in popular culture than the 1940s drama Casablanca. Beloved by audiences around the world since its release in 1942, Casablanca is widely considered today to be one of the greatest films of all time.

This was not always the case. Upon its initial release, Casablanca was just another romantic drama turned out by Hollywood in its heyday. It received generally good reviews, but no one expected it to become the icon it is today. This change in popularity cannot be contributed to one event or aspect of the movie; it simply continued to capture the hearts of more and more viewers as time went on. Murray Burnett, author of the play from which Casablanca was adapted, calls the story, “true yesterday, true today, true tomorrow.”

Casablanca stars Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid. Directed by Michael Curtiz, the story is set during World War II and focuses on the moral struggles of cynical expatriate Rick Blaine (Bogart), who runs a nightclub in the Moroccan city of Casablanca. At that time, Casablanca was a colony controlled by Vichy France (the French government after France was defeated by Nazi Germany in 1940), and Rick’s Café has become a hotspot for refugees looking for illegal letters of transit to escape to America.

One day an unexpected visitor from Rick’s past re-enters his life, and he is forced to make a decision between “love and virtue.” Rick must choose between being with the woman he loves (Bergman as Ilsa Lund) and assisting her and her husband (Henreid as Victor Laszlo), who is a Czech Resistance leader escaped from a Nazi-controlled concentration camp, out of Casablanca. Ilsa had deserted Rick earlier in the war when the Nazis took over Paris, but seeing him in Casablanca is all it takes for their romance to be sparked once again.

The role of Rick Blaine was a turning point in Bogart’s career. Although by this time he was well-known in Hollywood thanks to roles in films like High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca gave Bogart a chance to break out of his gangster typecast and open the doors to the more romantic roles he would become known for in his later years. Similarly, Casablanca was Bergman’s first big hit after her American debut in the 1939 film Intermezzo.

The supporting characters in Casablanca are just as poignant as the leads - Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault, Conrad Veidt as Major Heinrich Strasser, Sydney Greenstreet as Signor Ferrari, Peter Lorre as Signor Ugarte, and of course Dooley Wilson as Sam are equally as memorable in their respective roles as Bogart and Bergman are as conflicted lovers Rick and Ilsa.

Casablanca is a tour of humor and heartache, a patriotic film that continues to capture the hearts of its viewers, even seventy years after its initial release. Its iconic nature has awarded it a devoted fan base of viewers who continue to enjoy the tale of Rick and Ilsa’s fated romance – The Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for example, has screened the film during the week of Harvard University’s final exams since 1957, and the film has spawned numerous parodies, including 2001’s Out Cold and Woody Allen’s 1972 hit Play it Again, Sam.

Casablanca was nominated for eight and won three Academy Awards in 1943, ranked number two on the American Film institute’s list of the 100 best American movies (second only to Citizen Kane), and in 2006, the Writers Guild of America named its screenplay number one in its list of the 101 greatest screenplays of all time. These accolades are nothing, however, in comparison to the place Casablanca has earned in the hearts of millions of fans, who return again and again to experience the romance and suspense, and to hear that famous closing line : Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Maddie Butler
Film Club

Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (1948)

Bicycle Thieves (Ladri di Biciclette), directed by Vittorio De Sica, takes place in Italy after the second world war where it is really hard to make a good living. The movie is about a man named Antonio in trouble financially who finds a job putting up posters around the city, but in order to do this he must have a bike, and in order to get a bike he will have to sell his few possessions. On his first day on the job his brand new bike gets stolen. And the rest of the film is about how, because the police do not help him, this man and his son try to bring justice and find the bicycle thief themselves. Now Antonio is on a desperate quest to find a bike so he can keep his family from starving.

The film is famous for having used individuals with no experience in the acting industry for the job. In fact the leading role (Lamberto Maggiorani as Antonio) is played by a factory worker. These factors – a story about poor, working class people, using untrained actors, and shooting on location rather than a set, along with frequent used of deep-focus photography, long shots, and lengthy takes – define a film movement known as neo-realism. De Sica is one of the most famous of the Italian neo-realist directors. Roberto Rossellini is another.

Many critics have considered Bicycle Thieves to be one of the best neorealist films ever made. Upon its release it received numerous awards including an honorary Academy Award for the most outstanding foreign language film released in the United States during 1949. (The Academy did not begin giving out an award for “best foreign language film” until 1956. Prior to that, they gave only special or honorary awards.)

But the film is not important because it is neo-realist; it’s important because it tells, beautifully, a story in a way that marked a change in film-making style. As you watch De Sica’s film, consider what movies you may have seen that approach film-making the same way he does. Many people, for example, have seen similarities between Bicycle Thieves and Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful (1997), and others have pointed to the neo-realist influence on American films of the 1970s. More recent films have nodded to De Sica as homage: Tim Burton’s Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, for example, follows the pre-pubescent Pee Wee Herman as he tries to retrieve his stolen bicycle.

Beyond acknowledging the influence Bicycle Thieves has had on films that followed, we encourage you to think about how it stands on its own. In 2005, the British Film Institute created a list of the “50 films you should see by the age of 14.” Bicycle Thieves is in the top 10, along with films like The Wizard of Oz, The 400 Blows, Spirited Away, and Toy Story. Why? What makes this movie one that everyone should see before they get out of high school? And there you have it: something to discuss over a soda at a local restaurant after the movie. Just make sure you locked up your bike. You wouldn’t want it to get stolen.

Nick Volpi and R. Findlay
Film Club

Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941)

Released in 1941, Citizen Kane has a reputation as the best movie of all time. It follows the life of a man by the name of Charles Foster Kane beginning with his death, then flashing back, in a series of newsreels and interviews, to the earlier events of his life. Born in poverty Kane climbs both the economic and social ladder only to reach the top lonely and sad. The story is loosely based on the lives of William Randolph Hearst and the director of the movie, Orson Welles. Hearst was not pleased with the film. In fact, Hearst did not allow the mention of the movie in any of his papers, and he offered $800,000 for the destruction of the film and the negative. Some say that he was not dismayed by his portrayal as much as the portrayal of Marion Davies, an actress with whom Hearst had an affair and whose career he tried to promote, widely seen as represented by the character Susan Alexander in the film.

The movie gained its reputation as the best movie ever for its intense psychological thrill ride. People just enjoy watching a man as his life falls apart around him. Citizen Kane sits at the top of respected movie charts such as the American Film Institute and the British Film Institute. It got positive reviews when it debuted although it had a relatively low turn out at the box office. It was not until the 1950s that Citizen Kane came back into the spotlight.

The other reason Citizen Kane tends to appear at the top of “best” film lists, is because of Orson Welles who directed, wrote, produced, and starred in Citizen Kane at the age of 26. (Some of his other works are The Magnificent Ambersons, The Stranger, Macbeth, Othello, Touch of Evil, and Chimes at Midnight.) In retrospect, Welles is thought of as something of a genius, mostly for both for his visionary filmmaking techniques and for his writing or adaptation of scripts. Citizen Kane won the Oscar for best screenplay in 1941. However, his movies failed to earn money at the box office, and as a result the studios did not respect his artistic vision. They cut large parts from his films, which angered Welles, and he eventually left Hollywood. It was not until after his death in 1985 that he and his films were really recognized.

Not everyone thinks Citizen Kane is the greatest film of all time. Ray Carney, a well know film theorist, believes that the film lacks emotional depth and is full of empty metaphors, calling it “an all-American triumph of style over substance... indistinguishable from the opera production within it: attempting to conceal the banality of its performances by wrapping them in a thousand layers of acoustic and visual processing” (Wikipedia).

Perhaps it is a testament to a works innovation when one can find extreme disagreement of opinion. Is Citizen Kane as good as some critics argue? Is it really saddled by banal performances, on a par with the likes of Babes on Broadway or Men of Boys Town (oops, did we just pick two films with Mickey Rooney?), also released in 1941? Really, only you can decide whether the film is a masterpiece or a complete failure. You can’t argue with authority if you haven’t seen it, which is why the SPA Film Club is proud to show Citizen Kane.

Alec Nordin
SPA Film Club

Howard Hawk’s The Big Sleep (1946)

One of the most intriguing aspects of film noir is its use of a strong narrator. Voice-overs and first-person, or restricted, narration are used with both style and consistency in the genre, so much so that we tend to associate those characteristics with film noir and to describe other movies that use the technique as “noirist.” (There is even one film, Lady in the Lake, filmed entirely from the main character’s point of view; that is, all the camera shots are all restricted to what he sees, as if the camera were his head, and the only time you see the character himself is when he’s looking in a mirror.)

Let’s hit the quote machine: “What is significant about The Big Sleep in terms of narration is that is strictly adheres to restricted narration – that is, the camera is always tied to Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart’s character), so the spectator finds out what happens in the narrative when Marlowe does. For example, while waiting outside Geiger’s house, Marlowe sees a car pull up outside. He hides in his car so as not to be seen. Interestingly, the camera remains outside the car and shows a figure get of the other car and enter Geiger’s house. Yet, the figure remains in shadow. So, even though the camera does not directly imitate Marlowe’s point of view as he hides in the car, it does not privilege the spectator either” (Buckland, Film Studies, 43-44).

So what does this limited perspective do for our understanding of this film and of the film noir genre? Well, for The Big Sleep, we get a simple connection. Based on a Raymond Chandler novel, The Big Sleep is a detective story, a genre that likes to unravel mysteries one clue at a time. Limiting our experience to what Marlowe learns as he learns it both maintains the suspense and allows us to enjoy the step-by-step solving of an intricate puzzle.

Beyond this, we may conclude that film noir employs this technique consistently because it tends to depict an urban world in which a single character struggles (usually unsuccessfully) against the forces of corruption, temptation, and chaos. A first-person narration enhances this focus. In addition, film noir frequently delves into the psychological effects or torment of its characters, and this is more cathartic for the audience if we are closer to the character.

This is not to say that film noir avoids third-person or omniscient narration. Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil, regarded as the final film noir of its period, employs third-person very effectively, from its opening scene where we watch someone put a bomb in the rear of a car, then follow the car as it works its way slowly through a Mexican border town, then shift to follow the two protagonists as they take an evening stroll. The third-person here allows us to meet characters (exposition) and regard the situation (with its rampant hypocrisy and corruption) objectively and a kind of distanced horror.

But The Big Sleep loves its protagonists. And with Bogart we’re unlikely to get a character who suffers because of the disillusionment of the post-war generation. He may be cynical (world-wise). He may be imperfect (human). He may struggle with a world going to hell. But Bogart usually, as you’ll see here, remains above the morass. The film’s restricted narration makes us his sidekick. It’s a great place to be.

R. Findlay
Film Club Adviser

Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity (1944)

So, what the heck is feelm no-wahr, anyway? Tonight’s screening of Double Indemnity inaugurates our year long introduction to both classic and neo- noir. We’ll be showing seven films, and you get to decide what the heck noir really is. Until then, here’s a brief discussion of the matter.

First, the term film noir is French for “black film,” which is kind of ironic because in many ways film noir is a unique American style. Second, film noir isn’t really a genre of film, like westerns or romantic comedies or action flicks; rather, it’s a mood, a style, applied to a variety of film types. But even this is a bit misleading because it suggests that the classic films we now describe as examples of noir, films like The Maltese Falcon, Shadow of a Doubt, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Gun Crazy, Out of the Past, The Big Clock, The Set-Up, D.O.A., Asphalt Jungle, and Touch of Evil, were made by people who knew they were making noirist films. And they didn’t. The term itself didn’t even come around until 1946, and while some critics date the advent of the style from the end of WWII, others see it beginning as early as 1927.

Instead, these filmmakers simply captured a mood, a feeling that was in the air. It’s an urban feeling, a paranoid feeling, a feeling that everything has gone to hell, no one’s on the level, and everyone is guilty. It’s a world of moral ambiguity, and according to film archivist Hayden Guest, the hero, if one exists, “is not necessarily grounded in any sense of right or wrong.”

There’s also a look to film noir, and you’ll see it in Double Indemnity. Darkness, filtered light sliding through blinds, creating odd angles of light and dark across rooms and characters, trenchcoats, cigarettes, rain slickened streets. Really, though, the best way to get to know and to enjoy this particular style of film is to watch some. When we get to neo-noir, noirist films made after 1979, we’ll see the style make a serious comeback until we can almost find elements in every movie currently coming out of Hollywood, if not other countries. (The current cinema of South Korea, stuff like Oldboy and Shiri, is seriously noirist.)

In the meantime, you’re sitting in front of Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity (from a novel by edgy crime writer James M. Cain and a screenplay by hardboiled fiction writer Raymond Chandler) with Fred MacMurray and Barabara Stanwyck. Stanwyck is the classic femme fatale (“dangerous woman”), another frequent convention of noir. Watch her twist MacMurray’s character around, until he has agreed to help her murder her husband.

In the end, and we won’t give it away here, MacMurray’s character Walter Neff, is a great example of crime writer James Ellroy’s definition of film noir: “A righteous, generically American film movement that went from 1945 to 1958, and exposited one great theme and that theme is: you’re f---ed.”

R. Findlay
Film Club Adviser