Need We Say More?
Ah, Casablanca. I can think of no better way to round out the classic movie binge we've been on than with Casablanca. Everyone has seen at least part of this movie. We were shown in in school, it was given to us by parents. I was sat down by instructors and told this was one of the most important movies I would ever see. And it's true, but I did not fully comprehend that at the time.
What ultimately makes Casablanca special is the insane amount of passion present in every word spoken and every shot framed. The movie wasn't expected by anyone to be anything special. It was a romance set in wartime, and the story is an old one. But the cast of thousands, the undeniable chemistry between Bogart and Bergman, and the elegant blend of humor and painful, chest-gripping sadness made this movie a treasure. It will remain a classic for the rest of time.
We went into this game fully expecting to sob like children. So how long did we hold out? I'm ashamed to say, not long enough.
What ultimately makes Casablanca special is the insane amount of passion present in every word spoken and every shot framed. The movie wasn't expected by anyone to be anything special. It was a romance set in wartime, and the story is an old one. But the cast of thousands, the undeniable chemistry between Bogart and Bergman, and the elegant blend of humor and painful, chest-gripping sadness made this movie a treasure. It will remain a classic for the rest of time.
We went into this game fully expecting to sob like children. So how long did we hold out? I'm ashamed to say, not long enough.
"Casa Drank Ya": The Rules
I would recommend that you drink scotch or bourbon for this game, the same kind of thing we used for the Maltese Falcon. Or, at least I would recommend it, if not for one of the most famous quotes in the movie:
"Out of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."
It's a gin joint. Rick calls it a gin joint. So you should drink gin. We get to drink gin! Finally! Man, I'm glad we got that settled.
"Out of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."
It's a gin joint. Rick calls it a gin joint. So you should drink gin. We get to drink gin! Finally! Man, I'm glad we got that settled.
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Don't worry, Rick, we'll catch up with you
Easy Mode
1. Drink for Title Drops. That's every time someone says "Casablanca"
2. Drink when they drink. The movie's set in a gin joint. Or if you'd like, a "saloon".
3. Drink for Daddy Issues.
4. Drink when one of the American Film Academy's chosen top 100 quotes is said. There are six.
Medium Mode
All the above rules apply. Also...
1. Drink whenever Rick and Ilsa say each other's names.
2. Drink if sex between two characters could have conceivably occurred after the scene ends. There's certain scenes where this is a definite, and some that you can get creative with.
Hard Mode
All of the above rules apply. Also...
1. Drink whenever Rick and Louis say each other's names.
1. Drink for Title Drops. That's every time someone says "Casablanca"
2. Drink when they drink. The movie's set in a gin joint. Or if you'd like, a "saloon".
3. Drink for Daddy Issues.
4. Drink when one of the American Film Academy's chosen top 100 quotes is said. There are six.
Medium Mode
All the above rules apply. Also...
1. Drink whenever Rick and Ilsa say each other's names.
2. Drink if sex between two characters could have conceivably occurred after the scene ends. There's certain scenes where this is a definite, and some that you can get creative with.
Hard Mode
All of the above rules apply. Also...
1. Drink whenever Rick and Louis say each other's names.
This relationship is what we call "Headcanon"
Also, because we are a particularly emotional group, I instituted a special rule:
The first time a person playing the drinking game cries during the movie, everyone must finish their drink.
The first time a person playing the drinking game cries during the movie, everyone must finish their drink.
The Players
Our onscreen players for this round are Krissy (me), The Fuzzy Masked Man, and Shirley Whiskas. We tried out our best Humphrey Bogart impressions.
Our offscreen players include...
Pooh Daddy: Didn't cry.
Some Guy: Composing a song for Ingrid Bergman
Dijan De Nero: Roots for the solid, steady guy
Bride of Buggerlas: Decoded every bit of costume design
Big Moose: Got lost in every actor's eyes
Seb: Ships Humphrey Bogart with everybody
America made it through the war, but did we emerge victorious after this drinking game? That depends on what you define as "victory".
Pooh Daddy: Didn't cry.
Some Guy: Composing a song for Ingrid Bergman
Dijan De Nero: Roots for the solid, steady guy
Bride of Buggerlas: Decoded every bit of costume design
Big Moose: Got lost in every actor's eyes
Seb: Ships Humphrey Bogart with everybody
America made it through the war, but did we emerge victorious after this drinking game? That depends on what you define as "victory".
The Crying Game
Let's get this out of the way: I put that special rule in knowing full well that it would be used. This movie is too powerful for us to sit through without shedding a single tear. However, we all thought we would make it through much more of the film than we actually did. So which scene got us?
This one.
This one.
The SECOND that Ingrid Bergman started to hum, at least four of us broke down completely. This scene comes a little over half an hour into the movie, bitch slaps you in the face, and makes it clear to you that you'll be getting more where that came from later on. So we all got an extra few drinks in on this one.
However, it would be remiss of me not to bring up some honorable mentions. Of course there's the scene in which Rick finds out that Ilsa has left him, probably forever, and gee whiz, it looks like those Nazis may be more trouble than we initially thought. Sadness. In the rain. With packed bags.
There's the finale, in which Rick gives up his own happiness in order to protect the woman he loves and ensure her and her husband's safety on their way to Lisbon. Also known as one of THE most memorably heartbreaking scenes in cinema. A scene that contains THREE of the six quotes on AFI's top 100 list, by the way.
But our personal favorite comes about three quarters in. Big Moose and Bride of Buggerlas could barely keep still as it approached, causing no end of confusion to The Fuzzy Masked Man, who had never watched this far into the movie.
I'm speaking, of course, of La Marsiellaise.
However, it would be remiss of me not to bring up some honorable mentions. Of course there's the scene in which Rick finds out that Ilsa has left him, probably forever, and gee whiz, it looks like those Nazis may be more trouble than we initially thought. Sadness. In the rain. With packed bags.
There's the finale, in which Rick gives up his own happiness in order to protect the woman he loves and ensure her and her husband's safety on their way to Lisbon. Also known as one of THE most memorably heartbreaking scenes in cinema. A scene that contains THREE of the six quotes on AFI's top 100 list, by the way.
But our personal favorite comes about three quarters in. Big Moose and Bride of Buggerlas could barely keep still as it approached, causing no end of confusion to The Fuzzy Masked Man, who had never watched this far into the movie.
I'm speaking, of course, of La Marsiellaise.
"Oh my God, this is beautiful!" shouted The Fuzzy Masked Man. We all gushed. The romance is what draws you in. This scene is what makes the movie important. There are so many beautiful elements, like Rick finally deciding to take a political stance in his American saloon, Ilsa realizing exactly why she fell in love with Lazlo in the first place, bar patrons with tears in their eyes singing against the Germans in jarring discord, and the eruption of "Vive La France!" as the song ends triumphantly. Cinematic perfection, and able to be understood in any language.
So there you have it. Those are the scenes that made us cry. Now here are the things that made us laugh.
So there you have it. Those are the scenes that made us cry. Now here are the things that made us laugh.
So Many Men
I don't know if this is actually something that most people think about when they watch Casablanca, but the general assumption in our group was that after Rick got his heart broken by Ilsa he decided to drown his sorrows in men's asses. It's not really supported by the text, but man is it fun to think about, considering that every important character actor of the time is in this movie. And they all seem quite taken with Humphrey Bogart.
Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Claude Ranier...all of these men need something from Bogart, need it intensely, and there's very often an emotional component to what they need. For example, Peter Lorre's character is looking for protection, and tragically does not receive it (he gets arrested about twenty minutes in, to our dismay). It's not difficult to read into some of these high-stakes relationships and hope for some smidgen of vulnerability and emotional intensity to leap out at us from their depths.
Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Claude Ranier...all of these men need something from Bogart, need it intensely, and there's very often an emotional component to what they need. For example, Peter Lorre's character is looking for protection, and tragically does not receive it (he gets arrested about twenty minutes in, to our dismay). It's not difficult to read into some of these high-stakes relationships and hope for some smidgen of vulnerability and emotional intensity to leap out at us from their depths.
"Sydney Greenstreet is just the sexiest obese man." -Some Guy
So what's really the deal here? Why do our minds leap to homoeroticism so quickly? A drunk Seb elaborates:
"Slash is better than any hetero relationship, because they're equals, because fucking misogyny!"
Grunts of assent filled the room. We enjoy the tete-a-tete between these men and invent romantic interest between them because we believe that relationships should be between equals, and all two often in media romantic relationships aren't based on equality at all. Most heterosexual romantic comedies focus on the power play between the starring lovers, how they each try to gain the upper hand, and any verbal sparring that happens between the two of them is inspired by that urge to gain power over the other. If you see two men in a movie just being men, treating each other like men and going about their business, some sense of physical attraction just seems like icing on the cake. It's a frustrating reality that while in the real world successful relationships are built on mutual trust and respect, you don't often get good business models for such relationships in motion pictures.
After looking at our imagined romances, what about the very real love triangle in this movie? What can we say about the greatest love story ever told?
"Slash is better than any hetero relationship, because they're equals, because fucking misogyny!"
Grunts of assent filled the room. We enjoy the tete-a-tete between these men and invent romantic interest between them because we believe that relationships should be between equals, and all two often in media romantic relationships aren't based on equality at all. Most heterosexual romantic comedies focus on the power play between the starring lovers, how they each try to gain the upper hand, and any verbal sparring that happens between the two of them is inspired by that urge to gain power over the other. If you see two men in a movie just being men, treating each other like men and going about their business, some sense of physical attraction just seems like icing on the cake. It's a frustrating reality that while in the real world successful relationships are built on mutual trust and respect, you don't often get good business models for such relationships in motion pictures.
After looking at our imagined romances, what about the very real love triangle in this movie? What can we say about the greatest love story ever told?
Oh, no, that happened long before the movie began.
And One Gorgeous Woman
We don't talk about women a lot on this site, at least not in terms of attractiveness, but we all agreed that Ingrid Bergman is something special. Women like her don't come around every day. And it's not hard to see how she's landed in the situation she's in in this movie.
"Sexy is the wrong word," Big Moose said after a while. "Ingrid Bergman is beautiful."
"Sexy is the wrong word," Big Moose said after a while. "Ingrid Bergman is beautiful."
Yup. Yup yup yup.
Her beauty comes from her strength. A lot of people see the romance in this movie and remove it from the context, when it's the context that gives it weight. There was a war going on, getting worse by the day. Anyone with the guts to get married to a resistance leader is worth taking note of, and the sheer force of will it took to leave Rick for Lazlo after learning he was just captured, not dead, is nothing to sneeze at. Even if her reasons for doing so are idealistic.
Ilsa articulates it perfectly in the movie. Laszlo was a charismatic man with deep convictions who she admired to a point where she thought she was in love. As Bride of Bugglerlas points out, we never even see Ilsa and Laszlo kiss on the lips during the course of the movie.
"Because he's like her dad," she explained. Laszlo is a commanding presence and a good man to have on your side. He isn't tortured (excepting the time he was literally tortured in a concentration camp), he doesn't have regrets about his vocation, and he has clear goals. His morals are clear cut and straightforward, something the director manages to convey visually many times throughout the film.
Ilsa articulates it perfectly in the movie. Laszlo was a charismatic man with deep convictions who she admired to a point where she thought she was in love. As Bride of Bugglerlas points out, we never even see Ilsa and Laszlo kiss on the lips during the course of the movie.
"Because he's like her dad," she explained. Laszlo is a commanding presence and a good man to have on your side. He isn't tortured (excepting the time he was literally tortured in a concentration camp), he doesn't have regrets about his vocation, and he has clear goals. His morals are clear cut and straightforward, something the director manages to convey visually many times throughout the film.
"I'm TALLER than you!" -Dijan de Nero
But they don't have any heat together. And it would seem a bit strange if they did.
Meanwhile, Ilsa's relationship with Rick is full of that passionate, heavy stuff of high romance, but the two of them purposely know next to nothing about each other. Ilsa had a rule during their time that Rick couldn't ask any personal questions of her, and for the most part Rick toes that line. Her flight from their affair only manages to throw gasoline onto the flame, and both of them hold up the time they spent together as perfect, idyllic, and irreplaceable.
And you know, they do seem happy in those flashbacks. But a relationship can't survive on intrigue alone. Rick knows that, deep down, and that's why he also knows that she has to get on that plane, with her husband, and leave his life forever.
So the greatest love story ever told is based around how people idealize each other to the point where they love the ideal more than reality.
...Is there any more of that gin? No? Didn't think so.
Meanwhile, Ilsa's relationship with Rick is full of that passionate, heavy stuff of high romance, but the two of them purposely know next to nothing about each other. Ilsa had a rule during their time that Rick couldn't ask any personal questions of her, and for the most part Rick toes that line. Her flight from their affair only manages to throw gasoline onto the flame, and both of them hold up the time they spent together as perfect, idyllic, and irreplaceable.
And you know, they do seem happy in those flashbacks. But a relationship can't survive on intrigue alone. Rick knows that, deep down, and that's why he also knows that she has to get on that plane, with her husband, and leave his life forever.
So the greatest love story ever told is based around how people idealize each other to the point where they love the ideal more than reality.
...Is there any more of that gin? No? Didn't think so.
And Oh Yeah, There's Some Nazis, Too.
In the midst of all of this, World War II is happening. I completely forgot that the very first scene of the movie involves the local police, as Pooh Daddy put it, "nabbing all the white guys" who were under suspicion of revolutionary activity and locking them up for good. There's legitimate danger in the air. I can only imagine what seeing this movie in theatres at the time must have been like.
Out of the six quotes that made it into the top 100 list I mentioned earlier, four of them tie in directly to the romance plot between Rick and Ilsa. The romance plot is what we usually think of when we think of this movie. Maybe, in a way, the audience is guilty of idealization on some level as well. We glaze over the insinuations of torture, corrupt police activity, sexual exploitation and other groady topics the film covers and focus on the star-crossed lovers and their trials and tribulations. We want to see the love stand out in this bleak world. We want to see the passion. We want to know that the world is worth more than war and sadness.
Out of the six quotes that made it into the top 100 list I mentioned earlier, four of them tie in directly to the romance plot between Rick and Ilsa. The romance plot is what we usually think of when we think of this movie. Maybe, in a way, the audience is guilty of idealization on some level as well. We glaze over the insinuations of torture, corrupt police activity, sexual exploitation and other groady topics the film covers and focus on the star-crossed lovers and their trials and tribulations. We want to see the love stand out in this bleak world. We want to see the passion. We want to know that the world is worth more than war and sadness.
"If the Nazis are coming, then so should you!" -Shirley Whiskas
And in fact, this has been done before with similar results. Guess what Casablanca is at its core? Romeo and Juliet.
Two young people meet in the midst of utter chaos and war, fall passionately in love very quickly, learn little about each other, and are torn away by obligations brought on by the war that inevitably ends up dividing them forever? Casablanca is Romeo and Juliet if Juliet was forced to marry Paris instead of choosing to kill herself.
Centuries ago audiences couldn't get enough of the story. And neither could the audiences in 1942.
Two young people meet in the midst of utter chaos and war, fall passionately in love very quickly, learn little about each other, and are torn away by obligations brought on by the war that inevitably ends up dividing them forever? Casablanca is Romeo and Juliet if Juliet was forced to marry Paris instead of choosing to kill herself.
Centuries ago audiences couldn't get enough of the story. And neither could the audiences in 1942.
The Results
After the movie we picked our new favorite quotes.
Casablanca is unexpectedly a great party movie. There's laughter, tears...alcohol helps both of those things get larger and more dramatic. But the game isn't quite there yet. Here are a couple extra rules to help things along.
Drink whenever someone speaks in a foreign language.
Casablanca is a melting pot of culture and activity. At least, so we're led to believe from this movie.
Drink for song title drops.
Huh. That's weird. I could have sworn Casablanca wasn't a musical, but there are SO many song breaks that it might as well be.
Drink whenever the words "America" or "American" are said.
The film takes place in Africa, but our hero is still a pure-blooded American, and the movie never lets you forget it.
Drink whenever someone speaks in a foreign language.
Casablanca is a melting pot of culture and activity. At least, so we're led to believe from this movie.
Drink for song title drops.
Huh. That's weird. I could have sworn Casablanca wasn't a musical, but there are SO many song breaks that it might as well be.
Drink whenever the words "America" or "American" are said.
The film takes place in Africa, but our hero is still a pure-blooded American, and the movie never lets you forget it.
Suck it, Krauts!
Whew! We've been watching a lot of classic films lately. Will our next film be another critical darling?
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No. No, not quite.
Like what you see? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter, at For Your Inebriation and @KrissyPappau respectively. You'll get weekly updates, behind the scenes drunk talk, and other chatter!
For Your Inebriation is written by Krissy Pappau (Hollis Beck). Video footage is taken by Pooh Daddy (Vincent Graham) and edited by Seb (Amy Yourd). All "Casablanca" images are owned by Warner Bros.
For Your Inebriation is written by Krissy Pappau (Hollis Beck). Video footage is taken by Pooh Daddy (Vincent Graham) and edited by Seb (Amy Yourd). All "Casablanca" images are owned by Warner Bros.
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