On its surface Casablanca is as sleek and stylish as anything else coming out of Hollywood these days, but at its heart it is very bad -- the movie ultimately conveys a destructive message about the worth of people.
Of course the Miami Vice and M-TV crowd that is accoustomed to looking no deeper than surface gloss will find that Casablanca has everything: the movie takes place in both seedy and sumptuous sections of an exotic locale (Casablanca, Morocco); it is shot in the moody black and white that seems to be gaining popularity these days; its leading characters are all tough, cynical loners; it is replete with violence and kinky sex triangles; and it even has the requisite music video number.
The first two tough, cynical loners the viewer meets are a saloon owner, Humphrey Bogart (The Return of Doctor X, Two Guys from Milwaukee), and the local Chief of Police, Claude Rains (The Invisible Man, The Phantom of the Opera). Predictably, the saloon keeper's old flame, Ingrid Bergman (Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde), arrives with a new beau, Paul von Henreid (Goodbye Mr Chips). Except that he is also her old beau -- she was married to him when she and Bogart had an affair years before. What's worse, von Henreid is in deep trouble with some Nazis and only Bogart can get him out. Will the cynical Bogart help the goody-goody von Henreid? Whom will Bergman sleep with next? Will moviegoing hipsters pee in their pants with anticipation?
Regrettably, beneath all its glitter and intrigue Casablanca harbors some disgusting sentiments about minority groups. It turns out that all the active participants in the story are Aryan WASP males -- all other characters are incapable of effecting any change in their environment or their own lives. Bogart has connections and money, Rains can arrest people, von Henreid leads an anti-imperialist guerrilla movement. Female and minority characters, however, are portrayed as subservient and useless.
For example, when the WASP males discuss Bergman's worth they refer only to her beauty and use as a courtesan. She is never asked for her insight into a situation and she is never shown to have any useful skills (except, by implication, in bed). Likewise, the only black in the cast, Wilson Dooley (Free For All), plays the stereotypical Negro Musician in Bogart's saloon. He doesn't have a care in the world except that his piano is in tune and his boss happy.
Furthermore, these stereotyped minorities are completely subservient to their white male masters. When Bogart tells Dooley what musical selection to perform, the black acquiesces with a quick "yawsuh boss." And throughout the movie Bogart directs virtually every one of Bergman's actions (even so far as telling her to get lost at the end), and she always humbly obeys. The only free will these subjugated characters are allowed to show are an occasional sullen look from Dooley or tearful glance from Bergman.
Perhaps it is appropriate that Casablanca was filmed in black and white, for that is certainly the way it sees the various ethnicities of humankind.
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(Updated September 20, 1998.)