Rightwing Film Geek

Not watching CASABLANCA

… because I had to immediately write this post upon its being introduced just now by Alicia Malone.

“Now we all know this film,” Malone says.  Apparently not … though I’d prefer to think this is her scriptwriter, rather than her.

Two things. “French-occupied Morocco during World War II” would just jar on the ears as a piece of anticolonial wokery if it didn’t also erase … I dunno … the presence of another European power in the movie that kinda matters to the plot. It was also doing most of the occupying during World War II. Referring to Morocco as “French-occupied…during World War II” implies that the French are the bad guys, the occupiers in the war, which inverts the whole movie. Why sing “La Marseillaise” for occupiers?

That’s just inattentivess and defaulting to tbe political correctness you imbibed in college and never learned to question. But the other thing is unforgivable for the best movie channel in the universe.

“Ilsa … arrives with her new husband, the Czech resistance leader Victor Laszlo.” I’ll put this bluntly … how could someone who’d seen the movie refer to Laszlo as “new husband.” The whole frickin point of the movie is that he was her husband even before she and Bogie had Paris and that she wrongly thought him dead.

The venue also matters. This is Turner Classic Movies, the gold standard on TV for both showing this kind of movie as it should be and for curation and introductions/extras. Who cares about what gets said on Bravo or Nickelodeon? And if this were an obscure Japanese genre movie showing on TCM Imports that Malone might never have seen and few of her viewers will have … OK. But this is TCM and CASABLANCA. Do better, TCM.

December 1, 2024 Posted by vjmorton | Uncategorized | Leave a comment