Purporting to tell the story of the making of Casablanca,
this English-language Hungarian film is mildly interesting but ultimately can’t
hide its weak writing and direction. An attempt to compensate is made with arty
black-and-white cinematography, and there are many striking individual shots,
but eventually even they lose their punch. The main characters are not
compelling. Bogart, Bergman, Lorre and other key players are only referenced
obliquely; the film is mostly about director Michael Curtiz, his personal
problems, and pressure from the studio and the US government he faces to add
more and more jingoism into the production as part of the war effort. The
problem is that Curtiz is treated like a supporting character; we learn almost
nothing about him and he seems to have no passions or interests, and regards his
picture as a run-of-the-mill studio assignment. That Casablanca turned
out so well is a miracle and, according to this film, resulted from a series of
accidents presided over by a group of people who barely cared about the
project. All this, combined with a handful of anachronistic winks to the
audience that thud, make the film overall pretty forgettable.
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