Unlike many classic movies about World War 2, "Casablanca" was made during the war. The film was released in 1942, just under a year after America entered the conflict, and is set a year earlier in the eponymous Moroccan city. Club owner Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) discovers that his old flame Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) and her husband Victor Laszlo (Paul Heinrid), both Nazi resistance fighters, are in Casablanca and looking to escape to America.
The film shows Casablanca as a refugee hub, full of unique characters scattered to the winds by Nazi oppression of their homelands. Rick, the sole American in the cast, becomes an avatar of his country's role in the war; he's initially neutral but ultimately chooses the right side. Underlining this, the film is set mere days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which pushed America into the war.
"Casablanca" and its connection to contemporary events helped make it a hit.
The film shows Casablanca as a refugee hub, full of unique characters scattered to the winds by Nazi oppression of their homelands. Rick, the sole American in the cast, becomes an avatar of his country's role in the war; he's initially neutral but ultimately chooses the right side. Underlining this, the film is set mere days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which pushed America into the war.
"Casablanca" and its connection to contemporary events helped make it a hit.
- 9/4/2022
- by Devin Meenan
- Slash Film
” The city can be lonely too. Sometimes people who are never alone are the loneliest. “
Webster University presents “The Other St. Nick”, a six-film Nicholas Ray Film Festival that runs December 27th-January 5th at the University’s Moore Auditorium(470 E Lockwood Ave). The films screen Friday, Saturdays, and Sundays at 7:00pm the weekends of Dec 27-29th and Jan 3-5th. The series continues tonight, December 29th at 7pm with On Dangerous Ground (1951)
A film noir more often compared to the work of Carl Theodor Dreyer than its American contemporaries, On Dangerous Ground concerns the hot-headed detective Jim Wilson (Robert Ryan), who partners up with Walter Brent (Ward Bond), the father of a murdered young girl, in the solving of the crime. Along the way they encounter a blind woman, Mary Malden (Ida Lupino), who may offer a key to the case. Featuring a memorable score from master Bernard Herrmann.
Webster University presents “The Other St. Nick”, a six-film Nicholas Ray Film Festival that runs December 27th-January 5th at the University’s Moore Auditorium(470 E Lockwood Ave). The films screen Friday, Saturdays, and Sundays at 7:00pm the weekends of Dec 27-29th and Jan 3-5th. The series continues tonight, December 29th at 7pm with On Dangerous Ground (1951)
A film noir more often compared to the work of Carl Theodor Dreyer than its American contemporaries, On Dangerous Ground concerns the hot-headed detective Jim Wilson (Robert Ryan), who partners up with Walter Brent (Ward Bond), the father of a murdered young girl, in the solving of the crime. Along the way they encounter a blind woman, Mary Malden (Ida Lupino), who may offer a key to the case. Featuring a memorable score from master Bernard Herrmann.
- 12/29/2019
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
” This boy… and this girl… were never properly introduced to the world we live in… To tell their story… They Live by Night. “
Webster University presents “The Other St. Nick”, a six-film Nicholas Ray Film Festival that runs December 27th-January 5th at the University’s Moore Auditorium(470 E Lockwood Ave). The films screen Friday, Saturdays, and Sundays at 7:00pmthe weekends of Dec 27-29th and Jan 3-5th.The series kicks off tonight, December 27th at 7pm with They Live By Night – 1948
After seven years in prison, 23-year-old Bowie (Farley Granger) escapes alongside some bank robbers. Once out, he runs into new love Keechie (Cathy O’Donnell), and makes it a priority to prove his innocence, or at least escape to the mountains with Keechie in tow. With this, his film debut, Nicholas Ray already exhibits future preoccupations with young underdogs and offers a fine contribution to the film noir canon.
Webster University presents “The Other St. Nick”, a six-film Nicholas Ray Film Festival that runs December 27th-January 5th at the University’s Moore Auditorium(470 E Lockwood Ave). The films screen Friday, Saturdays, and Sundays at 7:00pmthe weekends of Dec 27-29th and Jan 3-5th.The series kicks off tonight, December 27th at 7pm with They Live By Night – 1948
After seven years in prison, 23-year-old Bowie (Farley Granger) escapes alongside some bank robbers. Once out, he runs into new love Keechie (Cathy O’Donnell), and makes it a priority to prove his innocence, or at least escape to the mountains with Keechie in tow. With this, his film debut, Nicholas Ray already exhibits future preoccupations with young underdogs and offers a fine contribution to the film noir canon.
- 12/27/2019
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
” I’ve got the bullets! “
Webster University has announced “The Other St. Nick”, a six-film Nicholas Ray Film Festival that runs December 27th-January 5th at the University’s Moore Auditorium(470 E Lockwood Ave). The films screen Friday, Saturdays, and Sundays at 7:00pm the weekends of Dec 27-29th and Jan 3-5th.
Jean-Luc Godard once famously wrote that “Cinema is Nicholas Ray.” Champion of the underdog, one of the earliest masters of Cinemascope, forward thinking in depictions of the aligned and marginalized, Mr. Ray’s contributions to film continue to resonate with modern filmmakers and audiences. Sure, you can spend the holiday season with an old man in a red suit, but Nicholas Ray is the one giving the gifts that keep on giving.
Here’s the lineup:
They Live By Night (1948) Friday, December 27 at 7:00pm
After seven years in prison, 23-year-old Bowie (Farley Granger) escapes alongside some bank robbers.
Webster University has announced “The Other St. Nick”, a six-film Nicholas Ray Film Festival that runs December 27th-January 5th at the University’s Moore Auditorium(470 E Lockwood Ave). The films screen Friday, Saturdays, and Sundays at 7:00pm the weekends of Dec 27-29th and Jan 3-5th.
Jean-Luc Godard once famously wrote that “Cinema is Nicholas Ray.” Champion of the underdog, one of the earliest masters of Cinemascope, forward thinking in depictions of the aligned and marginalized, Mr. Ray’s contributions to film continue to resonate with modern filmmakers and audiences. Sure, you can spend the holiday season with an old man in a red suit, but Nicholas Ray is the one giving the gifts that keep on giving.
Here’s the lineup:
They Live By Night (1948) Friday, December 27 at 7:00pm
After seven years in prison, 23-year-old Bowie (Farley Granger) escapes alongside some bank robbers.
- 11/25/2019
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Humphrey Bogart’s boozy screenwriter plays off perfectly against a marvellous Gloria Grahame in Nicholas Ray’s hardboiled thriller from 1950
Humphrey Bogart’s world-weariness and romanticism take on something brutal and misogynist in this 1950 noir masterpiece directed by Nicholas Ray – and it’s a marvellous performance by Gloria Grahame. This national rerelease is linked to the Grahame retrospective at BFI Southbank, in London. It is adapted from the hardboiled thriller by Dorothy B Hughes, changing her story and rehabilitating the male lead in one way, but in another, introducing a new strain of pessimism and defeat.
Bogart is Dixon Steele, a boozy, depressive Hollywood screenwriter whose tendency to violence and self-hatred isn’t helped by the fact that he hasn’t had a hit in years. Like the directors, producers and actors he occasionally sees in bars, his best days were before the second world war. One night at a restaurant,...
Humphrey Bogart’s world-weariness and romanticism take on something brutal and misogynist in this 1950 noir masterpiece directed by Nicholas Ray – and it’s a marvellous performance by Gloria Grahame. This national rerelease is linked to the Grahame retrospective at BFI Southbank, in London. It is adapted from the hardboiled thriller by Dorothy B Hughes, changing her story and rehabilitating the male lead in one way, but in another, introducing a new strain of pessimism and defeat.
Bogart is Dixon Steele, a boozy, depressive Hollywood screenwriter whose tendency to violence and self-hatred isn’t helped by the fact that he hasn’t had a hit in years. Like the directors, producers and actors he occasionally sees in bars, his best days were before the second world war. One night at a restaurant,...
- 11/22/2017
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
The public can’t seem to resist stories about the private lives of movie stars. We’re fascinated by who these beautiful flickering gods might be off-screen, and that fascination is exacerbated a thousand times over by the fact that these beautiful flickering gods don’t want us to know. It’s a recipe for infatuation and disaster. It’s also a recipe for some very bad movies. The truth may be stranger than fiction, but it’s awful hard to bridge the gap between the two.
“Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool” is a tawdrier, more tragic, but similarly superficial “My Week with Marilyn,” devoted to the dying days of an actress who always lived in Monroe’s voluptuous shadow. By the time it ends, that darkness has grown so complete that it’s hard to tell whose story we’re even watching.
Gloria Grahame was born for black-and-white.
“Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool” is a tawdrier, more tragic, but similarly superficial “My Week with Marilyn,” devoted to the dying days of an actress who always lived in Monroe’s voluptuous shadow. By the time it ends, that darkness has grown so complete that it’s hard to tell whose story we’re even watching.
Gloria Grahame was born for black-and-white.
- 9/2/2017
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
With Nicholas Ray’s first film, “They Live By Night” recently restored by the Criterion Collection – after the company did a remarkable job with his “Bigger Than Life” and “In a Lonely Pace” – and “Johnny Guitar” set to get it’s streaming debut this weekend on Hulu (July 1), it’s a good time to review the career of one of Hollywood’s greatest mavericks.
Unlike most legendary auteurs, Ray’s career is incredibly uneven. He was a square peg trying to fit into the cylinder of Hollywood, but completely unwilling to round his sharp corners. It wasn’t that his style couldn’t adapt to Hollywood, as his mastery of storytelling through the use of space, composition and performance was readymade for the studio era. However, his uncompromising view of life and the existential struggle of his characters never fit neatly in stories with a clear resolution. His ability to...
Unlike most legendary auteurs, Ray’s career is incredibly uneven. He was a square peg trying to fit into the cylinder of Hollywood, but completely unwilling to round his sharp corners. It wasn’t that his style couldn’t adapt to Hollywood, as his mastery of storytelling through the use of space, composition and performance was readymade for the studio era. However, his uncompromising view of life and the existential struggle of his characters never fit neatly in stories with a clear resolution. His ability to...
- 6/30/2017
- by Chris O'Falt
- Indiewire
As a supplement to our Recommended Discs weekly feature, Peter Labuza regularly highlights notable recent home-video releases with expanded reviews. See this week’s selections below.
A woman departs a steamer in Argentina and soon finds herself in the middle of a love triangle between two pilots vying for her attention. They carry her off to a bar, then gamble between taking out the mail and a juicy steak date. As the loser Joe takes off into the night, the fog sets in. The music stops, the sounds of the plane motor crinkle above the jungle air. The mist proves too thick, and a fiery mess consumes the ground, but only the woman screams. There’s no time for tears, something the Brooklyn lass has yet to understand. “Who’s Joe?” becomes a denial of existential fear, and the music crowds the air once again. The man fades into memory out of necessity.
A woman departs a steamer in Argentina and soon finds herself in the middle of a love triangle between two pilots vying for her attention. They carry her off to a bar, then gamble between taking out the mail and a juicy steak date. As the loser Joe takes off into the night, the fog sets in. The music stops, the sounds of the plane motor crinkle above the jungle air. The mist proves too thick, and a fiery mess consumes the ground, but only the woman screams. There’s no time for tears, something the Brooklyn lass has yet to understand. “Who’s Joe?” becomes a denial of existential fear, and the music crowds the air once again. The man fades into memory out of necessity.
- 5/18/2016
- by Peter Labuza
- The Film Stage
“Anger Management Issues”
By Raymond Benson
A character makes an excuse for the bad behavior of Dixon Steele, a Hollywood screenwriter played by Humphrey Bogart, by saying, “He’s a writer—people like him can afford to be temperamental.”
Released in the same year as Billy Wilder’s acerbic film noir attack on Tinsel Town, Sunset Boulevard, and Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s similar assault on show business, All About Eve, Nicholas Ray’s In a Lonely Place was nowhere near as popular—but it was just as scathing. It may not have been a box office success, but the picture’s reputation has grown considerably over the decades, mainly because Bogart’s performance as a bitter, angry movie scribe ranks among his best onscreen personas. But it’s not pretty. The guy has anger management issues, the likes of which probably had not been seen in a mainstream film prior to the picture’s release.
By Raymond Benson
A character makes an excuse for the bad behavior of Dixon Steele, a Hollywood screenwriter played by Humphrey Bogart, by saying, “He’s a writer—people like him can afford to be temperamental.”
Released in the same year as Billy Wilder’s acerbic film noir attack on Tinsel Town, Sunset Boulevard, and Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s similar assault on show business, All About Eve, Nicholas Ray’s In a Lonely Place was nowhere near as popular—but it was just as scathing. It may not have been a box office success, but the picture’s reputation has grown considerably over the decades, mainly because Bogart’s performance as a bitter, angry movie scribe ranks among his best onscreen personas. But it’s not pretty. The guy has anger management issues, the likes of which probably had not been seen in a mainstream film prior to the picture’s release.
- 5/12/2016
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
It's a different Bogart -- a character performance in a Nicholas Ray noir about distrust anxiety in romance. Gloria Grahame is the independent woman who must withhold her commitment... until a murder can be sorted out. Which will crack first, the murder case or the relationship? In A Lonely Place Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 810 1950 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 93 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 10, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy, Carl Benton Reid, Art Smith, Jeff Donnell, Martha Stewart, Robert Warwick, Morris Ankrum, William Ching, Steven Geray, Hadda Brooks. Cinematography Burnett Guffey Film Editor Viola Lawrence Original Music George Antheil Written by Andrew Solt, Edmund H. North from a story by Dorothy B. Hughes Produced by Robert Lord Directed by Nicholas Ray
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Which Humphrey Bogart do you like best? By 1950 he had his own production company, Santana, with a contract for release through Columbia pictures.
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Which Humphrey Bogart do you like best? By 1950 he had his own production company, Santana, with a contract for release through Columbia pictures.
- 4/30/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
For those many aspiring artists who make the pilgrimage to Los Angeles in hopes of finding their silver screen dreams, the city can take on a magical and enticing air. More often than not, small town beauty queens and football stars hoping for fame shoot for the stars and land among the trash. As beautiful a city as it is, Hollywood is also a place where the strong eagerly use and discard the weak with a frightening frequency. Can’t take the pressure? Don’t fret. There is certainly no shortage of wide-eyed kids waiting to take your place.
In Knight of Cups, the latest film by Terrence Malick, Christian Bale stars as a Hollywood screenwriter drifting through the sights and sounds of contemporary Los Angeles. To mark the occasion, we’ve taken a look back at the finest films portraying the dark side of Hollywood — the broken hearts and crushed dreams.
In Knight of Cups, the latest film by Terrence Malick, Christian Bale stars as a Hollywood screenwriter drifting through the sights and sounds of contemporary Los Angeles. To mark the occasion, we’ve taken a look back at the finest films portraying the dark side of Hollywood — the broken hearts and crushed dreams.
- 3/3/2016
- by Tony Hinds
- The Film Stage
Craig here with Take Three. Today: Gloria Grahame.
Take One: The Big Heat (1953)
When you think of Film Noir, you think of hard-boiled anti-heroes in fedoras, smoking, permanently with gun. But in some noirs it’s ladies first. Fritz Lang’s dirty, masterful noir par excellence The Big Heat has a first-rate femme fatale in Grahame’s Debby Marsh. Thank 20th Century Fox for replacement pleasures then: Grahame stepped in when original pick Marilyn Monroe’s fee became too high, giving the the film an extra sprinkling of salty sass. She excelled in each moment, whether heartfelt or hardened; I can only hazard a guess that Monroe might have made Debby’s eventual desperation too pleading. Under Grahame’s control Debby’s desperate dilemma was frenetic and wrenching. Never has the rapid flush of devastation been so well conveyed on screen as when she runs to Glenn Ford’s apartment to beg for cover.
Take One: The Big Heat (1953)
When you think of Film Noir, you think of hard-boiled anti-heroes in fedoras, smoking, permanently with gun. But in some noirs it’s ladies first. Fritz Lang’s dirty, masterful noir par excellence The Big Heat has a first-rate femme fatale in Grahame’s Debby Marsh. Thank 20th Century Fox for replacement pleasures then: Grahame stepped in when original pick Marilyn Monroe’s fee became too high, giving the the film an extra sprinkling of salty sass. She excelled in each moment, whether heartfelt or hardened; I can only hazard a guess that Monroe might have made Debby’s eventual desperation too pleading. Under Grahame’s control Debby’s desperate dilemma was frenetic and wrenching. Never has the rapid flush of devastation been so well conveyed on screen as when she runs to Glenn Ford’s apartment to beg for cover.
- 3/20/2011
- by Craig Bloomfield
- FilmExperience
In A Lonely Place
DVD
Directed by Nicholas Ray
Starring Humphrey Bogart, Jeff Donnell, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy, Carl Benton Reid, Art Smith, Martha Stewart, Robert Warwick
1950
Columbia Pictures
Deteriorating from the inside-out are the rotten inner demons of Hollywood screenwriter Dixon Steele. Along with that is the man’s inability to create a workable script for directors; he’s on a cold streak of late and his rigid attitude has a lot to do with that. But topping both of these soul-eating disparities is the fact that Steele’s cold world is made possible by the lack of any love interest in his life. All of these bleak assets enunciate his tragedy of being present in a lonely place. The only thing with him in this lonely place is his anger that he can’t govern.
Humphrey Bogart plays Dixon Steele, a great name for a character, and it...
DVD
Directed by Nicholas Ray
Starring Humphrey Bogart, Jeff Donnell, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy, Carl Benton Reid, Art Smith, Martha Stewart, Robert Warwick
1950
Columbia Pictures
Deteriorating from the inside-out are the rotten inner demons of Hollywood screenwriter Dixon Steele. Along with that is the man’s inability to create a workable script for directors; he’s on a cold streak of late and his rigid attitude has a lot to do with that. But topping both of these soul-eating disparities is the fact that Steele’s cold world is made possible by the lack of any love interest in his life. All of these bleak assets enunciate his tragedy of being present in a lonely place. The only thing with him in this lonely place is his anger that he can’t govern.
Humphrey Bogart plays Dixon Steele, a great name for a character, and it...
- 11/5/2010
- by Three-D
- Geeks of Doom
If most recent documentaries assaying '60s and '70s rock and roll are any indication, filmmakers expect viewers to approach pop music history not with open minds but with empty heads.
Case in point: the curiosity that led me to watch "Stones In Exile," a recent non-fiction film on the making of the Rolling Stones beyond seminal LP "Exile On Main Street," was rewarded by supposedly contextualizing input from a young man in a band called Kings Of Leon who appeared in his choice of comments to have never heard of either the Stones or their 1972 album.
No offense to anyone's record collection, but the complete absence of Bono, Jack White, Sheryl Crow and the rest of the rock doc talking head usual suspects in Vikram Jayanti's new film puts it in the winner's circle right out of the gate. That film is "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector,...
Case in point: the curiosity that led me to watch "Stones In Exile," a recent non-fiction film on the making of the Rolling Stones beyond seminal LP "Exile On Main Street," was rewarded by supposedly contextualizing input from a young man in a band called Kings Of Leon who appeared in his choice of comments to have never heard of either the Stones or their 1972 album.
No offense to anyone's record collection, but the complete absence of Bono, Jack White, Sheryl Crow and the rest of the rock doc talking head usual suspects in Vikram Jayanti's new film puts it in the winner's circle right out of the gate. That film is "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector,...
- 6/30/2010
- by Bruce Bennett
- ifc.com
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