191 - Casablanca (1942)

You guys missed John brown’s body as the woke American song

Hey there guys. I’m the worst of all possible Phil’s. Long time listener first time commenting, (well, questioning really.) And my question is thus: What sources do you use when doing movie research? And I’d be curious about theatrical research too, keeping in mind your collective knowledge from experience. I was a theatrical lighting tech, starting out in the Palo Alto Children’s Theater and then doing it for a living as often as I could. I worked for Stanford and UT Austin as a multimedia tech, which was occasionally traditional theater. I study history and rock/pop music and I write articles about the music I love. Also to all my fellow worst of all possible whatever your names are, same question: What sources do you use for movie and theater research? Happy holidays in the fires of our dying empire.

I love 'The Hidden Enemy', it's just like Laurie Anderson's 'Ruby', finally Josh has his own Horse Corner.

Speaking of remembrance, you guys inspired me to archive how my college experienced COVID. I'll be doing the research (interviews., etc.) in the fall and donating to our archives in March 2026. So thanks.

An earlier Bogart picture that might be worth you guys looking at is Black Legion, which is a Warner drama about Bogart's character being drawn into a Midwestern offshoot of the Klan. It's not a great movie but I find it quite interesting.

I just wanna THROW MY VICHY WATER AWAAAAAAY

I don’t think I’ve ever heard a better hilarious combination of three different jokes than meowing in the hall of mountain King and singing “throw your social media away”

I just started the podcast, but I just wanted to say thanks for convincing me to watch this movie, I had such a great time and went in with almost no prior knowledge, and now it gave me a lot of things to think about and I feel better about life. I enjoyed the similar vibes to Cabaret, with everyone having a good time in the bar and then the Nazis ruin everything. Also, AJ and Josh have excellent old movie actor voices.

Okay so Umberto Eco has a good essay on CASABLANCA as a kind of mythical Ur-text, The Hollywood Movie Of Hollywood Movies : The Cliches Are Having A Ball https://biblioklept.org/2013/05/26/casablanca-or-the-cliches-are-having-a-ball-umberto-eco/ and Orson Welles always said he preferred the production style of the studio system cause, like with CASABLANCA, no one was really paying attention and you could sneak good stuff in

I have two Casablanca bits I want to relate but I will say the director character in HAIL, CEASAR! Who says “Do you enjoy physical culture?” is a direct reference to the director of this movie

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On the offchance someone hasn't heard it yet, I highly recommend the album Addicted To Bad Ideas by The World/Inferno Friendship Society. It's all about the life and times of Peter Lorre, and the song "Everybody Comes to Rick's" is about his experience filming Casablanca and includes his famous quote "The world is falling apart, and you want me to make a picture?"

Casablanca is on the Atlantic coast, plenty of fog potential

I believe the consensus is that Conrad Veidt was probably bisexual. He was definitely hanging out with a lot of queer people. There’re a couple of anecdotes about him crossdressing as well.

During the dueling song scene, Brian got his facts mixed up in a way that I feel underplays the importance of La Marseillaise. It was written as a revolutionary anthem during the first war of the French Revolution in 1792 by volunteers…from Marseille. It was a song that cut to the revolutionary core of the French Revolution: we are all brothers, defending the land from reactionary foreign invaders who wish to destroy the revolution. This makes it even more poignant to me since this song, which was as controversial and poignant as The International when it was made (it was banned in Russia up until the 1890s!), represents a song about universal brotherhood and the nation in danger, two ideas so present in 1941 France. It embodied 19th century revolutionary liberalism and French national identity in a way I feel that is very distinct from the nationalist German song playing, which was, as Brian said, written in the 1840s during the Rhine Crisis when France made diplomatic statements about annexing the West Rhine. And the song completely lacks any revolutionary idealism in place of pure nationalist blood and soil, So the songs represent two conceptions of the nation: the latter song totally in like with the Nazi ideology of nationalist anti-revolutionary sentiment which was meant to supersede and destroy the revolutionary ideals of La Marseillaise. Sorry for the rant but I feel it makes the scene more potent and made their point about the internationale being a modern equivalent that much more well-observed. Thanks for the great episode!

I've been thinking of these all day: With their tanks and their guns and their bombs in your heaaaad in your heaaaaaad, they are THROWING YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA AWAYE!!

“Tennis, anyone?” was a mid century meme. It’s used as a non sequitor for quitting an awkward situation. There’s literally no reason anyone should know this but it is a thing your most annoying friend would have said in the 1940s .

About the dueling scars - academic fencing, or mensur, is really interesting. It's not technically a Nazi thing, it's a university fraternity thing, but it was most common with aristocratic or upper middle class conservative fraternities and the Nazi officer corps was full of people from those groups.

Started the episode cackling, ended it weeping. Great work lads.

It's particularly poignant to me that your final take on this is about taking action against fascists and Rick being a symbol of how you can wait at Rick's and hate yourself or do something scary to help people. The way that changes everything in your guilt and self-imposed misery born out of cowardice. I came out as trans last September and Rick was my deadname. The trans community and undocumented community are the modern day equivalents of the people who may need to get out and need help against the fascists. The fear around coming out and doing something to help this community as an act of rebellion kept me "at Rick's" in an incredibly real way.

Was lucky to spend some time in Morocco on r and r when I was overseas - went to Casablanca and it is a beautiful city, the Medina is worth the trip alone, we grabbed lunch at Ricks Cafe where they have the movie playing on a loop in the gambling room - though this was almost 10 years ago so I don’t know if it’s still set up

When did the lads talk about “The Searchers”? I really like that movie, and want to hear the discussion.

Re: the scene where the bar sings the French national anthem, the closest comparison I can make is BLM protesters breaking into Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” while they were marching. Also! The scene in the bar was redone in the $65 million animated disaster “Foodfight” starring Charlie Sheen and Eva Longoria

Play it (the podcast episode) again, Sam.

I’d love for the fellas to do an episode on “Mommie Dearest”

Carry on! You will always remember! Carry on! Nothing equals thRowing YoUr SoCIAL MEDIA AwAY?

So many possible worlds, but we THREW OUR SOCIAL MEDIA AWAAAAY?

Here’s looking at you.. throwing your social media awaaaaay

The stuff in Paris all happened in 1940 so casting another actor would have been odd. They've only been apart for like 18 months after a whirlwind romance.

The cowards at Disney changed it to "Jatz" music.

I wasn't sure if this was also part of the "Tony Ditty favorite movie season", but if it was I was prepared to accept that I seem to have the same tastes in movies as him. This is one of my absolute favorite movies of all time, and considering you also recently did "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" which I also completely love, I'm looking forward to this one a lot.