Casablanca -- Pure Poetry

Photo of the Casa Blanca Oriental Lilies from the web page of Wild Flower Farm, Litchfield, CT.
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By Pat Browning

A couple of paeans to Casablanca, the movie, the city, the legend.

First, a poem, THE MOVIE by Jim Spurr, which appears in the Red Dirt (Oklahoma Character) Anthology 2007, hot off the press. Spurr’s poem is funny, with a bittersweet edge, just like the 1942 movie.

Second, my own remembrance of Casablanca from a visit 30 years ago. Brief excerpts from an article I wrote for The Hanford (Calif.) Sentinel.

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THE MOVIE
By Jim Spurr

Why argue about it? There was only one great one.
Who would interrupt a conversation
about Casablanca?
Or worse, change the subject?
The others were all short shorts in comparison.
The whole movie has been put to memory by some people.
There ain’t a literate person on the planet who can’t
quote at least one line from it.
Bogie. Bogie? Could he act? Who cares.
He could light a cigarette (ok, ok so it killed him),
hold it and smoke it better than the Marlboro Man
ever dreamed.
Women loved him (Not my grandmother. She was into
Don Ameche. Who can account for bad taste?)
Today’s women still love ole Bogie and long for the day
they can admit it. (Okay, so I don’t really know that.)
“Here’s lookin’ at you kid.”
“We’ll always have Paris.”
And Louie:
“There is gambling here. I am shocked
(as the croupier hands him his winnings).”
“Round up the usual suspects!”
And we all know that Louie knew one sure way
for a good-looking dame to get out of Casablanca.
Louie was a very heterosexual guy.
And there were Nazis singing
while holding cigarettes between thumb and index finger.
Damn little can look more absurd than that.
The fog! The trenchcoats! The song. That great song!
And a story with continuity.
And only one subplot.
And it all came together in a glorious ending
just as the dawn of WWII darkened the world.
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Herewith, my personal remembrance of Casablanca, a lovely lady with a shady past.

I first set foot in Casablanca in 1978 as part of a tour group, and fell in love with Morocco. Some excerpts from an article I wrote for The Hanford (Calif.) Sentinel giving my first impressions of Casablanca:

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In the case of “Casa,” as everyone calls it, if you liked the movie, the city may be something of a disappointment. It’s like meeting a lovely lady with a shady past – your imagination keeps trying to bridge the gap between appearance and reputation.

There is, alas, no “Rick’s Place" in Casablanca. Nobody named Sam plays piano and the plane to Lisbon is a Boeing jet … On boulevards lined with palm trees, businessmen in dark suits mingle with local folk wearing djellabas, burnooses and caftans. A veil here, a fez there, slippers and sunglasses everywhere …

And what of the old image? Well, if you knock on the door of a disco at midnight, you may see a pair of dark eyes peering through a slot, while you stand there wondering if “American” is a proper password. (It is.) You may hear an occasional guarded reference to the “white market,” which apparently still exists, like a skeleton that keeps falling out of the closet. Guides warn against “long fingers,” as they call pickpockets.

But this is tame stuff in today’s world. You are as safe in Casablanca as you are in your own hometown, and how safe that is depends on some extent on you.
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Keep in mind, that was written 30 years ago. How much, if at all, Casablanca may have changed is not for me to say.

But thank our lucky stars – we’ll always have Bogie and Bergman – as time goes by.