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Post by london777 on Mar 25, 2020 23:55:19 GMT
- The singing battle of "The Watch on the Rhine" vs "La Marseillaise": no one can resist it. One of the great moments of cinema. Brings tears to the eyes of this surly old curmudgeon every time. I have just re-watched La Grande Illusion (1937) dir: Jean Renoir. There is a similar scene where the prisoners-of-war defiantly sing La Marseillaise on news of an (as it turns out pointless) French victory. Hard to think Curtiz did not get the idea from that. Mind you, his version is far more moving, but then Madeleine LeBeau is easier on the eye than a bunch of upper-class British twits in drag.
- Marcel Dalio, Rick's croupier, doesn't even get credit. He'd been a star in France before the war. See The Rules of the Game (1939) And a major role in La Grande Illusion as he is the only one of the group to escape with Gabin.
- It's startling to hear Ilsa call Sam "boy". That was the term for grown men in certain jobs, for example the little old white bus conductor in It Happened One Night (1934), but I don't know if it was usual for musicians. The Boys in the Band? She calls him "boy" because he is black, not because he is a musician. English is not her first language and she is just copying what she has picked up during her travels, without realizing it is denigratory. Where I now live, waiting staff and bar staff are routinely summoned by calling "joven" (youngster) regardless of age.
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