THE FUNDAMENTAL THINGS APPLY (EXCEPT AT "VARIETY")

Richard Widmark shows how it's done.

 I'm the first baby-boomer to admit that it's time that our generation exit stage left.

Not physically, but professionally. We've been running the show for decades now, and what has it got us? Two presidential candidates with the combined age of 151; movie studios churning out nothing but comic book epics; TV networks running shows called -- I kid you not -- Chicago Fire, Chicago Med, and Chicago P.D. (What, no Chicago Garbage Collection?); and a political system that threatens to wreck whatever bit of democracy we have left.

But then comes along Clayton Davis, the new movie critic for Variety. In his debut column this week, Davis, age 36, announces that his favorite movies are Dead Poet's Society, Forrest Gump, and Star Wars, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. Is this someone whose critical opinion you would trust?

But wait, there's more! Clayton admits, almost proudly, that he's never seen Casablanca.  To which Humphrey Bogart replies thusly:

Before continuing, I cop to seeing only two Ingmar Bergman movies, and one each by Fellini and Rossellini. Vim Venders? Again, one. Hell, I only got around to seeing Deliverance for the first time two weeks ago!

Admit it: you don't know which Bergman
movie this is.

I could go on and on about the movie greats that I've missed, and will likely never see. But I don't brag about it and, oh yeah, I'm not a professional movie critic! 

In the eyes of Clayton Davis, writer for the so-called "Bible of Show Business", Forrest Gump > Rick Blaine. You might as well hire a history teacher who didn't know about the Battle of Bunker Hill, or a science professor who skipped over the chapter about Albert Einstein in college. 

Now, Casablanca is the easy choice as your "favorite movie" if you don't want to rock the boat (as Hillary Clinton did during her 2016 campaign). I wouldn't necessarily call it the greatest movie of all time. But there is something almost magical about it -- the cast, script, set, direction. Even the use of European refugees as extras. Casablanca is likely the most perfect studio movie of the 1940s. 

You know that because you've seen it at least once in your life, unlike Variety's new movie columnist. And if Clayton Davis ever is shamed into seeing it, you can bet, as a millennial, his notes are going to be mighty damning:

 

Yo, what's with all the smoking? The first image you see of Bogart is a close-up of his hand clutching a cigarette over an ashtray. Dude must've stunk!

Claude Rains does the LGBTQ audience no favors as an obviously gay man who is not only a crooked cop, but has no problem accepting bribes and being friendly with fascists. He smokes, too.

 

And speaking of fascists, Bogart has no problem with allowing them to sing some wack song in his bar. (He'd probably be a Trump voter today.) At least the French people drown them out with their own tune. But why no subtitles so we know what the freak they're singing?

 

 

Ingrid Bergman is portrayed as the typical weak woman who's at the command of two men: stinky, Nazi-loving Bogart, and Paul Henreid, who plays her anti-fascist husband. Is there a choice here?

She eventually shows some strength (SPOILER ALERT) by threatening to shoot Bogart, but caves because she's a woman, hear her mew. 

And what kind of bullshit is an American bar in a Middle Eastern city? With a French name, too. Western imperialism rules the day!

  

And what would an imperialistic movie be without a little cultural appropriation? British guy wearing an Arabic hat -- why doesn't he ride a camel and smoke a hookah while he's at it?

 

 

You knew this was coming. Person of color whose sole job is to take orders from his white boss (and white boss' ex-lover), and entertain the white people at Bogart's bar. By the end (SPOILER ALERT), Bogart "sells" him to the bar's new owner -- the white guy in the fez! Slavery, anyone? They might as well have called this movie by its English translation: White House!

Oh, did I mention the poor guy's name was Sam? Like, short for Sambo?

And while we're on the subject, the song that Sam keeps singing has a line that goes, "Woman needs man, and man must have his mate," which is wrong on so many levels -- well, if I have to explain it, you just don't get it.

 

At least Casablanca redeems itself at the end when Bergman leaves with the anti-fascist, Bogart shoots a Nazi to death, and Rains pretends he didn't see it. First time a crooked cop did something right.

Bogart's foul mood throughout the movie is explained by being deeply closeted, until Rains offers to travel with him on the next plane out of the country. It's probably the most honest moment in the film. But he's no Forrest Gump.

 

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