You Must Remember This: A Tribute to 'Casablanca'

You Must Remember This: A Tribute to Casablanca (1992)

*** (out of 4)

Good, if short, documentary about the making of CASABLANCA narrated by Lauren Bacall. The documentary runs just under 30-minutes so there's not too much detail but there are enough basic facts given about the film that fans should enjoy this. Film historians Rudy Behlmer and Ronald Haver are joined by the likes of Pia Lindstrom, Julius Epstein, Henry Mancini, Irene Lee Diamond and Lee Katz as they discuss the making of the film as well as its lasting impact. The one thing that really gets pushed across here is the troubled production history and why when the original screenwriters left the script was still not even half way finish. We hear about how things were pretty much made on the go and this includes getting up to the end of the picture and no one from the actors to the director to the studio knew how it was going to end. There's also discussion on how Bogart got his part and we hear what deal had to be done in order for Ingrid Bergman to get her role. Finally, we get to see some failed attempts at recapturing the film's magic. Again, nothing with too much detail but fans of the film should have a good time with this. It's interesting hearing from some of the people actually involved with the film and this works as a nice little movie to watch after you're done with the classic.

Although poorly organized, this brief (30 min.) documentary, with a very limited narration by Lauren Bacall, is of enormous importance to film devotees due to its wealth of information dealing with the manner in which CASABLANCA was made, including contributions from the varying writers responsible for the scenario, insights from the authors of the original (never produced) play, data from various historians and musicians, and fascinating tidbits galore (e.g., midgets were used as aircraft mechanics so that a plane mockup would not be minimized by normalsized actors), all interspersed with enough footage from the film to increase one's pulse rate and bring a tear to the eye.