The flight to Reykjavik was, of course, on Icelandair, which meant—in addition to no complementary food, nor snacks, nor even scanty overnight blankets—no free headphones. As a matter of principle, I simply wasn’t going to spend eight bucks for a set of headphones to watch a bad movie on a tiny screen on the back of someone’s too-far-back-reclined seat.
So, I searched the flight’s movie listings to see if there was a film I knew well enough that I could watch it and kill some time and get some enjoyment without actually needing to hear the dialogue.
And there it was: “Casablanca.”
I have seen it, conservatively, a million times. I started seeing it in college, 20 years or so after it was originally released, just when it was gaining a second life through revival screenings at campus theaters and repertory cinemas, such as the Brattle in Cambridge, Mass., where it played for years.
I know, literally, all the dialogue, every single word.
Of course, I know all the famous lines—“We’ll always have Paris”; “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship”; “Round up the usual suspects”; “Here’s looking at you, kid,” and so on. And even all the mis-remembered lines, like, “Play it again, Sam” (in fact, neither Humphrey Bogart nor Ingrid Bergman—that is, star-crossed lovers Rick and Ilsa—actually ever say that to piano player Sam, played by the wonderful Dooley Wilson).
But I also know the asides, the bits of business murmured by waiter Cuddles Sakall and bartender Leonid Kinsky, the repartee at the roulette table and the high-pitched warning by the sly pickpocket to be wary of “vultures, vultures everywhere.”
And watching the movie again, this time without sound, fully enjoying it without sound, got me to thinking: this is my essential film. This is the one movie I’d want with me on that proverbial desert island. This is the one movie I could continue to see again and again and again—with or without sound—and never tire of it.
There are a number of other classic old movies I have seen multiple times, and will still eagerly see again: Hitchcock’s “North By Northwest,” “The Lady Vanishes” and “The 39 Steps”; “The Maltese Falcon;” “The Wizard of Oz; “Miracle on 34th Street;” “12 Angry Men;” “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (the original version); “High Noon” and, much more recently, “Across the Universe,” the story of the ‘60s, set to Beatles’ songs. Probably a few others, too.
But “Casablanca” stands alone. Its emotional impact, its narrative pull, the deadpan humor never fails.
Which inexorably brings me to the question: Do you have a movie like that? Not necessarily the best movie you have ever seen or the one you enjoyed most or liked best, at the time. But what’s the one film, alone with you on the desert island, where you don’t even need the sound to immerse yourself in it?
This last time I saw “Casablanca,” on the Icelandair flight to Reykjavik, when Victor Laszlo leads the triumphant singing of the Marseillaise in Rick’s Café Américain, I couldn’t hear any of the stirring words or music of the anthem the entire crowd—except for the group of exasperated Nazi soldiers—was singing. But I teared up, as usual.
Vive la France indeed!