Cinema Paradiso — Casablanca (1942)

Held in St Luke’s Church Hall on Sat­urday 11th March.

 

RSVP:  con­tact Brett by 5 March 2023

 

3.30pm for a punc­tu­al 3.45pm start

4.45pm Inter­val with French wine and cheese (20 minutes)

6.05pm fin­ish

 

Cas­ab­lanca (1942)

After 80 years, and with anoth­er war in Europe, a show­ing of this clas­sic film on a big­ger screen.  Amer­ic­an expat­ri­ate and nightclub own­er Rick (Bog­art), must choose between his love for Ilse (Berg­man), or help­ing her hus­band László (Hen­reid), a Czech res­ist­ance lead­er, escape from the Vichy-con­trolled city of Cas­ab­lanca to con­tin­ue his fight against the Germans.

The film is fam­ous for its lead char­ac­ters, mem­or­able lines, and per­vas­ive theme song.  Accord­ing to Wiki­pe­dia, it con­sist­ently ranks near the top of lists of the greatest films in his­tory.  In 1989, the United States Lib­rary of Con­gress selec­ted the film as one of the first to be pre­served for being “cul­tur­ally, his­tor­ic­ally, or aes­thet­ic­ally significant”.

Below is a still of French act­ress Madeleine Lebeau as Yvonne, remembered for her pas­sion­ate singing and pro­clam­a­tion of “Vive la France!” in the fam­ous Mar­seil­laise scene.  She was the last mem­ber of the cast to die (2016).