Play It Again (on DVD)

It isn't enough just to watch a movie. Not for me, anyway. I have to read about it afterwards, which is no hard task.

In my readings, I learned that Madeleine LeBeau is the last surviving credited cast member of Casablanca. In her 80s now, she was in her early 20s when she played Yvonne, whose small part revealed a cavalier streak in Bogart's Rick Blaine early in the movie.

Yvonne: Where were you last night?

Rick: That's so long ago, I don't remember.

Yvonne: Will I see you tonight?

Rick: I never make plans that far ahead.

Discarded by Rick, she takes up with -- or is on the verge of taking up with -- a German officer, but in the famed scene in which "La Marseillaise" drowns out "Die Wacht am Rhein," she's conspicuous in her tearful embrace of the song: her heart belongs to France. As well it should, since LeBeau was a real refugee from the Nazis, like many of the cast.

Yvonne or no Yvonne, it's an astonishingly effective scene, even for someone never directly affected by the Nazi terror, nor particularly enamored with French national aspirations. It makes you (me) want to join in and cheer for France anyway.

My viewing of Casablanca last weekend was the fourth or fifth time for me, on a fine crisp DVD print with Japanese subtitles. Like most people my age, I'd probably seen pieces of it on TV over the years as a child, but it isn't for children. Lilly and Ann had the same experience during this viewing, watching bits of it, but mostly not.

It wasn't until film class, when I was 21, that I saw it all the way through. I liked it then, but even more now; it improves with my age. I vividly remember the class applauding and cheering at the line "Round up the usual suspects." That remains my own favorite line in a movie packed with so many good ones.