Casablanca

Recorded at the Crossed Wires Festival in Sheffield, Misha Glenny and guests discuss Casablanca, one of the greatest films from Hollywood’s Golden Era. The film stars Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman and features the unforgettable song As Time Goes By. Casablanca opened in November 1942 when Europe had been at war for three years and the USA for one. It was among Hollywood’s first major films to explain to US audiences why the war was worth fighting, and alongside this became a huge box office hit. It was created by a cast and crew full of emigres and refugees from lands under Nazi control. They produced a movie that has authenticity as well as astonishing emotional power that continues to this day.

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Guests

  • Ian Christie 2 episodes
    Emeritus Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck University of London
  • Pamela Hutchinson No other episodes
    Film historian and critic
  • Sheldon Hall No other episodes
    Emeritus Fellow at Sheffield Hallam University.

Reading list

  • Inside Warner Bros. (1935-1951)
    Rudy Behlmer (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986) Google Books →
  • Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939
    Thomas Doherty (Columbia University Press, 2013) Google Books →
  • Authorship and Film
    David Gerstner and Janet Staiger (eds.) (Routledge, 2003) Google Books →
  • The Auteur theory: Michael Curtiz and Casablanca
    Peter Wollen (Routledge, 2003)
  • The Making of Casablanca: Bogart, Bergman, and World War II
    Aljean Harmetz (Hyperion, 2002) Google Books →
  • We'll Always Have Casablanca: The Life, Legend, and Afterlife of Hollywood`s Most Beloved Movie
    Noah Isenberg (Faber & Faber, 2020) Google Books →
  • The Casablanca File
    Colin McArthur (Half Brick Images, 1992) Google Books →
  • The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era
    Thomas Schatz (Pantheon Books, 1988) Google Books →
  • Warner Bros: The Making of an American Movie Studio
    David Thomson (Yale University Press, 2017) Google Books →

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Programme ID: m00325cd

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00325cd

Auto-category: 791.4372 (Individual motion pictures)