The famous La Marseillaise scene from Casablanca.

[MrScorpio]

pyrrhiccomedy

You know, this scene is so powerful to me that sometimes I forget that not everyone who watches it will understand its significance, or will have seen Casablanca. So, because this scene means so much to me, I hope it’s okay if I take a minute to explain what’s going on here for anyone who’s feeling left out.

Casablanca takes place in, well, Casablanca, the largest city in (neutral) Morocco in 1941, at Rick’s American Cafe (Rick is Humphrey Bogart’s character you see there). In 1941, America was also still neutral, and Rick’s establishment is open to everyone: Nazi German officials, officials from Vichy (occupied) France, and refugees from all across Europe desperate to escape the German war engine. A neutral cafe in a netural country is probably the only place you’d have seen a cross-section like this in 1941, only six months after the fall of France.

So, the scene opens with Rick arguing with Laszlo, who is a Czech Resistance fighter fleeing from the Nazis (if you’re wondering what they’re arguing about: Rick has illegal transit papers which would allow Laszlo and his wife, Ilsa, to escape to America, so he could continue raising support against the Germans. Rick refuses to sell because he’s in love with Laszlo’s wife). They’re interrupted by that cadre of German officers singing Die Wacht am Rhein: a German patriotic hymn which was adopted with great verve by the Nazi regime, and which is particularly steeped in anti-French history. This depresses the hell out of everybody at the club, and infuriates Laszlo, who storms downstairs and orders the house band to play La Marseillaise: the national anthem of France.

Wait, but when I say “it’s the national anthem of France,” I don’t want you to think of your national anthem, okay? Wherever you’re from. Because France’s anthem isn’t talking about some glorious long-ago battle, or France’s beautiful hills and countrysides. La Marseillaise is FUCKING BRUTAL. Here’s a translation of what they’re singing:

Arise, children of the Fatherland! The day of glory has arrived! Against us, tyranny raises its bloody banner. Do you hear, in the countryside, the roar of those ferocious soldiers? They’re coming to your land to cut the throats of your women and children!

To arms, citizens! Form your battalions! Let’s march, let’s march! Let their impure blood water our fields!


BRUTAL, like I said. DEFIANT, in these circumstances. And the entire cafe stands up and sings it passionately, drowning out the Germans. The Germans who are, in 1941, still terrifyingly ascendant, and seemingly invincible.

“Vive la France! Vive la France!” the crowd cries when it’s over. France has already been defeated, the German war machine roars on, and the people still refuse to give up hope.

But here’s the real kicker, for me: Casablanca came out in 1942. None of this was ‘history’ to the people who first saw it. Real refugees from the Nazis, afraid for their lives, watched this movie and took heart. These were current events when this aired. Victory over Germany was still far from certain. The hope it gave to people then was as desperately needed as it has been at any time in history.

God I love this scene.


freekicks

not only did refugees see this movie, real refugees made this movie. most of the european cast members wound up in hollywood after fleeing the nazis and wound up.

paul heinreid, who played laszlo the resistance leader, was a famous austrian actor; he was so anti-hitler that he was named an enemy of the reich. ugarte, the petty thief who stole the illegal transit papers laszlo and victor are arguing about? was played by peter lorre, a jewish refugee. carl, the head waiter? played by s.z. sakall, a hungarian-jew whose three sisters died in the holocaust.

even the main nazi character was played by a german refugee: conrad veidt, who starred in one of the first sympathetic films about gay men and who fled the nazis with his jewish wife.

there’s one person in this scene that deserves special mention. did you notice the woman at the bar, on the verge of tears as she belts out la marseillaise? she’s yvonne, rick’s ex-girlfriend in the film. in real life, the actress’s name is madeleine lebeau and she basically lived the plot of this film: she and her jewish husband fled paris ahead of the germans in 1940. her husband, macel dalio, is also in the film, playing the guy working the roulette table. after they occupied paris, the nazis used his face on posters to represent a “typical jew.” madeleine and marcel managed to get to lisbon (the goal of all the characters in casablanca), and boarded a ship to the americas… but then they were stranded for two months when it turned out their visa papers were forgeries. they eventually entered the US after securing temporary canadian visas. marcel dalio’s entire family died in concentration camps.

go back and rewatch the clip. watch madeleine lebeau’s face.








casablanca is a classic, full of classic acting performances. but in this moment, madeleine lebeau isn’t acting. this isn’t yvonne the jilted lover onscreen. this is madeleine lebeau, singing “la marseillaise” after she and her husband fled france for their lives. this is a real-life refugee, her real agony and loss and hope and resilience, preserved in the midst of one of the greatest films of all time.

http://notmypresidentno.tumblr.com/post/175638713168/thebibliosphere-blood-on-my-french-fries


https://mrscorpio.tumblr.com

Vive La France.

[murielm99]

1. Thank you.

This is my all time favorite movie.

[overleft]

4. I agree. This was one of the great movies of that era.

[lastlib]

21. I would say it's one of the great movies of ANY era!

(it's one of the few "old" movies I can bear to watch.)

[empedocles]

5. Amazing how much of the dialogue still works.

Movie still plays nearly 8 decades later.

[wnylib]

32. Similar theme today.

Fascism versus resistance to it.

[secondwind]

2. A wonderful post. Thank you sooo much for sharing everything you know about the film!

I will always see it differently now. Thank you!!!!

[flor-de-jasmim]

11. Yes, and in so many ways.

[dameatball]

3. Stirring. Thank you.

[Sedona]

6. Just wow

Also in my top two or three favorite movies and scenes. Never got the English translation of La Marseillaise before, nor the back story on the actors. Thank you Mr. Scorpio.

[empedocles]

7. Huge, broad, stirring impact at the time, also.

'The momentous Casablanca Conference held at the Anfa Hotel in Casablanca, French Morocco, from January the 14th to the 24th, 1943 is remembered today for the landmark agreement by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill to mandate unconditional surrender from their Axis enemies. {The “Axis powers” formally took the name after the Tripartite Pact was signed by Germany, Italy, and Japan on 27 September 1940, in Berlin. The pact was subsequently joined by Hungary (20 November 1940), Romania (23 November 1940), Slovakia (24 November 1940), and Bulgaria (1 March 1941)}.

The doctrine of “unconditional surrender” came to represent the unified voice of the unyielding Allied will; the immovable determination that the Axis powers would be fought to their ultimate defeat.' - Wings of Freedom Aviation Museum

[mahatmakanejeeves]

8. I was thinking of an appropriate way to celebrate Bastille Day. This works just fine. NT

[soothsayer]

14. Exactly

[BigmanPigman]

50. I thought of storming the Oval Office

as an appropriate way to celebrate today. Off with their heads!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. The other important thing to remember is that

this movie came out in 1942, long before it was obvious that the Germans would be defeated.

Similarly, even today Uncle Tom's Cabin is powerful because it was written by someone who hated slavery but could not truly imagine that slavery would be ended any time soon.

[cate94]

10. Thank you for this.

I haven’t seen this movie since I was a child. Now, I must see it again. It will mean much more to me having the background you provided.

[gademocrat7]

12. Thanks, MrScorpio

One of my favorite movies.

[Ilsa]

13. Madeleine's face is has always been my

Most intense memory from this scene. Her face exudes both emotional anguish and hope.

Thank you for this detail. I was never worked up over Rick and Ilsa's story. As Rick concluded in the movie, there are bigger issues at stake. I guess I'm not that romantic.

[mountain grammy]

15. Thank you..much of this I learned over the years

But much more is new.. a true masterpiece.

[elleng]

16. Marchons!

[A HERETIC I AM]

17. What an outstanding synopsis and commentary

Really well done. I was unaware of this history.

Kudos

[bobbieinok]

29. Complerely agree. Synopsis is is outstanding!

[dhol82]

18. Makes me cry every time.

[Raster]

19. Thank you for sharing!!!

This is one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies. It always brings a tear or two. I was aware of Lebeau's history, and it makes the scene just that much more authentic.
Again, thank you!

Happy Bastille Day!
Vive la France!

[grantcart]

20. Great summary

[HAB911]

22. BEAUTIFUL!

[Clash City Rocker]

23. Awesome! Side fact, Conrad Veidt inspired Batman's arch villain, the Joker

Based on a much earlier silent film called the Man Who Laughs, where he looked like this.



A character in Watchmen is named in his honor, in recognition of his contributions to comics.

[Dave in VA]

24. Thanks for this post

Vive la France!

[sarge43]

25. Almost 80 years old and still just as powerful.

Classic: Stands the test of time.

March on!

[Ghost of Tom Joad]

26. I sometimes use this film in my film

history class. When I ask students if any scene in particular stands out very few mention this scene. It's disappointing, but no matter how many times I watch this scene, I tear up.

In another class I teach I sometimes show that clip along with this one:

Scary but powerful.

[Boomer]

48. I get chills every time I watch this scene

Not good chills. The chills of impending doom and terror.

And the lingering shot on the elderly man, still seated, face carved out of wood, knots my stomach.

[Fritz Walter]

27. It is one of my all-time-favorite movies, too! Thought I had this on DVD...

But I did find it at my local (Jacksonville FL) public library. They have 10 copies available, and its also available to stream. The branch isn't open to walk-ins, but they do a nice curbside pick-up. May not get it in time for Bastille Day, but worth the wait!

Merci beaucoup!

[Glorfindel]

28. Merci, MrScorpio

A wonderful way to celebrate Bastille Day!

[melm00se]

30. One thing to bear in mind here

is that Casablanca, like many films of this era, was a propaganda piece. It wasn't as heavy handed as others at the time but it was, nonetheless, a propaganda piece.

[Hekate]

64. Well, being "a propaganda piece" and all, does that invalidate the message of the movie?

Or is there perhaps an enduring message for today?

[melm00se]

67. It all depends

on which ideology the propaganda supports.

At least that is the interpretation of today's political/cultural landcape.

[niyad]

31. Happy Bastille Day, and thank you for all that information. Another reason to watch one of my

favourite movies.

A small side note, with reference to not everyone having known or seen it. A number of years ago, as an experiment, the script was shopped around under the title "Everyone Comes To Rick's". It was turned down by a number of studios as being uninteresting, etc. not one of these decision makers recognized "Casablanca". It explained to me an ongoing question I have about who greenlights some of the stuff onscreen.

[muriel_volestrangler]

33. Michael Carlson: Homage to Madeleine LeBeau (2016)

It’s one of the most memorable close-ups in film: Madeleine LeBeau, as Yvonne, tears streaming down her face, shouts ‘Vive La France!’ after joining the patrons of Rick’s Café Americain in the ‘Marseillaise’ to drown out the Nazis’ singing of ‘Die Wacht am Rhein’. LeBeau died on 1 May, at the age of 92; she was the last surviving cast member of Casablanca.

LeBeau and her husband, Marcel Dalio, had fled Paris ahead of the Nazi invasion. Like Victor and Ilsa, they obtained letters of transit from Spain to Lisbon, where they boarded a Portugese ship. Their Chilean visas turned out to be forgeries and they were stopped in Vera Cruz, Mexico. But they managed to get temporary visas for Canada, and on their way north stopped in Los Angeles.

Dalio was a major actor in France; a comic star who played serious roles in La Règle du jeu and La Grande Illusion. LeBeau met him when she was a teenage stage actress. They married in 1939, the year she landed her first small file role, in Pabst’s Young Girls in Trouble. Dalio was more than twenty years older (a prefiguring of Humphrey Bogart’s romance with Lauren Bacall, which began on the set of To Have and Have Not, in which Dalio had one of his best Hollywood roles). Dalio was born Israel Moshe Blauschild to Romanian Jewish parents; the Nazis used his face on anti-Semitic posters. Though he escaped, Dalio’s parents died in concentration camps.

Both Dalio and Lebeau landed work in Hollywood: he got character roles and she worked her way up with smaller parts in better films at Warner Bros: Hold Back the Dawn with Charles Boyer, and in Raoul Walsh’s boxing drama Gentleman Jim. By the time they made Casablanca, the marriage had already failed to survive Hollywood; Dalio sued for divorce on grounds of desertion.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2016/may/homage-to-madeleine-lebeau

(Mike Carlson is British TV's resident American Football expert; a TV sports producer, he moved to the UK many years ago. But he has a great 'hinterland', and also writes about movies, and does some obituaries for The Guardian about American actors and similar)

[Quemado]

34. Viva La France!

[uponit7771]

35. "Casablanca came out in 1942." 😲😲

[rickyhall]

36. LeBeau

I wonder if the Hogan's Heroes character, Cpl. Louis LeBeau, played by Robert Clary, also a numbered Holocaust Survivor, who spent part his childhood in a concentration camp, got his name in honor of Madeleine LeBeau?

[2golddogs]

43. Clary

i don’t know about that, but Clary survived Buchenwald and is still alive. 🇫🇷
by all accounts, a very good guy.

[wnylib]

37. Thank you for the translations and background.

I know a little German, but no French. The tension between the French and Germans, and the defiance of the French, comes through even without understanding the words because the scene is done so well. But knowing the words, and especially the background of Madeleine Lebeau, gives the scene a much deeper and richer meaning.

As DVDs replaced videocassettes, old cassettes sold for 25 or50 cents each at second hand stores and library branches. I bought up several classics and Cassablanca is one of them. After the film, the cassette has a section about the making of the movie and development of the plot.

Although Casablanca came out in 1942, it was made in 1941, while the US was still neutral, before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941.

The La Marsellaise scene is my favorite of all the scenes. Close seconds are the ones where humorous lines pop up unexpectedly. Great film.

[Bradshaw3]

38. Great post about a great scene from the great movie ever

The finale of the movie is what's most remembered but for me this is the most powerful scene in the movie, for the reasons the poster listed. It always makes me emotional.

Also, while the film came out in 1942 the unproduced play it is based on actually was written in 1940, making it even more prescient. As beautifully told as it is, the ending was actually figured out later in the production - but ended up being as perfect as the rest of the film.

[H2O Man]

39. Recommended.

[gollygee]

40. Wonderful post for Bastille Day!

Love this movie.

[Baclava]

41. "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine" Best movie line, ever

And i just watched it last night lol

[2golddogs]

42. Vive! 🇫🇷

and a happy Bastille Day to you also, thank you for the goosebumps on this hot morning!

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

44. Marcel Dalio was also in "Sabrina"

He played the baron who befriended Audrey Hepburn at the cooking school in Paris.
Audrey Hepburn - another Nazi survivor.

[Leith]

45. My favorite scene from my favorite movie

Although I've seen it about 2 dozen times, it still brings tears to my eyes.

[NNadir]

46. Wow! I've seen the movie lots of times but never...

...knew all that.

I need to watch it again.

Thanks a million.

We needed that in these times with our nation on the verge of destruction by fascists in the Senate and White House.

[Lifelong Protester]

47. You did a great job!

I love this scene, I replay it often! Viva la France! Happy Bastille day!

Thank you!

[TomSlick]

49. Vive la resistance!

Contre nous de la tyrannie l'étendard sanglant est levé.

[Chili]

51. I'm tearing up

GREAT movie.

And what a fantastic post. THANK YOU!

[bucolic_frolic]

52. Love the details of this enthusiastic post.

So many Jewish actors, who either fled Nazi Germany or were themselves interned or had relatives who survived or were killed in concentration camps, were later cast in movies in German roles about the war.

"Where Eagles Dare" Ingrid Pitt, Anton Diffring, Ferdy Mayne, Guy Deghy.

Hogan's Heroes had many connections Robert Clary, Werner Klemperer, and others as I recall. John Banner was a Jewish Austrian actor who fled Germany when Hitler invaded Austria and emigrated to the US. He lost relatives He served in the US Army during WWII where he was an actual sargeant. All of his family that remained in Austria were killed in concentration camps.

La Marseillaise has found modern fans in an authentic rendition by French musical artiste "La demoiselle d'Avignon" herself, Mireille Mathieu.

http://www.marseillaise.org/audio/mireille_mathieu_-_la_marseillaise.mp3

[smirkymonkey]

53. One of the most poignant scenes from one of my favorite films.

I can never stay dry-eyed during this scene. It is so powerful. I watch Casablanca about once a year and it never gets old for me. Thank you for posting, Mr. Scorpio!

[GeoWilliam750]

54. If I am correct...

Morocco was under the control of Vichy France from 1940
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morocco_in_World_War_II#:~:text=During%20World%20War%20II%2C%20Morocco,the%20end%20of%20the%20war.

[soldierant]

55. Yes, this is the scene.

I knew about the tension between the German and French songs, and, while I hadn't seen quite so literal a translation, I knew Le Marseillais was tough. I didn't realize how many in this film were real-life refugees But I have always teared up over the scene and yes, Madeline;s face has always been a big part of that. Reading your background I learned much ... and yet it basically, simply, confirmed what I have always felt about the scene. I guess non-verbal communication works - very, very well.

Thank you.

[c-rational]

56. Thank you MrScorpio for this great post on this day. You added a great deal of information and

detail to this movie. I knew some of the facts, but did not know the words of the song - brutal it is. Thank you.

[AllaN01Bear]

57. play the star spangled banner , play it dang gummit.

that was a goose bump scene.

[benld74]

58. Vive la France!

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

59. I had a chance to see this on the big screen a few years ago.

It was fantastic!

[perfessor]

60. Thank you for a wonderful post.

And thanks to all the others for your illuminating comments. This is one of two scenes which always bring tears to my eyes. The other is when Rick says, "Nobody ever loved me that much."

[somaticexperiencing]

61. Bravo! You're so right about this scene. You're so right about Madeleine LeBeau!!!

[ancianita]

62. Thank you. Your transcendant analysis explains why Casablanca has been rated #1 for decades.

[Hekate]

63. You made me cry, Mr Scorpio. A great essay about a great film...

I don’t know when I first got to see Casablanca, but as it was brought out 5 years before I was born, it had to have been sometime as an adult, on late-night TV. Now that we have Turner Classic Movies, it rotates through the schedule enough to be available to everyone sooner or later.

Every time I watch it with my husband, he feels compelled to translate The Marseillaise to me all over again, and yes, it’s a brutal call to arms, that anthem.

What a scene. What a film. Thank you — and Happy Bastille Day.

[empedocles]

68. https://spotflik.com/6-reasons-why-casablanca-remains-a-unique-classic-film/

[Demovictory9]

65. Thank you..dont know much about the film other than

"Heres looking at you"

[GoneOffShore]

66. Thank you for this post. And the underlying story.

Amazing.

Yesterday was the Fete Nationale here in France.

[Mr. Scorpio]

69. Kicking