Round Up the Usual Suspects

Fülszöveg

In late 1941, a play called Everybody Comes to Rick's made its way from the desk of Warner script reader Stephen Karnot to the office of producer Hal Wallis, who bought it for $20,000. Less than three years later, Casablanca had earned Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay and it had become a favourite of moviegoers around the world. But, as Aljean Harmetz shows, no one expected Casablanca to be anything more than a standard World War II romantic suspense film - until it was finished. What turned Casablanca into an exceptional movie?
In Round Up the Usual Suspects, Aljean Harmetz has written the inside story of the making of Casablanca. Drawing upon years of research and interviews with many of those close to the film, including the late Paul Henreid, Lauren Bacall, and scriptwriters Howard Koch and JuUus Epstein; Ingrid Bergman's acting diaries; and the vast Warner Bros, archives, Harmetz goes behind the scenes to convey the precise realities of working... Tovább

Fülszöveg

In late 1941, a play called Everybody Comes to Rick's made its way from the desk of Warner script reader Stephen Karnot to the office of producer Hal Wallis, who bought it for $20,000. Less than three years later, Casablanca had earned Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay and it had become a favourite of moviegoers around the world. But, as Aljean Harmetz shows, no one expected Casablanca to be anything more than a standard World War II romantic suspense film - until it was finished. What turned Casablanca into an exceptional movie?
In Round Up the Usual Suspects, Aljean Harmetz has written the inside story of the making of Casablanca. Drawing upon years of research and interviews with many of those close to the film, including the late Paul Henreid, Lauren Bacall, and scriptwriters Howard Koch and JuUus Epstein; Ingrid Bergman's acting diaries; and the vast Warner Bros, archives, Harmetz goes behind the scenes to convey the precise realities of working under the Hollywood studio system during World War II. Full of surprises, the book debunks many cherished myths about the casting, script, story, and legendary stars of the film. Round Up the Usual Suspects brings to life the personalities and politics at the studio: Jack Warner's rivalry with his top producer Hal Wallis; the off-camera coolness between Bogart and Bergman - she said, "I kissed him but I never knew him"; the casting possibilities, which included George Raft, Hedy Lemarr, Lena Home, Ann Sheridan and Michele Morgan; the jealousy of Bogart's hard-drinking wife Mayo Methot; the tantrums of director Michael Curtiz, who treated Bergman with elaborate European courtesy but lashed out at the others; and the friendship between Bogart and Claude Rains.
Aljean Harmetz enriches the book with illuminating insights into the workings of the Hollywood studio system - far from being glamorous, it often seemed like a factory assembly line - and with a penetrating analysis of the effects of World War II on the studio and the government's use of the movies as a
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