Toward the Freedom of America: Casablanca 

|John Costello| Two-thirds of the way through Casablanca (1942), the action pauses in Rick’s Café Américain to dwell on three minor characters seated at one of the tables. Instead of another scene involving a pickpocket or a musical number advancing the story, the camera lingers on an elderly couple, the Leuchtags. Carl, a waiter… Continue reading

How To Properly Identify the Ending of On Dangerous Ground

|MH Rowe| On Dangerous Ground (1951) might appear at first to be one of the more unbearably melodramatic film noirs ever produced. Its ending, or really the ending of the ending—the film’s final scene—threatens especially to pull all that has preceded it down into the depths of pure… Continue reading