Play it again, Sam

[gandydancer]

"Play it again, Sam" is probably the second most famous line from movie history. Last week I watched the DVD of Casablanca I borrowed from the Library. It did not seem to have the impact I remembered.

Laying awake last night it suddenly came to me, they had edited that line out in the DVD version. It was there in the old VCR version. It was in innumerable late night TV versions. But not on that DVD version. That line made Rick seem like a self-centered jerk wallowing in self pity which is probably why they decided to edit it out. But without it in the end Rick acts like we would expect him to. With it there it makes what he does in the end show him as a man rising above himself in an almost unbelievable act of nobility. Far from being inconsequential that one line is the most important line in the movie, and they edited it out…

Four thumbs down on the DVD version, can we shoot the editor?

 

[MK]

.

Actually Rick never says" Played it again, Sam". That is an urban legend. He says "play it, Sam".

 

[BellyTank]

Yes, that's it, I new she said it but wasn't sure what Rick actually said.

BT.

 

[gandydancer]

As the scene goes he says, "Play it, Sam".
Then there is the "Of all the gin joints..." line.
An then, "Play it again, Sam".

Which shows Rick is just wallowing in his misery, as I said. Hence my post. I do not know when that editing first happened sometime after the 1960's I guess. No, absolutely, the line was in there. I had not seen Casablanca in quite a long while prior to checking out the DVD, but that line is not Urban Legend, it has been edited out. How film historians are supposed to do their work when they change the films from the original release print, I do not know.

I guess we now know why so many older folks know the line, and so many younger ones think they are imagining it.

 

[BellyTank]

I just saw 2 web sites explaining the common misconception that Bogey says 'again'- apparently he actually doesn't...

BT.

 

[MK]

.

Rick: You know what I want to hear.
Sam: [lying] No, I don't.
Rick: You played it for her, you can play it for me!
Sam: [lying] Well, I don't think I can remember...
Rick: If she can stand it, I can! Play it!

 

[ginobarracuda]

Humphrey Bogart never says “Play it again, Sam� in Casablanca.

The “Play it again, Sam� line actually comes from the Marx Brothers’ movie A Night in Casablanca.

 

[gandydancer]

Well, you guys are correct based upon that DVD, and I don't know how many releases before it. But I, and a few million other folks say, that's not the way it was in the beginning. I say that about 5 seconds of film was cut sometime long afterwards.

MK, your quote looks like you checked out the DVD (verbatim). However the line was the very last line in that scene, and left the viewer with the impression that Rick kept making Sam play the song over and over until he (Rick) passed out drunk, and Sam carried him upstairs to bed. I suspect someone somewhere along the line felt it tarnished his hero and edited out.

Of course I never saw that film in the theater, I was born a year after it came out. But I saw it many times on B&W TV in the early '50's. My mom watched it everytime it was on TV which was about once a year.

BTW the line was in the Bugs Bunny version too. I have never seen the Mark Brothers version.

What makes it so hard for you guys to believe that 5 seconds was cut out of an old movie. It is done all the time. Most movies are now edited for TV before being shown there. You would rather believe what you see on a late release than believe people who saw it long ago? Oh, of course, I forgot, the world did not exist before you guys were born. How silly of me. (grin)

To show how accurate the experts are, the book "COKE" says that Coca Cola never made those 6 ounce bottles of Coke all the old folks talk about. The author was assured of it by the management. About a month after I had read the book I ran across an case of unopened bottles in a antique store. Technically he was right, they were 6-1/2 ounce bottles.

However, it does no good to argue with the convinced (that applies both ways), so I will make no further comments on this.

 

[MK]

.

Fair enough.

FYI:

I did not get that from the DVD. That is from the script. I have seen Casablanca on VHS, DVD and on the big screen. I don't know of any serious authority on the film that claims Bogart said "play it again, Sam". If you know a respectable source saying other wise I would love to hear it. This is one of my favorite movies of all time and have read a number of books of the making of the film. I think that Woody Allen's movie caused a lot of people to popularize that line.

 

[ginobarracuda]

It's still a hellava great movie...and Warner Bros. didn't even plan for it to the stand out film that it became upon release; .they were making 50 films a year and this was just one of them. The script was being re-written and tweaked every day...that musta been nerve-wracking on all the actors..and it shows in a good way!

I'm no expert; I learned all this off the 2nd DVD that came with the 2 DVD set I bought recently. http://www.overstock.com/cgi-bin/d2.cgi?PAGE=PROFRAME&PROD_ID=475265

But in regards to the line in question, I'm willing to agree to disagree :cheers1:

This reminds me of the debate about one of the lines in the movie 'Real Genius'; did he mouth the word 'Wrong' or 'War' ?

 

[jitterbugdoll]

Woody Allen's 1972 movie "Play It Again, Sam" definitely helped to cement this rumor.

 

[Andykev]

But Lauren Bacall Says Otherwise

Well, you guys are correct based upon that DVD, and I don't know how many releases before it. But I, and a few million other folks say, that's not the way it was in the beginning. I say that about 5 seconds of film was cut sometime long afterwards.


What makes it so hard for you guys to believe that 5 seconds was cut out of an old movie. It is done all the time. Most movies are now edited for TV before being shown there. You would rather believe what you see on a late release than believe people who saw it long ago? Oh, of course, I forgot, the world did not exist before you guys were born. How silly of me. (grin)

In the fllm "You Must Remember This" A Tribute To Casabanca, and in "Bacall on Bogart":

Lauren Bacall states (quote):

" Now let's get something straight once and for all. Humphrey Bogart never said "Play it again, Sam"...Listen carefully.

The film shows the clip of the scene where Bogart is in the night club and Dooley Wilson is on the piano. You cannot mistake the dialog. Bogart says, " If she can stand it, I can. PLAY IT!"

The book "Then Making of Casablanca" by Alkean Harmetz also makes no mention of time being cut from this scene, nor the "again" word in the line.

This is just a misquote that came from many sources, mainly the Woodie Allen movie "Play It Again, Sam".

 

[Biltmore Bob]

Cary grant never said "Judy, Judy, Jydy..."

 

[Andykev]

Another source of "PLAY IT AGAIN SAM"

In "The Ultimate Bogart" book by Ernest W. Cunningham (Renaissance Books, Los Angeles, 1999), he writes in Ch. 2, To Debunk or Not to Debunk, "His Most Famous Line is "Play It Again Sam!".

" The author of this line is Woody Allen, who worte a popular play (1969) and a movie (1972) with this title, which is a misquote from Casablanca. What Rick Blane (Bogart) actually says to Sam (Dooley Wilson) is, "You played it for her and you can play it for me. If she can stand it, I can. Play it!"


I know that movies are edited for content, and they cut bits a pieces here and there for squeezing more commercials into a TV showing. However, I saw the movie in college, back in 1977. It was a real "reel" actual print of the film, like that shown i n theaters. This is well before anyone thought of Microsoft, computers, or DVD format films. It plays the scene just like the DVD versions today. Actually, the DVD's are produced from archive prints, and often are "cleaned up" digitally and sound enhanced. I assure you, they do not cut from the original films when burning DVD's.

I also have the "Collectors" edition of Casablanca, which is a beautiful digital transfer, and has a second disc with all related bonus features, such as the before mentioned Bacall on Bogart, the Bacall tribute to Casablanca, newly discovered scenes and outtakes, set scenes, interviews, TV version (adaptation), and the Warner Bros. cartoons, to mention just a few.

Every version of Casablanca that I have seen over the past thirty years does not digress from the content of the current DVD. I will say that on TV, scenes have been cut, but never that critical one. I even have a copy of the movie I recorded off the American Movie Classics when they played movies uncut, and I also have a copy of the "old VHS" version. All are the same, no "play it AGAIN" just "play it!".

 

[Andykev]

And another internet source

The classic and much-loved romantic melodrama Casablanca (1942), always found on top-ten lists of films, is a masterful tale of two men vying for the same woman's love in a love triangle. The story of political and romantic espionage is set against the backdrop of the wartime conflict between democracy and totalitarianism. [The date given for the film is often given as either 1942 and 1943. That is because its limited premiere was in 1942, but the film did not play nationally, or in Los Angeles, until 1943.]

With rich and smoky atmosphere, anti-Nazi propaganda, Max Steiner's superb musical score, suspense, unforgettable characters (supposedly 34 nationalities are included in its cast) and memorable lines of dialogue (e.g., "Here's lookin' at you, kid," and the inaccurately-quoted "Play it again, Sam"), it is one of the most popular, magical (and flawless) films of all time - focused on the themes of lost love, honor and duty, self-sacrifice and romance within a chaotic world. Woody Allen's Play It Again, Sam (1972) paid reverential homage to the film, as have the lesser films Cabo Blanco (1981) and Barb Wire (1996), and the animated Bugs Bunny short Carrotblanca (1995).

 

[Andykev]

Bogart

I have watched the Bogart, Cagney, and E.G. Robinson films since early childhood. I have many lines memorized, like the speech Captain Queeg gives in the "Cain Mutiny", and "Treasure of the Sierra Madre", where Fred C. Dobbs makes his downward spiral into madness over greed.

I can't tell you how many times I have watched Casablanca, maybe 50 or so. That is a lot of times. I can watch the movie from memory, almost. I have a good mind to visualize, so it is close. I assure you that the DVD version of the movie is authentic, and accurate.

 

[gandydancer]

I wasn't going to respond again to this but, oh well.

I guess I have a vivid imagination, because I not only remember the line, I remember where it was in the film, and I remember the effect on the story line.

However, my father remembered meeting Samual Clemens and he was born the same year Clemens died, so maybe I do have that kind of imagination. Also while my disability is such that while I do have memory problems, that is remembering something from five minutes ago. I have very little difficulty remembering things from my childhood 50-60 years ago.

Urban legends are things that everyone knows because they have heard it over and over. Not things they know because they have personally experienced it. I guess that if this was important enough there are still enough people alive in the world to do a poll of those who saw the movie in the 40's on this. In another 10 years that may not be so, however.

Anyway, the way the movie was in my imagination is better than it was on the DVD (the 2 disc collectors edition mention by a couple of folks here, BTW). So I am glad I have that imaginary memory (grin).

 

[Andykev]

You have got to be kidding

"However, my father remembered meeting Samual Clemens and he was born the same year Clemens died, so maybe I do have that kind of imagination. Also while my disability is such that while I do have memory problems, that is remembering something from five minutes ago. I have very little difficulty remembering things from my childhood 50-60 years ago."

I don't understand what this thread has to do with your father meeting Mark Twain the year he died. Your father was born the same year Samuel Clemens died? What? How many one year old kids remember anything? I am not clear on this.

Anyway, your memory of Casablanca is flawed. Books, DVD's, VHS's tapes, and words from Lauren Bacall, and others (authors on Bogart) all negate your claim or memory.

Sorry. You are wrong.

 

[MK]

.

I wish you wouldn't sugar coat it and just go ahead and tell us what you really think Andykev.

 

[MDFrench]

It seems that the most famous lines in movie history tend to be misquoted, and the misquote becomes the mainstay.

The line as it has been spoken by the public and media for decades:
"Luke, I am your father."

The actual line as it has been since 1980, the year of the film's release:
"No. I am your father."

I think this is the fate of the disputed line in Casablanca, as I have seen it hundreds of times on VHS, DVD, Laserdisc, and the big screen. I even had the pleasure of speaking with Robert Osbourn of Turner Classic Movies in person after the screening of Casablanca, and I joked about the "Play It Again, Sam." misquote of the century. He laughed and nodded. If there had been the possibility of that line actually existing, I think he would have known.

Mike