Best performance in Casblanca

Ignore misspelling

Answer btw is Rains

A character played so beautifully that i think we missed out on Rains' smiley tbh

i still quote lorre’s terrified “riiiick!”

Rains could overact the phonebook but the nervous looks between every name would drag

otm to all of this

voted Rains but it's hard to vote at all when every single performance in Casablanca is perfect.

madeleine lebeau

Yes as ive noted elsewhere every line is perfect and its correct that everyone is wonderful but these three are the essential

Marcel Dalio.

rains obv, of these three but also of the whole film.

idk that greenstreet is doing anything all that interesting; he comes in and does his thing like any other perfectly cast character actor. same w lorre arguably but lorre was a great, great actor and the public memory of his film persona is prob 80% from this movie anyway.

Oh no

No no no

Firstly Greenstreet wafts in great, eases himself around the set, the plot, the lines and the other actors great and we depart him in greatness

Secondly both he and lorre are less so their public awareness templates here than in maltese falcon- significantly so in each case id have thought

Ive never watched raines closely in this before

Theres just so, so much going on.

Id never seen his and ricks mirroring dance so explicitly before.

The setup of raines sending the beautiful young wife to rick to play pilate is the key to the whole thing, to both characters.

that’s prob true but tbh also i am prob conflating both of their performances (but especially SG’s) in one with the other. look forward to appreciating greenstreet next time i see this.

xp

This was after Maltese Falcon, right? I prefer them both in that, but I think they partly have better lines. Anyway, Rains. But all delightful.

Greenstreet is hands down my favorite performance in Maltese Falcon.

Look cards on table greenstreet in falcon is prob my fave performance of all time so im willing to row back a bit there xp

But Lorre def does more of his lorrishness in falcon, the gun being taken off him alone is morre than any one thing he does in this

Now its still not as lorre as the gunsel disarmed in the big sleep but thats a whole nother thing

Wait no that was also falcon

Its not as if the big sleep has a plot why shouldnt it bleed into other movies

Thought this would be a revive of a C-man thread

I like The Maltese Falcon better (and would find it pretty hard to choose between Lorre and Greenstreet there), but in this film, Rains.

Not sure if Rains is better or just gets more time to show more angles. Either way ...

Rains was given much juicier lines than the other two.

he comes in and does his thing like any other perfectly cast character actor.

Vaat vaatch? 10 vaatch

Rains plays the politically pliable predatory bisexual so beautifully throughout, makes his ultimate face turn so sweet.

A great Jewish movie

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I highly recommend this kind of obscure David Lean movie called The Passionate Friends in which Claude Rains is at the wrong corner of a love triangle featuring David Niven and Lean’s then-wife, Ann Todd. Kind of a (more) sympathetic version of his role in Notorious. Eric Ambler contributed to the screenplay.

His not-quite-yet-wife. Based on an H.G. Wells novel. Available on The Criterion Channel.