Althouse: "Ilsa was only 19 when she went gaga for Lazlo, who was 37. That's how she ended up married before she understood mature adult love..."

March 29, 2026

"Ilsa was only 19 when she went gaga for Lazlo, who was 37. That's how she ended up married before she understood mature adult love..."

"... which she found with Rick. Now Rick is 37 when Yvonne is 19 and she's got a crush on Rick, but he rejects her. Maybe that's not just his wounded coldness. Maybe it's more he's not a sexual predator like Lazlo."

That's a prompt I wrote to Grok, after watching half of "Casablanca" last night while Meade was downstairs watching Purdue lose its "Elite 8" game.

51 comments:

imTay said...: Just watched that about a month ago, and was surprised how it held up, except I would change the ending, because Rick and Lazlo could do a lot better than that tramp, they should have used the two passes themselves.; 3/29/26, 8:06 AM
Big Mike said...: Purdue put everything they had into that game. Many basketball analysts pick Arizona to be the national champion. I can see why.

The Big Ten had four teams in the Elite Eight and if Michigan beats Tennessee as expected then they’ll have half the teams in the Final Four. This speaks to the quality of basketball play in the Big Ten.; 3/29/26, 8:16 AM
Quayle said...: And what about Captain Renault? In Rick‘s mind going back to Bulgaria was better than playing Renault’s game.; 3/29/26, 8:24 AM
John Borell said...: Madeleine Lebeau, who plays Yvonne, has a fascinating history of making it to the U.S. after fleeing Paris to avoid the advancing Germans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_Lebeau; 3/29/26, 8:32 AM
Dave Begley said...: Never caught the meaning of that scene before. I was mesmerized by the beauty of Ingrid Bergman.; 3/29/26, 8:33 AM
Cappy said...: Gee. Thanks for wrecking everything.; 3/29/26, 8:41 AM
tcrosse said...: I want to know how Ilsa got all those hats and outfits in her carry-on.; 3/29/26, 8:43 AM
William said...: Humphrey Bogart was 45 years old when he married the twenty years old Lauren Becall. That's why they call it acting.; 3/29/26, 8:55 AM
AMDG said...: Great movie but I could never understand why Strasser just did not cancel all the Letters of Transit.; 3/29/26, 8:57 AM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: Any movie where the characters burst into song is to be viewed with suspicion.; 3/29/26, 9:13 AM
tcrosse said...: Any ball game where the attendees burst into song is to be viewed with suspicion,; 3/29/26, 9:21 AM
Narr said...: "Any movie where the characters burst into song is to be viewed with suspicion."

Yah, I'm not a big fan of musicals either.; 3/29/26, 9:23 AM
narciso said...: its a very pivotal scene, michael walsh's sequel, shows that victor and ilsa were headed to London to work with the anti czech underground, which was coordinating from there,

rick was an idealist, whose lance was broken in Ethiopia and Spain, a small time gangster, who got into trouble back home; 3/29/26, 9:27 AM
narciso said...: these were threads in the play and the script that weren't fleshed out, also remember this happens in the days before december 7th 1941; 3/29/26, 9:29 AM
Political Junkie said...: I will always say Casablanca is the "Best" movie of all time.; 3/29/26, 9:29 AM
narciso said...: thats a very subjective assessment, it is very good,

hard to say any character is absolutely evil except major strasser,; 3/29/26, 9:34 AM
narciso said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3/29/26, 9:34 AM
mindnumbrobot said...: Those type of casting decisions were common back then. High Noon is one of my all-time favorites, but it takes a lot of effort to look past the age difference between Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly.; 3/29/26, 9:43 AM
FunkyPhD said...: How old is Ilsa when the film takes place? She tells Rick that ten years prior to early 1940 she was “having a brace put on my teeth.” Was she eleven or twelve at that time, which would make her 21 or 22 when France fell? A full eighteen months elapses between Rick’s broken heart at the train station and Ilsa’s appearance in Casablanca (fall of France: May 1940; Rick signs a chit in his first appearance in the film dated “2 Decembre ‘41”). It all depends on when she got her braces!; 3/29/26, 9:54 AM
Kai Akker said...: So, what part was the prompt? Or maybe I don't grok this newfangled AI stuff.

A woman at 19 is mature in all ways that have mattered through the centuries up to our very recent times, with their allowance for extended adolescence. She is fertile, healthy, attractive, strong. She is a match for any man except in the category of "experience." But women mature earlier than men in the emotional-intelligence sphere, right? In a world where the 20s and 30s were going to be spent mostly on farmwork, housework, and childrearing, she is a perfect age to maximize her contributions to a household. Maybe not so much being stuck in a small place in a town or an even smaller apartment in a tenement, but who is?

So the notion that there is something predatory in these age differentials is the one that is ahistorical and unrepresentative of human nature.

Note that going "gaga" over someone implies adolescence -- a lot of adolescence. Without getting into the favored status "feminism" has won for its gender, solving that issue by letting the girl age more slowly into womanhood does mean fewer years for her breeding career. Add that across a generation or two and you might end up with dangerously low population replacement figures. And a lot of frustrated, disappointed, and unhappy women.; 3/29/26, 9:59 AM
Joe Bar said...: "On 22 June, while she was filming her scenes in Casablanca, her husband, Marcel Dalio, who played Emil the croupier in the same film, filed for divorce in Los Angeles on the ground of desertion."

That was their second marriage for both, at age 19!; 3/29/26, 10:09 AM
Aggie said...: How did she desert him when they were filming on the same set ?; 3/29/26, 10:22 AM
Aggie said...: "Great movie but I could never understand why Strasser just did not cancel all the Letters of Transit. ..."

He didn't have the authority to do so.; 3/29/26, 10:26 AM
RCOCEAN II said...: Hopefully, UConn will beat Duke. I'm tired of those bastards always hogging the limelight.

As for Lazlo, he was the opposite of the "Predator". He's a stuffy, wild-eyed fanatic. I wonder what Lazlo did in the USA that was so important, work for the Office of War Information? Anyway, I see Ilsa sitting alone in her DC apartment playing solitaire, while Lazlo works till midnight every day at the office.

Then after WW 2, they get a divorce and Ilsa finds Rick.; 3/29/26, 10:26 AM
RCOCEAN II said...: Oh wait, I completely forgot that Lazlo divorces Ilsa when they get to the USA and marries Betty Davis. Later he kills a fascist with the approval of the American Couple he's staying with and disappears into the night.

But whether he's in Casablanca on DC, he's always the same. A political fanatic. And bore.; 3/29/26, 10:31 AM
RCOCEAN II said...: The problem with Casablanca is the only decent man in the movie is Claude Rains. He keeps the whole town safe, and the trains running on time. Everyone else is just cynically using Casablanca as pit stop on their way to somewhere else. Or as a chance to grift or steal.

Peter Lorre is a perfect example. He kills two men, steals papers, and then after he gets some $$ - its "Goodbye, Casablanca". Troublemakers like Lazlo don't help matters.; 3/29/26, 10:36 AM
NKP said...: A 37 year-old can give-in to an 18 year-old at first sight. Happened to me.

Whatever happened made it through the night and became genuine "Like" by first light (at which time, actual ages and other details were exchanged).

We were both a long way from home for the summer and promised to others so we agreed to make no promises to each other; just sorta keep each other company instead of behaving indiscriminately irresponsible. Of course we ended-up behaving wildly irresponsible with each other.

We didn't get around to admitting we weren't pretending until the very end. So much for the no-cost, it-was-fun, goodbye.
That was 46 years-ago. I'll let you know how it turns out...; 3/29/26, 10:44 AM
Kai Akker said...: LOL, RC. Watch on the Rhine? Good one.; 3/29/26, 10:45 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: Please note that this particular Lazlo is Lazlo with a Z.

I am Laslo.; 3/29/26, 10:50 AM
Dagwood said...: Not only is the prompt to Grok just plain ridiculous, it ignores the obvious - that Rick has banged Yvonne often enough that he's grown tired of her.; 3/29/26, 10:51 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "How old is Ilsa when the film takes place? She tells Rick that ten years prior to early 1940 she was “having a brace put on my teeth.” Was she eleven or twelve at that time, which would make her 21 or 22 when France fell? A full eighteen months elapses between Rick’s broken heart at the train station and Ilsa’s appearance in Casablanca (fall of France: May 1940; Rick signs a chit in his first appearance in the film dated “2 Decembre ‘41”). It all depends on when she got her braces!"

Yes, those are the clues you need to use to get to the numbers I have in my prompt. I'd been talking to my other AI friend, ChatGPT, just to get to the numbers, using those clues.

The only number that's locked down is Rick's age, 37. It's hard to believe the characters are as young as they were supposed to be, though.

The actress playing Yvonne is actually 19 there. Bergman was 26 when that was filmed. The grandeur of those 2 women is amazing compared to 20ish women today.; 3/29/26, 10:52 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "So, what part was the prompt? Or maybe I don't grok this newfangled AI stuff."

There's nothing but the prompt in the post — the prompt and my saying that's the prompt.

You'll just have to imagine how Grok answered. It's not really that interesting. My prompt says all I had to say. You can feed my prompt into AI if you want to know how AI responds. My thing is to frame issues. The actual humans reading this might want to respond. I don't like AI filling all the empty space before real people can talk!; 3/29/26, 10:57 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "On 22 June, while she was filming her scenes in Casablanca, her husband, Marcel Dalio, who played Emil the croupier in the same film, filed for divorce in Los Angeles on the ground of desertion. That was their second marriage for both, at age 19!"/"How did she desert him when they were filming on the same set?"

You don't have to go far to desert someone. Just to the next room. And I wouldn't assume she left him and not the other way around. There's a certain etiquette to letting woman be the one who files. But if she filed on the ground of desertion, ostensibly that means HE deserted her.; 3/29/26, 11:08 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Not only is the prompt to Grok just plain ridiculous, it ignores the obvious - that Rick has banged Yvonne often enough that he's grown tired of her."

I was asking a provocative question as part of my exploration of the idea of writing a book from Yvonne's point of view. I agree with the interpretation that Rick and Yvonne had a consummated sexual relationship, though that's not explicit. I think it's notable that Rick orders the bartender to take drunken Yvonne back to her home. The bartender has been overtly leering at Yvonne all night. It's setting up a potential rape.; 3/29/26, 11:12 AM
Ann Althouse said...: I would never actually write that book. It's part of my series I call "Unwritten Books.; 3/29/26, 11:13 AM
Earnest Prole said...: I have a hard time getting worked up about 19/37 during that era, especially since Ilsa towered over Little Rick and almost certainly outweighed him. There are films from the Golden Age of American Cinema that read more like 17/57.; 3/29/26, 11:45 AM
Ralph L said...: Col. Brandon is 37 when he marries Marianne Dashwood, 18(?).; 3/29/26, 11:50 AM
William said...: Courtly romances have been around since the 14th Century. The hero in a courtly romance is not supposed to have a great sex life, and the lady is chaste and pure. It's been that way since the beginning right up to Star Wars......They don't spell out the details of Rick's previous romance with Ilsa, but Ilsa is played by a woman who looks pure and chaste and won awards as a bride of Christ and a virgin Saint. Lazlo, more than Rick, is a father figure, the man who embodies the ideals of his age. They tweaked it a little, but it's a courtly romance.; 3/29/26, 12:07 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: Yvonne is there to reassure the audience that Bogart and Rains aren't Gay lovers.; 3/29/26, 12:13 PM
William said...: I think one of the reasons that people were so antagonistic to the ending of Game of Thrones is because of the way it corrupted the premise of a courtly romance. Fans of the show had a pure and chaste relationship with Queen Daenerys. They identified with her knight errants, and then she turned out to be a full on Nazi. It was such a primitive betrayal. Like if it turned out in last reel, that Ilsa shot Lazlo and Rick and went off with Claude Rains who had made a side deal with the Nazi General.; 3/29/26, 12:16 PM
narciso said...: people were more mature in those days, the circumstances forced them to,; 3/29/26, 1:02 PM
JK Brown said...: My how Hollywood as gone conservative.

IRL, Wyatt Earp was 35 and married when he met 17-yr old Josephine in Tombstone. They later had a 47 year marriage. But the movie Tombstone plays Josephine much older (and wiser).

And I've seen Millennial reactors gasp when 35 yr old Doc Holliday gasp at his confession to having been in love with his 15 yr old cousin some years earlier and it driving her into a convent. IRL Doc Holliday has a cousin who became a nun. She was a year older than him and they corresponded often after he came West.; 3/29/26, 1:18 PM
NKP said...: I would never actually write that book. It's part of my series I call "Unwritten Books.

Yeah, but would you ask Grok to do it for you?

I can't imagine turning to AI to write about anythng I cared about. I did a eulogy yesterday. Four minutes. It seemed like the Dearly-Departed was alive and with us. Familty and friends cried. I cried. I also made 'em laugh out loud, twice.

If Grok can pull that off, I fear we're getting close to The End. Scary.; 3/29/26, 1:51 PM
Immanuel Rant said...: Actually, my biggest problem with the film is the scene in the market after Ilsa first comes to Rick and he asks her to explain, now that he was sober.

From memory: "The Rick I knew in Paris, I could tell him, he'd understand. . . ."

I was immediately angered. I wanted the scene to be different: Rick: "It seems to me, you had a chance to tell that Rick. You know, the one left alone at the train station. You don't like *this* Rick, well, I am very sorry. It's the only Rick we have in stock - you know, the Rick you made."; 3/29/26, 3:01 PM
Leora said...: Rick rejects Madeleine because Ilsa is his one true love. I figured they'd get together again after the war after Laslzo is executed by the communist regime in his home country.; 3/29/26, 4:56 PM
tcrosse said...: All accounts of the making of Casablanca show that it was mostly impromptu. Nobody had any idea what would happen next or how it would all pan out. So any deep interpretation we put into it is what we ourselves make. They didn't think they were making great art.; 3/29/26, 5:52 PM
Lee Moore said...: As Kai Akker says this "age appropriate" nonsense is simply a modern version of scolding by maiden Aunts, undertaken in the modern world by much the same demographic. The facts of life are that young women, like middle aged women, and older women, find high status males (which takes a while to achieve) more attractive than callow youths, even if the callow youths have slightly tighter six packs. And old guys like the same sort of dames they liked in middle age, and when they were callow youths, ie hot young ones. But most guys on reaching a certain age are content to settle for what they can get, and what they can still, er, satisfy. Most guys don't have the physical staying power and attractive status that the top dogs have. Of course a 65 year old guy who lurves his 60 year old wife is not likely to dump her even if there's a hot 19 year old available, but that's just because he met his wife when she was a hot 19 year old.
If you belong to a species where the dudes, old or young, prefer the older dames, that would make you a chimp.; 3/29/26, 9:33 PM
Kirk Parker said...: mindnumb robot, meet Kai Aker and Lee Moore, who have it right.

My great-grandfather the Civil War veteran (Iowa Volunteer Cavalry) was 63 when my grandmother was born; my great-grandmother was 39. Nobody at the time thought their 24-year age difference was particularly remarkable.; 3/30/26, 8:24 AM
Narr said...: Did I miss someone posting The Formula?

What was it, half the older person's age divided by the younger person's shoe size? Something like that.; 3/30/26, 9:40 AM
Biff said...: narciso said..."people were more mature in those days, the circumstances forced them to,"

I've often been struck by how mature kids looked in some of my mom's pictures from 10th grade in the 1940s. Most of them looked like they were in their 20s, and many of the boys looked like they already had been to war.

As an aside, I'm close friends with a married couple of 30+ years with a 25 year age difference. Great couple, though now that he is in his mid-80s, his health is starting to dominate the relationship.; 3/30/26, 10:03 AM
NKP said...: For many years, I 've said one of the two smartest people I've known is a guy named George Moore. Pehaps if I expanded the list to three people, TWO of them would be named Moore. What are the odds...; 3/30/26, 2:52 PM