Casablanca - letters of transit

[Alpo]

I'm watching An Evening at Rick's.

 

Two German couriers were murdered. They were carrying letters of transit signed by General De Gaulle. As such they could not be rescinded or even questioned.

 

That is the big plot point. These letters of transit. They can be sold for huge amounts of money and get anybody out of Casablanca to Lisbon.

 

And tonight, while watching this for the 5,732nd time, I had a wonderment.

 

Casablanca is in occupied French Morocco. Under German control. Axis. De Gaulle, on t'other hand, was Free French. Allies. So why would the authorities in occupied French Morocco give a rats hind end about something signed by De Gaulle? And why would German couriers be carrying papers signed by a general on the other side?

 

 

[Mad Dog Jack, SASS #77862]

Because it's a movie!

[Alpo]

It just makes no sense.

 

If the German couriers going into German occupied country were carrying documents signed by some Nazi bigwig - Goebbels or Himmler, for example - it would still work, and it would actually make sense.

[Abilene Slim SASS 81783]

That didn’t bother me as much as letting a well-known French Resistance figure run around town unmolested. Besides, even if someone did have Nazi-origin papers, they’d just confiscate them and imprison the bearer. 
 

If logic and realism had been worked into the script, it would have been a very short movie. 

[Sedalia Dave]

Maybe they planned to use the letters to allow Axis spies or saboteurs to have free mobility behind Allied lines.

[Texas Joker]

Or like in reality certain places are where 'the business gets done' just not officially.

 

There is always a line of communication

[Dawg Hair, SASS #29557]

As Alfred Hitchcock once explained, the object that everybody wants in a thriller is called a "macguffin"............or something like that.  Like the Maltese Falcon it doesn't matter what it is.  It's just an object that drives people to extreme means to get.  Like Humphrey Bogart explained  to Ward Bond "The stuff that dreams are made of".

The movie was made when the war was still going in Hitler's way.  Charles DeGaulle personified the ultimate opposition to German occupation of France and the hope of future redemption, so it sort of made sense to use his name on something as ridiculous as "Letters of Transit".  Think about it, the Germans would just laugh it off.  Now, if the thing was signed by Ribbentrop, or Goebbles or Himmler or Adolph himself, that would have been more believable, but by DeGaulle, no way.

[Denali Drifter]

I was also watching that movie last night (puts my 3-yr old to sleep super quick).  When Major Strasser is introduced to Captain Renault after getting off the plane,  Captain Renault welcomes Major Strasser to "unoccupied" France.  That would give importance to the papers signed by de Gaulle.  However, why the German couriers had the papers is a different mystery.  Time to round up the usual suspects.....

[Utah Bob #35998]

Nevertheless, it is still a great film.

[Dawg Hair, SASS #29557]

Another discrepancy I found in the movie was Major Strasser's uniform.  The guy's a "major" not a "field grade" officer and yet he is shown wearing a wide white stripes down the sides of his pants which was reserved for generals. In the Heer, Army, the stripes were red.  Am I correct?  And why just a Major, why not a Colonel?  Or, better yet, an SS officer?

Of course German uniforms that appear in movies made during the war are mostly not right in many ways.  In fact a lot of then were shown wearing WWI helmets and wildly exaggerated  insignia.  It wasn't until many years after the war was over that Hollywood started getting things right. 

Just now, Utah Bob #35998 said:

Nevertheless, it is still a great film.

No doubt.

[Utah Bob #35998]

And at the end they’re heading to the Free French Harrison at Brazzaville. Quite a walk.

[Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933]

After the French capitulation in 1940 France was divided into Nazi occupied and unoccupied areas.  The unoccupied area was headquartered in the town of Vichy and the area was known as Vichy France.  Morrocco was under the jurisdiction of the Vichy government.

[Alpo]

I thought Vichy was the government under Germany?

 

That was why, at the end of the movie, when Louie had decided to go anti-german, and he started to pour himself a drink and saw that it was a bottle of Vichy water, and angrily threw it in the garbage.

[Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933]

It was "under" Germany but not occupied.  After the surrender of France the as yet unoccupied territory of France sued for peace and signed an Armistice with Germany.  It had its own government headed by Marshal Petain.  Still basically under the thumb of Germany but it was better being unoccupied than occupied like the rest of France.  After the war Petain was tried and found guilty of colloboration and sentenced to death.  DeGaulle knew Petain was a National hero from WWI and there might be civil disturbances so he commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment.  Petain was very old and only lasted a few years after WWII.

[Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933]

One more thing.  Peter Lorrie was a Hungarian and had a heavy accent in his early movies.

 

 

 

Q. Anyone in Casablanca trying to use letters of transit signed by De Gaulle would be arrested and then would probably commit suicide or die while trying to escape. 

 

A. This is a real mystery. In the published version of the screenplay, the line reads: "...General DeGaulle [Marshal Weygand]." The Internet Movie Database says, "It sounds like Ugarte says that the letters of transit are signed by 'General De Gaulle.' leading to confusion as DeGaulle had no authority in that area at the time. Peter Lorre actually says 'General Weygand,' but his accent makes it difficult to understand." Since "DeGaulle" and "Weygand" do not sound much alike in any accent, I checked out my laserdisc of the scene. What Lorre says sounds like a cross between "jenna-rye dee-go" and "jenna-rye wee-gond." So, which is it? Probably Weygand.

[Bart Slade]

This is a barely ignorable plot hole for me as well.   If it's KNOWN that the letters of transit have been stolen, how can it be that the person carrying them "cannot be questioned"?   And IF that's the case, why can't Rick admit he has them - once he does, he cannot be questioned, RIGHT?

 

Beyond that, my favorite line in this movie, jus an aside that I didn't notice the first 10 times I'd seen it:

 

When the young woman is asking Rick what kind of a man Renault is, Rick's reply:  "Oh, he's just like any other man.   Only more so."

[Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933]

It is a 1940s Hollywood war movie overlaying a love story.  Plot holes, wrong uniforms?  Are you all kidding?

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

Don't know about the DeGaulle/Weygand thing (haven't watched the movie for awhile), but the Germans did not occupy Morocco. It was part of the Vichy regime, ultimately under German "control", but not directly and it was considerably better to be in Vichy than in occupied France, as long as it lasted. By the time that Germany took over direct rule of Vichy, as I recall, Morocco was under Allied control.

[Utah Bob #35998]

1 hour ago, Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619 said:

Don't know about the DeGaulle/Weygand thing (haven't watched the movie for awhile), but the Germans did not occupy Morocco. It was part of the Vichy regime, ultimately under German "control", but not directly and it was considerably better to be in Vichy than in occupied France, as long as it lasted. By the time that Germany took over direct rule of Vichy, as I recall, Morocco was under Allied control.

This is why the only Germans you see are the staff officers with Col Strasser. 

[watab kid]

i was under the impression that moraoc was still an open zone at that point both french and german influence but neither in controlee at that point , but i could be wrong here , 

[Joe LaFives #5481]

12 hours ago, Dawg Hair, SASS #29557 said:

Another discrepancy I found in the movie was Major Strasser's uniform.  The guy's a "major" not a "field grade" officer and yet he is shown wearing a wide white stripes down the sides of his pants which was reserved for generals. In the Heer, Army, the stripes were red.  Am I correct?  And why just a Major, why not a Colonel?  Or, better yet, an SS officer?

Of course German uniforms that appear in movies made during the war are mostly not right in many ways.  In fact a lot of then were shown wearing WWI helmets and wildly exaggerated  insignia.  It wasn't until many years after the war was over that Hollywood started getting things right. 

No doubt.

Field grade is major and above but only Generals as you said would have the wide stripe.  Luftwaffe is white though.