CURTIZ

His English is bad and his temper volatile. While shooting CASABLANCA, however, Curtiz is fully in his element. Yet everybody wants to have a say in the making of this film, especially his producer, studio boss Jack Warner and a go-between from the US government who so shortly after his country’s entry into the war against Hitler probably would have preferred to see patriotic content on the big screen. When Curtiz, whose family is Jewish, learns that his sister is desperately trying to flee Hungary and his daughter Kitty, whom he had never concerned himself with, unexpectedly appears, the film’s direction is in danger of slipping away from him. With wonderful black-and-white imagery, director Tamás Yvan Topolánszky achieves a critical homage to this complex film maker. Ferenc Lengyel approaches genius in the principal role of fractious Curtiz. When he hardly manages to accept his daughter or on set nearly gets into a fight with the German actor portraying SS Major Strassner, one gets more than just a glimpse of the inner demons that must have tortured Michael Curtiz. JT