casablanca was way better

Erm, me, and everyone else.

Casablanca = *slightly* better story.

THAHN = better acting

Raise your glasses, please, into a toast, for we are many hometown ghosts.

I think the supporting cast in Casablanca is better, and Ingrid Bergman was already an accomplished actress. She was perfectly cast in what (not to take anything away from her) was a relatively easy role for her to play. Lorre and Greenstreet were awesome, and Claude Rains was excellent. Henreid was also well cast, if just a bit stiff. Veidt, Sakall, Wilson, Lebeau all were great.

To Have and Have Not also had some great supporting performances, such as by Leonard and Dalio. Dolores Moran I think is very good (although her career did not take off - apparently she was having an affair with Hawks during filming, ironically while Hawks was warning Bacall not to get too deep in with Bogie). I am not so sure about Walter Brennan, though. I don't want to say i didn't like it, but it was a bit over the top, to say the least.

Bogie I think was equally good in the performance, but was the role as good as Rick in Casablanca? Perhaps not.

I do like the role of Slim that they gave Bacall, and despite the apparent nervousness she had in her debut, somehow she really fits this part perfectly. In some ways I like it better than Bergman's Ilsa.

ON balance I still end up seeing Casablanca as the better film, but I do think the two are much closer in quality than I think most people do. To Have and Have Not just does not have the great supporting performances that Casablanca has.

I tend to agree Casablanca was somewhat better, but not by all that much. Part of the problem here is that Brennan's portrayal was a bit too much. Not by any means awful, to be sure, but a bit jarring at times. as the third most significant role in the film, that's a problem when you compare the excellent performances by the supporting cast in Casablanca.

The supporting cast in THAHN is mostly very good, though. Dolores Moran was excellent, imo, and it is a shame her career never really took off. Leonard was also very good, as were Dalio, Szurovy and Seymour. I am tempted to say Hoagy Carmichael was a bit much, too, but I don't think on balance he actually detracts.

Bogart was equally good in both, so the next level concerns the female leads. Count me as a big fan of both actresses, but i actually think Bergman was better in some of her other films, like Notorious, a more challenging part that she excelled in meeting. But Bacall was perfect here, in what many say is one of the greatest film debuts of all time. I would say her role here is not as challenging as Mrs. Rutledge in The Big Sleep, but it is still somewhat more complex than that of Ilsa Lund.

I don't understand complaints about the story and the screenplay here, either. I know some have dismissed it over the years as Casablanca in the Carribean, but once one gets beyond that observation, it doesn't really amount to a criticism of substance. Much credit goes to Bogart and Bacall for the way they played their growing romance, but after all it was designed in the book and screenplay. The dialogue also is at least the equal to Casablanca. Both are noted for some of the great lines in the history of film.

So I give the nod to Casablanca mostly on the strength of its supporting cast. After all, Lorre, Greenstreet and especially Rains are all excellent there. That's where it gets the edge.

I love both movies; actually, for me, in spite of all the similarities in wartime environment, freedom fighting and cabaret-type setting, they're very different:

Rick is a very intense, restrained, reserved and bitterly cynical character; Harry has a healthier perspective of himself and the world (I love the opening scene where he registers his boat for the day with the official - Rick would have handled this repetitious bit of red tape differently); he's open to affection and shielding of Eddie, and Rick would have taken longer to have his defenses broken in the face of Slim. There are lots of shots and moments of Harry taking something in with an amused sense of the absurd, which Rick does not have. The story of "Casablanca" concerns Rick's resurrection into the world of commitment and of letting go of the past - and Ilsa. The story of "To Have and Have Not" is the story of how the situation brings two souls together (three, if you count Eddie). Harry isn't as significantly changed in his outlook on life as is Rick - the need for his change isn't as strong. He needs the love of a woman who can meet him on his own ground, and he finds one. He keeps her. This is very different from "Casablanca".

Slim is worlds apart from Ilsa: independent and solitary till she meets Harry; admittedly ignorant of the current political situation; young and hardened, difficult to bring to tears (she may have more in common with Rick than Harry does). Ilsa is softer, more vulnerable, emotionally torn between the two men she loves, and who are actually very much alike under the surface. Slim understands almost right off the bat that she wants Harry; that he is the one for her. She is never torn.

So, for me, I can enjoy both movies on their own merits.