Casablanca is pretty much a perfect film, but the making of it was anything but smooth. If you pick up the 2003 DVD of the movie, there's documentaries and great commentaries by Roger Ebert and Rudy Behlmer that can attest to this. But a new biography gives us a more inside perspective. The info comes from one of its stars, and one of the most beautiful women ever to grace the big screen: Ingrid Bergman. The book, cleverly titled Ingrid, was written by Charlotte Chandler and looks to be chock full of fascinating stories for fans of the classic movie. In one, Bergman remembers sharing a lunch with Humphrey Bogart before filming began, where "the only subject they found in common was how much they both wanted to get out of Casablanca." Thank God they didn't!

Chandler has written several other Hollywood biographies, and like her books on Bette Davis, Alfred Hitchcock, and Billy Wilder, Ingrid is referred to on the cover as a "personal biography." "It's because I knew the person and spoke with the person and (the book) is based on what they said to me," she says. "It's almost autobiographical. I wanted to keep the voice of the person." Sounds like a great read, and don't worry gossip hounds, the book also explores her personal life. That includes her scandalous relationship with Roberto Rossellini which rocked Hollywood in the 1950s and resulted in the lovely Isabella Rossellini. If you haven't seen Casablanca at this point, shame on you! It almost always ranks in the Top 10 on "Best Movies of All Time" lists, and righfully so. And for more top-notch Bergman, let me recommend the incredible Notorious, one of my favorite films and for my money, the best movie Hitchcock ever made.

Screen legend Lauren Bacall has never been one to keep her opinions to herself. At a press conference in Berlin for her new film, The Walker with Woody Harrelson, about a high-class male escort, Bacall spoke about the negative impact that television has had on the movie business. Bacall was quoted as saying, "I think there are still people who really want to do good work. Unfortunately, in television, sometimes they want to do good work but a lot of the time they're doing terrible work - and I think that has affected moviemaking badly." Bacall never quite explained what that effect was, and as much as I hate to argue with a screen icon, personally I would disagree.

TV shows like 24, LOST, and The Sopranos have definitely raised the bar on what to expect from a television show. In some cases, critics think that TV might even surpass Hollywood fare. Whether Bacall is debating what makes a legend or standing up to the House of Un-American Activities, she isn't afraid to speak her mind. When you've managed to survive for over sixty years in the movie business, you have probably earned the right to. What do you think -- is the proliferation of bad television hurting the movies?

He may be prettier than Humphrey Bogart, but Clive Owen sometimes reminds me of the Casablanca star. I guess I just see a lot of Owen's characters as being the kind who would say that they stick their neck out for nobody. And then there's Owen's voice, which has been heard in voice-overs before and which would work perfectly in a film noir. Of course, Owen isn't distinguished enough to be cemented into the consciousness of cinema in the same way that Bogie has been. In one hundred years, Humphrey Bogart will still be the better remembered actor.

For the time being, though, Owen is probably the best person to take on the part of Philip Marlowe (maybe Billy Bob Thornton would be good, too), a character that most of us associate with Bogart, despite the fact that so many others have played the role, some more than once. Producer Marc Abraham told Louisville, Kentucky's Courier-Journal that he will be following up Children of Men with another collaboration with Owen that will be based on one of Raymond Chandler's detective stories. He didn't specify which story would be adapted, but he did say that Owen would be playing Marlowe.

Everyone is familiar with that obligatory FBI warning message at the beginning of most VHS and DVD videos. You know, the one that tells us that it's illegal to copy the movie we're about to watch. Actually, you're probably so used to it that you don't even pay attention to or notice it anymore. Well, if a number of attorney generals have their way, we could be seeing new anti-smoking PSAs when we turn on a movie, too. According to these attorney generals (representing 35 of the 50 states), smoking in movies continues to influence teenage smoking, and apparently they believe that young people will know better if they see a warning before the feature begins.

I don't know about other former (or current) smokers, but I am still attracted to cigarettes when I see them smoked on screen. Of course, when I was a non-smoking teen, the depiction never phased me, so I can't agree that smoking in movies advertises cigarettes, but particularly in old movies, smoking does at times look pretty cool. So far, the MPAA has not decided to accept the proposed PSAs, and they are reportedly investigating "anti-smoking alternatives," but if they were to break down and issue the warning to studios with a mandate to include them on DVDs (etc.), they might as well have PSAs that tell us not to use guns, commit adultery, eat fatty foods, drink alcohol, and many other things that could ruin our well-being. And instead of putting the warnings at the head of the movie, they should put them right before the credits, or during them, to tell us that what we've just seen is not good for us -- similar to when sitcoms had "very special episodes" accompanied by such messages.
The one thing I could suggest that might work is to have a PSA with a montage of all the famous actors and actresses who have died of lung or throat cancer. If they have video of the celebrities in their last days, that might work even better. Otherwise, we're likely to eventually become used to and ignore them just as we do with the anti-piracy warning.

Eventually every block in Manhattan should have an extra nickname in addition to its actual address. Enough famous things happen in the borough, I'm sure. One of these famous things was the growing up of Humphrey Bogart at 245 W. 103rd Street. Over the weekend, super-fan Gary Dennis, a video store owner who campaigned for the honoring of Bogie and Lauren Bacall, who was married to the actor until his death in 1957, joined other fans in the drizzling rain to declare that block of 103rd Street "Humphrey Bogart Place."

"I'm happy he is honored," Bacall said at the event, "of course, it's only brass on a wall." Only brass? Certainly Bacall has never taken delight in learning about the city's history via plaques, which I've gotten more into since reading Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation. Just the other day I learned that a building I pass sometimes in Brooklyn was the first multi-family home in the borough. Okay, so maybe most people don't care about that stuff, but everyone cares about movie trivia, right? With all the movies shot in New York, perhaps the city could put up more plaques and rename more streets to showcase where film shoots occurred. The most obvious I can think of is the corner of N. Moore and Varick, which should definitely be renamed Ghostbusters Place if it hasn't been already.

Verita Thompson, late screen star Humphrey Bogart's lover for 17 years, recently vowed, "Lauren Bacall failed to chase me out of Hollywood; Katrina won't force me out of New Orleans." Thompson, now 87 and living in what used to be New Orleans, made the pledge to stay after being offered a private jet berth out of the city shortly before Katrina struck. There has been no word since the hurricane as to how Thompson and her third story French Quarter apartment weathered the storm.

There is also no word as to whether or not standing up to a Category 5 storm is Thompson's way of saying, "I've lived a good long life, and don't care if I don't come through this or not." That would be one thing, as would be the onset of dementia, but if it is some sort of elderly "Isn't It Charming That I'm So Set In My Ways" entitlement mentality at work here, she's putting others at risk by staying put. Get the hell out of there, lady. You're not setting a good example. It's just stuff. You can always buy more stuff.

In the wake of one-too-many remakes, some of us here at Cinematical are feeling a little hurt, a little wounded, a little afraid. We're feeling like a little drastic, overly-protective cinephiliac action may soon be required. So we've put together a list of films, the remaking of which will activate a mass Cinematical suicide pact - or, at the very least, a mass Cinematical drinking-like-Hemingway-for-a-day-or-two pact. Well, okay, probably not even that - but we would get a little miffed. Read on for a defense.

What's fun about revisiting a film like Casablanca, is that (if you haven't seen it in a long while) you get to see it again as if new, but with that hint of familiarity that makes meeting up with an old friend so satisfying and yet so plagued with curiosity: what have they been up to?

Well, Ingrid Bergman is busy flapping her eyelashes over those smoky eyes of hers. She may be known for her "pure" persona—that of the Hollywood golden girl, but some of best performances came out of playing tragic figures, for instance, Casablanca's Lady of Hard Knocks, Ilsa. Considering Berman's mother died when she was 3, her father at 12, and her aunt (to whom she was passed off) a mere three months later, the poor girl didn't need any method acting: tragedy was built in.