{"id":726521,"date":"2026-06-10T02:25:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T02:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/726521\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T02:25:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T02:25:15","slug":"some-of-the-character-names-in-casablanca-feel-kinda-lazy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/726521\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Of The Character Names In Casablanca Feel Kinda Lazy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I still tear up every time I watch the scene in\u00a0Casablanca when Paul Henreid\u2019s Victor Laszlo gets the band at Rick\u2019s American Cafe to play \u201cLa Marseillaise\u201d and even Yvonne jumps up and starts singing. It\u2019s a reminder that even the heartbroken and seemingly comfortable can\u2019t stay on the sidelines forever when faced with evil. It comes for us all, eventually, and you can\u2019t deny that no one is truly safe when we let that kind of ideology persist (although Rick also shows the importance of timing).<\/p>\n<p>The movie is dear enough to me that I\u2019ve even read a book about it, from film historian Noah Isenberg. I highly recommend\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.noahisenberg.com\/well-always-have-casablanca\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">We\u2019ll Always Have Casablanca<\/a>\u00a0for any film nerd in your life. In theory, writing by committee shouldn\u2019t work, but the script for\u00a0Casablanca passed through many hands (the original screenplay is based on an unproduced play) and somehow came out perfect.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-41981 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/vidframe_min_top1.png\" alt=\"Vidframe Min Top\" width=\"800\" height=\"26\"\/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-41980 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/vidframe_min_bottom1.png\" alt=\"Vidframe Min Bottom\" width=\"800\" height=\"26\"\/><\/p>\n<p>While the film itself is as precise as storytelling gets, as a car person there\u2019s a couple of things you can\u2019t help but notice. The protagonist Rick, played with mesmerizing pathos by Humphrey Bogart, runs up against a couple of characters who have, ahem, kind of lazy seeming names. Let\u2019s see, there\u2019s an Italian fixer played by the British actor Sydney Greenstreet. What can we name him? Oh, I know, Signor Ferrari! While people now typically associate the name with Ferrari, the carmaker, when the film came out it wasn\u2019t yet a household name so this is probably a coincidence.<\/p>\n<p>Ok, ok, there\u2019s an even more important character, a Frenchman (also played by British actor, this time Claude Rains) who is both tenuous ally and rival of Rick. What should he be named? I\u2019ve got it, Louis Renault! That one seems like less of a coincidence because Renault had been around for a number of years. Who names a character after a car? That seems a little obvious.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, our own\u2026 Mercedes Streeter is on an amazing mission to rescue some beagles, and that opened up <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theautopian.com\/im-helping-animal-shelters-get-16-rescued-dogs-to-their-forever-homes-by-driving-them-across-america-meet-the-two-cute-beagles-in-my-care\/comment-page-1\/#comment-969871\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">member Zipn Zipn to share his own beagle story<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for the update! Keep ;em coming!<br \/>Our Beagle, Johnny B. Goode (also a rescue from a foster home) does some of the same behaivors. Sweetheart of a pup.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s incredibly strong and very dense (honestly he feels like he weighs 3x more than he should when you pick him up).<\/p>\n<p>He was also was traumatized by something before we got him and still hides whenever there\u2019s thunder \/ loud noises within 100 miles (we call him a k-9 barometer if his tail tucks in) and gets the shakes if it\u2019s real stormy.<\/p>\n<p>He has separation anxiety. Doesn\u2019t like being alone but he\u2019s gotten much better over the year we\u2019ve had him.<\/p>\n<p>He loves to jump up and put his paws on you when you\u2019re sitting down, waiting to get petted, chin-rubbed, and he sort of grunts and tries to talk to you once you start and doesn\u2019t want you to stop. Ever.<\/p>\n<p>He comes up to me when it\u2019s time for a walk, and since he can Houdini out of any simple color, we strap him into a complicated body harness to put the leash on him.. so it sticks his head in it and also helps you to put it on him. Smart animal.<\/p>\n<p>Beagles are amazing, soulful animals. It sounds like Naomi has your number Mercedes\u2026<\/p>\n<p>I think it may be the start of a beautiful friendship!.<\/p>\n<p>Based on some of her Slack posts, I think the odds that Mercedes comes back with 16 beagles aren\u2019t as bad as you might guess.<\/p>\n<p>A new Honda Accord is also coming, which is good timing for Honda\u2019s CEO, who is in trouble for losing focus on China and instead spending too much time on links which, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theautopian.com\/the-next-honda-accord-is-going-to-look-very-different\/comment-page-2\/#comment-969853\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">96Z26 notes,<\/a> is a uniquely Japanese problem:<\/p>\n<p>We can oust people for focusing too much on golf and not having productive meetings with China? Why didn\u2019t anyone tell me this???<\/p>\n<p>What? I am shocked,\u00a0shocked, to see golf being discussed in this establishment.<\/p>\n<p>Top photo: Casablanca<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I still tear up every time I watch the scene in\u00a0Casablanca when Paul Henreid\u2019s Victor Laszlo gets the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":726522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,262162,64813,75,337],"class_list":["post-726521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-commenter-of-the-day","tag-cotd","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/726522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}