Righty-ho, given that Sunday is Bastille Day, and given the recent national elections in France that drove Marine Le Pen to tears, I think today’s earworm has to be the “Marseillaise” sequence from Casablanca.
If you’re unfamiliar with the context, Major
Strasser—a robotically efficient representative of Nazi force—and his posse
have waved their collective fascist willies by singing “Die Wacht am Rhein”. It’s
an in-your-face expression of who’s driving the car around here.
Charismatic Czech resistance leader Victor
Lazlo directs the band in Rick Blaine’s nightclub to counterprogram with “La
Marseillaise”, a national anthem literally rising from a revolution. (One of
many in French history, but still.) As you can see, the French drown out and
defeat the Germans.
It’s not really subtle, although if you recall
that “Casablanca” was made in 1942, when the Nazis were still riding high, it was
aspirational.
Which is a good message to us all.
(Fun fact: Conrad Veidt, who plays Strasser,
was a well-known star of German films in the 20s and 30s. He was also a
vehement anti-Nazi, whose refusal to divorce his Jewish wife rendered him
unemployable, and the couple left Germany for Britain in 1933. He became a
British subject in 1939 and donated both his estate and a portion of all salary
received for this film work to the British war effort. He died of a heart
attack literally on an L.A. golf course in 1943, age 50.)
©2024 Bas Bleu
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