Casablanca Rejected

It's an amusing little experiment but there are a number of possible factors the person running it didn't consider that, I think, are more likely than his actual conclusions.

First, there is the possibility that Casablanca is not actually a very good movie. The author of this article claims that Casablanca is "the most famous movie in the history of film." That may have been correct a generation or two ago, but in the decades since Star Wars, I think "the most famous movie" is Star Wars.

I would agree that Casablanca is a very famous movie, and a fun movie, but having seen it in the theater, I didn't think it was actually a great movie. It is a relatively small story, and lightweight, and trivializes its period and events. It's relatively low in drama, and it relies heavily on the (at the time) star power of its leads, and aside from some clever catch-phrases, it is talky and the dialogue does drag.

Just talking movies of the 1940s, I would argue that Citizen Kane (1940), The Great Dictator (1940), The Third Man (1949), The Big Sleep (1946), Rope (1948), and Miracle on 34th Street (1947) are all better movies, more artfully filmed and more memorable, although perhaps some are more kitschy and Corny than Casablanca.

Certainly, one could expect that people reading the screenplay "slush pile" for agencies ought to be familiar enough with the history of film to recognize the story of Casablanca or at least some of the catch-phrases. But I think the "gatekeepers" are actually often the most junior, least knowledgeable folks in the industry.

Wow, I must be really bored today to write all that... eating my lunch and I can't be bothered to do anything but read Hacker News : P