Marcel Dalio(1899-1983)
- Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Sunday, November the 20th is the anniversary of Marcel Dalio's death in
1983. It was the end of a serendipitous life. You know him. He was a
citizen of the world. Born Israel Moshe Blauschild, in Paris, in 1900,
he became a much sought-after character actor. His lovely animated face
with its great expressive eyes became familiar across Europe. He
appeared in Jean Renoir's idiosyncratic "Rules of the Game" (The Rules of the Game (1939)) and
"Grand Illusion" (The Grand Illusion (1937)), arguably the greatest of all films. True to
his Frenchman's heart, he married the very young, breathtaking beauty
Madeleine Lebeau. He worked with von Stroheim and Pierre Chenal. He had it all.
But then the Germans crushed Poland, swept across Belgium and pressed
on toward Paris. He waited until the last possible moment and finally,
with the sound of artillery clearly audible, with Madeleine, fled in a
borrowed car to Orleans and then, in a freight train, to Bordeaux and
finally to Portugal. In Lisbon, they bribed a crooked immigration
official and were surreptitiously given two visas for Chile. But on
arriving in Mexico City, it was discovered the visas were rank
forgeries. Facing deportation, Marcel and Madeleine found themselves
making application for political asylum with virtually every country in
the western hemisphere. Weeks passed until Canada finally issued them
temporary visas, and they left for Montreal.
Meanwhile, France had fallen and, in the process of subjugating the
country, the Germans had found some publicity stills of Dalio. A series
of posters were produced and were then displayed throughout the city
with the caption 'a typical Jew' so that citizens could more easily
report anyone suspected of unrepentant Jewishness. The madness
continued. The Curtain Rises (1938), a popular film, was ordered re-edited so that
Dalio's scenes could be deleted and re-shot with another, non-Jewish,
actor.
After a short time, friends in the film industry arranged for them to
arrive in Hollywood. Nearly broke, Marcel was immediately put to work
in a string of largely forgettable films. Madeleine, a budding actress
in her own right, was ironically cast in Hold Back the Dawn (1941), a vehicle for Charles Boyer
with a plot driven by the efforts of an émigré (Boyer) trying
desperately to cross into the United States from Mexico. But the real
irony was waiting at Warner Brothers.
In early 1942, Jack L. Warner was driving production of a film based on a one
act play, 'Everybody Comes to Rick's' but had no screenplay. What he
had was a mishmash of treatments loosely based on the play and two
previous movies. But he had a projected release date and a commitment
to his distributors to have a movie for that time slot and little else.
Warner Brothers started to wing it.
Shooting started without a screenplay and little plot. Principal
players were cast and a director hired but casting calls for supporting
roles and bit players continued, and sometime in the early spring
Marcel Dalio and Madeleine Lebeau were cast as, respectively, a croupier and a
romantic entanglement for the male lead. Veteran screen-writers were
hired to produce a running screenplay, sometimes delivering pages of
dialogue one day, for scenes to be shot the following day. No one knew
exactly where the plot would go or how the story would turn out. No one
was sure of the ending. And, of course, they produced a classic,
perhaps the finest, American movie.
They produced a screenplay of multiple genres, rich with
characterizations, perfectly in tune with the unfolding events in
Europe and loaded with talent from top to bottom. Oh, and they changed
the title to Casablanca (1942).
It is so well known, that many lines of long-memorized dialogue have
passed into the slang idiom. 'We'll always have Paris', 'I was
misinformed', 'Here's looking at you, kid', ' I am shocked! Shocked! To
find that there's gambling going on in here!', 'Louis, I think this is
the beginning of a beautiful friendship', 'Oh he's just like any other
man, only more so', 'I don't mind a parasite. I object to a cut-rate
one', 'Round up the usual suspects', and, of course, the iconic 'Play it, Sam,' often misquoted as 'Play it again, Sam,' the title of the Woody Allen movie.
Madeleine Lebeau plays Yvonne, the jilted lover of Humphrey Bogart, who is seen drowning
her sorrows at the bar early in the film and who later, to get back at
Rick and looking for solace takes up with a German officer finding only
self-hatred. She is luminous.
And when Claude Rains delivers the signature line, 'I'm shocked! Shocked! To
find that there's gambling going on in here!' the croupier, Emil,
played by Marcel Dalio, approaches from the roulette table and says
simply, 'Your winnings, sir.' It is a delicious moment ripe with
scripted irony, one among many in this film, but one made all the more
so, knowing where Dalio came from and what he and his wife had endured
to arrive at that line.
Alas, they separated and divorced the next year, both going on to long
successful careers. Dalio never remarried.
Late in his career, when Mike Nichols was looking for a vaguely familiar
face to deliver a long and worldly, near-monologue in Catch-22 (1970), he
turned to Dalio. Faced with a hopelessly idealistic young American
pilot, Dalio in tight close-up,
delivers a discourse on practical people faced with impractical
circumstances, of the virtues of expedience in the face of amorality.
Using his wonderful plastic features, now beginning to sag, in a voice
full of melancholy, the old man reassures the young man that regardless
of what 'grand themes' may be afoot in the world, in the end, little
matters but survival.
1983. It was the end of a serendipitous life. You know him. He was a
citizen of the world. Born Israel Moshe Blauschild, in Paris, in 1900,
he became a much sought-after character actor. His lovely animated face
with its great expressive eyes became familiar across Europe. He
appeared in Jean Renoir's idiosyncratic "Rules of the Game" (The Rules of the Game (1939)) and
"Grand Illusion" (The Grand Illusion (1937)), arguably the greatest of all films. True to
his Frenchman's heart, he married the very young, breathtaking beauty
Madeleine Lebeau. He worked with von Stroheim and Pierre Chenal. He had it all.
But then the Germans crushed Poland, swept across Belgium and pressed
on toward Paris. He waited until the last possible moment and finally,
with the sound of artillery clearly audible, with Madeleine, fled in a
borrowed car to Orleans and then, in a freight train, to Bordeaux and
finally to Portugal. In Lisbon, they bribed a crooked immigration
official and were surreptitiously given two visas for Chile. But on
arriving in Mexico City, it was discovered the visas were rank
forgeries. Facing deportation, Marcel and Madeleine found themselves
making application for political asylum with virtually every country in
the western hemisphere. Weeks passed until Canada finally issued them
temporary visas, and they left for Montreal.
Meanwhile, France had fallen and, in the process of subjugating the
country, the Germans had found some publicity stills of Dalio. A series
of posters were produced and were then displayed throughout the city
with the caption 'a typical Jew' so that citizens could more easily
report anyone suspected of unrepentant Jewishness. The madness
continued. The Curtain Rises (1938), a popular film, was ordered re-edited so that
Dalio's scenes could be deleted and re-shot with another, non-Jewish,
actor.
After a short time, friends in the film industry arranged for them to
arrive in Hollywood. Nearly broke, Marcel was immediately put to work
in a string of largely forgettable films. Madeleine, a budding actress
in her own right, was ironically cast in Hold Back the Dawn (1941), a vehicle for Charles Boyer
with a plot driven by the efforts of an émigré (Boyer) trying
desperately to cross into the United States from Mexico. But the real
irony was waiting at Warner Brothers.
In early 1942, Jack L. Warner was driving production of a film based on a one
act play, 'Everybody Comes to Rick's' but had no screenplay. What he
had was a mishmash of treatments loosely based on the play and two
previous movies. But he had a projected release date and a commitment
to his distributors to have a movie for that time slot and little else.
Warner Brothers started to wing it.
Shooting started without a screenplay and little plot. Principal
players were cast and a director hired but casting calls for supporting
roles and bit players continued, and sometime in the early spring
Marcel Dalio and Madeleine Lebeau were cast as, respectively, a croupier and a
romantic entanglement for the male lead. Veteran screen-writers were
hired to produce a running screenplay, sometimes delivering pages of
dialogue one day, for scenes to be shot the following day. No one knew
exactly where the plot would go or how the story would turn out. No one
was sure of the ending. And, of course, they produced a classic,
perhaps the finest, American movie.
They produced a screenplay of multiple genres, rich with
characterizations, perfectly in tune with the unfolding events in
Europe and loaded with talent from top to bottom. Oh, and they changed
the title to Casablanca (1942).
It is so well known, that many lines of long-memorized dialogue have
passed into the slang idiom. 'We'll always have Paris', 'I was
misinformed', 'Here's looking at you, kid', ' I am shocked! Shocked! To
find that there's gambling going on in here!', 'Louis, I think this is
the beginning of a beautiful friendship', 'Oh he's just like any other
man, only more so', 'I don't mind a parasite. I object to a cut-rate
one', 'Round up the usual suspects', and, of course, the iconic 'Play it, Sam,' often misquoted as 'Play it again, Sam,' the title of the Woody Allen movie.
Madeleine Lebeau plays Yvonne, the jilted lover of Humphrey Bogart, who is seen drowning
her sorrows at the bar early in the film and who later, to get back at
Rick and looking for solace takes up with a German officer finding only
self-hatred. She is luminous.
And when Claude Rains delivers the signature line, 'I'm shocked! Shocked! To
find that there's gambling going on in here!' the croupier, Emil,
played by Marcel Dalio, approaches from the roulette table and says
simply, 'Your winnings, sir.' It is a delicious moment ripe with
scripted irony, one among many in this film, but one made all the more
so, knowing where Dalio came from and what he and his wife had endured
to arrive at that line.
Alas, they separated and divorced the next year, both going on to long
successful careers. Dalio never remarried.
Late in his career, when Mike Nichols was looking for a vaguely familiar
face to deliver a long and worldly, near-monologue in Catch-22 (1970), he
turned to Dalio. Faced with a hopelessly idealistic young American
pilot, Dalio in tight close-up,
delivers a discourse on practical people faced with impractical
circumstances, of the virtues of expedience in the face of amorality.
Using his wonderful plastic features, now beginning to sag, in a voice
full of melancholy, the old man reassures the young man that regardless
of what 'grand themes' may be afoot in the world, in the end, little
matters but survival.