The End...

Just what does The End really mean? No, I’m not being philosophical; I’m mainly talking films and old ones at that. But whilst I’m about it does anything ever really end? Relationships, old wounds, sunny days; even when we croak there are those that believe that we go on. In the simplest terms I guess that we all do; as we become dust and go on to feed a tree or become a very thin layer of sedimentary rock.

I wonder what will happen when the universe comes to an end; will a big THE END flicker up onto the blankness of the great cosmic cinema screen? No, stop there! This really is about films okay? If we get into that deep stuff we’ll be here all day and resolve nothing. Even that flimsy reference to the cinema at the end of the last para isn’t enough to keep us on track if we broaden things out. So, films then…

Back in the days of the great Hollywood studios a film was made, the story told, and that was that. No sequels, no prequels, no franchises; we were left wondering what happened next, our imaginations carrying on the story where the movie left off. How much better was that? A moment or two of magnificent glory and then over and out.

Perhaps it was The End appearing on the screen, and it actually meaning the end, that created those classics movies. Now don’t get me wrong, I like James Bond as much as the next man (unless he is a Bond fanatic and can recite every Bond girl in order, which would make him a bore) and I like Harry Potter even though the story is pretty much the same in every film. But back in that golden day films were written by writers to be films. Singletons, one-offs that were meant to be sequel free, stories that stood up, fresh and exciting each time, by themselves.

How disappointed I was to hear then that in 1988 a follow-up script to Casablanca, probably the ultimate stand alone movie of all time, written by Howard Koch, one of its original screenwriters, was found. If it is ever made (God forbid) its title is (wait for it) Return to Casablanca (Groan). In this sequel to the most ‘no sequel required’ movie of all time,  Ilsa and Victor Laszlo search for Rick after he joins Free French forces opposing Nazi general Erwin Rommel in North Africa. It turns out that Ilsa gave birth to a son and that Rick – not Victor Laszlo - was the father. The son, described as a ‘handsome, tough-tender young man reminiscent of his father’ is now in his 20s, and his quest to find Rick is the main storyline.

This is one film I never want to see made, it kills my imagined sequel storyline dead. It seems that Ilsa never came back to Casablanca and - in a sudden flash of realisation that happiness is more important than doing one’s duty - she and Rick never did open La Place de Rick Nightclub in Paris with Louis playing lead trombone in Sam’s Seine Swingers featuring Yvonne on vocals. No, if this sequel is ever made there’s no chance that Ugarte survived that bullet and came, along with Signor Ferrari to sell drugs to Harry Lime, who fled Vienna for Paris, on the black market. Nor will Carl and Sacha open a patisserie next door to Rick’s.

If  ‘Return To Casablanca’ is ever made I’ll know for sure what happened to Rick, Elsa, Victor, and the rest after the fog at Casablanca airport cleared and I really don’t want that. I prefer to continue to have as many sequels as my imagination allows; one will simply not do. So no sequel please; particularly as none of the original stars are available except inside my head. The time to make that film has passed; remember what was recently done to The Wizard of Oz, and who on earth could play Rick Blaine and Ilsa Laszlo’s son with conviction? Matt Damon and Johnny Depp are too old.

Let’s face it, there are certain films like Citizen Kane, African Queen, Gone with the Wind and, of course, Casablanca, that need to stay as pristine and perfect as they are. They have no need for sequels, they are one-offs, and the rest of the story should live inside our imaginations.

The End.