Sketch 2024 - Movies (Aug 26th)
Together 2025 - Movies (Aug 26th)
Stans 2025 - Movies (Aug 26th)
I Know What You Did Last Summer 2025 - Movies (Aug 26th)
Prepare to Die 2024 - Movies (Aug 26th)
Karate Kid Legends 2025 - Movies (Aug 26th)
Lilo and Stitch 2025 - Movies (Aug 26th)
Ballerina 2025 - Movies (Aug 25th)
Girl in the Cellar 2025 - Movies (Aug 25th)
Relay 2024 - Movies (Aug 24th)
Trust 2025 - Movies (Aug 24th)
The Assessment 2024 - Movies (Aug 24th)
Dear Stranger 2025 - Movies (Aug 23rd)
The Throwback 2024 - Movies (Aug 23rd)
Growing Happiness 2024 - Movies (Aug 23rd)
A New Kind of Wilderness 2024 - Movies (Aug 23rd)
Honey Dont 2025 - Movies (Aug 22nd)
The Truth About Jussie Smollett 2025 - Movies (Aug 22nd)
Madeleine McCann The Unseen Evidence 2025 - Movies (Aug 21st)
Exit 8 2025 - Movies (Aug 21st)
Clown in a Cornfield 2025 - Movies (Aug 19th)
All In with Chris Hayes - (Aug 27th)
The Briefing with Jen Psaki - (Aug 27th)
The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox - (Aug 27th)
Truck Dynasty - (Aug 27th)
Mud Madness - (Aug 27th)
Graveyard Carz - (Aug 27th)
A Body in the Basement - (Aug 27th)
No Gamble No Future - (Aug 27th)
Platonic - (Aug 27th)
Alien- Earth - (Aug 27th)
The Beat with Ari Melber - (Aug 27th)
The Big Pound Shop Swap - (Aug 27th)
Chris Jansing Reports - (Aug 26th)
Katy Tur Reports - (Aug 26th)
The Bold and the Beautiful - (Aug 26th)
The Young and the Restless - (Aug 26th)
The Great Australian Bake Off - (Aug 26th)
The Travelling Auctioneers - (Aug 26th)
The Jury- Murder Trial - (Aug 26th)
Celebs Go Dating - (Aug 26th)
Star power is perhaps less important in movies today than it was in decades past. Films are more often sold on a concept rather than a name and it is far less common for a star to have the ability to ‘open’ a film on their name power alone. The casting for Casablanca Express, a World War II set tale shot in Morocco and Italy demonstrates two types of name casting of the period. The first is the use of actors who had substantial careers but were perhaps past the point of being headliners themselves anymore. Glenn Ford at the age of 73 and Donald Pleasance at 70 are given substantial supporting roles that rely on their presence and the ability for their names to be used in print and related advertising. Ford had given very few acting performances in the previous decade, whilst Pleasance had been hugely busy in a large range of low budget features. The older audience would be familiar with the actors’ work and be happy perhaps to see them again in a feature. The second form of name recognition used is to cast the offspring of known actors, in this case the sons of Sean Connery and Anthony Quinn, relying perhaps on curiosity value from the audience about whether they would be equivalent level stars to their parents. In this case neither has a great deal of charisma but their evident willingness to engage in complex stunt work un-doubled for the most part is impressive. The complex action sequences atop and around trains go a long way to adding to the conviction of the film. The plot is fairly perfunctory though with a non-cheat twist ending and the remote locations through which the train of the title travels are fairly evocative. Dialogue is at time unintentionally hilarious and extensive post-production dubbing appears to have occurred. I enjoyed my first viewing of Casablanca Express but did not feel it had sufficient depth or other items of interest that would support a repeat viewing.