Anyone else see the similarity?

Jason Bires
Intro to Fiction
Journal Four/ 07-02-2010
Journal Four
Not knowing a lot about films and their characters, my guess to why the film is such a classic is because of the storyline. This became a classic because of its separation from other movies of that era: it dealt strictly with corruption and the black market. It relates well to a movie that I watched from the present day called “American Gangster”. Rick’s character is relatable to Frank, who portrays the stereotypical mafia or gang lord that had control over the police, the government, and the black market within there decade. For as many movies and stories that were produced around that time, I believe this storyline probably led to other movies being produced with the same plot of violence and corruption such as “Scarface”. I am not at all saying this was the starting point for movies such as the two mentioned above, but I’m saying that because it is an original work that held a storyline so similar to the others, that this was merely the movie of this type, of the decade, when it was released. I believe every decade had a great corruption/ black market movie, and this was merely the starting point where I recognize the pattern (based on my limited knowledge of movies) of every decade having one of these classics.
I liked Victor’s character. I liked everything he was about. I really enjoyed watching how he handled situations, his intelligence about how to get around throughout the movie, and his ability to know what to do and say exactly when it needed to be done. Very similarly, Rick held the same character, which is why Ilsa was attracted to both of them throughout the movie, because they were essentially one in the same. If you liked one, you liked them both, and in this case Victor and Rick were the prominent characters.