Sam the Piano Player: The Man Between

Abstract

Bosley Crowther in the New York Times (New York Times Directory 76) and James Agee in The Nation (Agee 29) in reviewing Casablanca gave Sam the piano player (Dooley Wilson) a line of type, the former praising him as a “Negro 'find'” and the latter finding him merely “a colored pianist whose name I forget.” Their two readings of Wilson's performance–either as a centrally placed figure or as only an incidental character who was, said Agee, “a lot of fun”–were often echoed in the memories of generations of moviegoers for whom Casablanca formed part of a collective nostalgia for, as Studs Turkel wrote, “the good war.” And yet, Sam has been memorable as much for his politely diffident breaches with American racial etiquette as for his place in a movie that happened to enjoy an uncommon longevity in the nation's collectively constructed memory of World War II.