This is one of my all time favorite movies. It has great nostalgic appeal since I first saw it in Israel in the 1970's, in the original Hebrew.
When MGM released the English version of this Israeli movie musical in the United States in 1974, I dismissed it back then as an interesting but derivative film that seemed to borrow quite a bit from "West Side Story" and "Fiddler on the Roof." Seeing the Hebrew version of "Kazablan" all these years later (with English subtitles), my opinion of its artistic merits hasn't really changed: the songs are mildly catchy, the choreography uninspired, the plot serviceable.
"Kazablan" is, simply put, a film that runs more closely akin to a dream sequence or rapid visual/audio/sensory montage than a linear-constructed primarily plot-driven piece. In some respects, the camera's tendency to wander almost randomly to various individuals, locales, and scenarios somewhat resembles a Monty Python "The Meaning of Life" form.
