Director: Michael Curtiz Screenplay: Julius & Philip Epstein Running time 104 minutes Won Best Picture 1943
Casablanca the romantic wartime classic starring Humphrey Bogart as a disillusioned cafe owner nursing his amatory wounds in Morocco and Ingrid Berman as the woman he felt once jilted him but reenters his life as the wife of a resistance leader.
The main roles were originally to have been played by Ronald Reagan and Ann Sheridan. Director Michael Curtiz managed to make a coherent film although he shot various different conclusions to the film, because he was for a long time uncertain as to how the film should end.
As the beautiful Ilsa returns from Rick's past to vex him with reminders of an idyllic Parisian affair on the brink of invasion. Bergman is totally convincing in the love scenes where an attachment must be implied but never stated. Her coaxing of Dooley Wilson to play "As Time Goes By" and the late-night arrival at the bar as Rick urges him to "Play it, Sam. If she can stand it, so can I" outlines the personality of a unique woman vulnerable but finally stronger than those who surround her.
Casablanca will at once be remember as a classic and for it's one liners, so impeccably dished out by the Epstein brothers:
Rains: "I'm just a poor corrupt official"
Lorre: "You despise me, don't you Rick?" Bogart: "I probably would if I gave any though to it."
Rick: I'm saying it because it's true. Inside of us, we both know you belong with Victor. You're part of his work - the thing that keeps him going. If that plane leaves the ground and you're not with him, you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon. And for the rest of your life.
Ilsa: What about us?
Rick: We'll always have Paris. We didn't have - we lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.
Ilsa: When I said I would never leave you ... Rick: And you never will. But I've got a job to do, too. And where I'm going you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of. Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Some day you'll understand that. Here's looking at you, kid.
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