Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.
Play it once, Sam. For old times' sake.
Round up the usual suspects.
Here's looking at you, kid.
There is perhaps no film that is quoted more often in popular culture than the 1940s drama Casablanca. Beloved by audiences around the world since its release in 1942, Casablanca is widely considered today to be one of the greatest films of all time.
This was not always the case. Upon its initial release, Casablanca was just another romantic drama turned out by Hollywood in its heyday. It received generally good reviews, but no one expected it to become the icon it is today. This change in popularity cannot be contributed to one event or aspect of the movie; it simply continued to capture the hearts of more and more viewers as time went on. Murray Burnett, author of the play from which Casablanca was adapted, calls the story, “true yesterday, true today, true tomorrow.”
Casablanca stars Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid. Directed by Michael Curtiz, the story is set during World War II and focuses on the moral struggles of cynical expatriate Rick Blaine (Bogart), who runs a nightclub in the Moroccan city of Casablanca. At that time, Casablanca was a colony controlled by Vichy France (the French government after France was defeated by Nazi Germany in 1940), and Rick’s Café has become a hotspot for refugees looking for illegal letters of transit to escape to America.
One day an unexpected visitor from Rick’s past re-enters his life, and he is forced to make a decision between “love and virtue.” Rick must choose between being with the woman he loves (Bergman as Ilsa Lund) and assisting her and her husband (Henreid as Victor Laszlo), who is a Czech Resistance leader escaped from a Nazi-controlled concentration camp, out of Casablanca. Ilsa had deserted Rick earlier in the war when the Nazis took over Paris, but seeing him in Casablanca is all it takes for their romance to be sparked once again.
The role of Rick Blaine was a turning point in Bogart’s career. Although by this time he was well-known in Hollywood thanks to roles in films like High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca gave Bogart a chance to break out of his gangster typecast and open the doors to the more romantic roles he would become known for in his later years. Similarly, Casablanca was Bergman’s first big hit after her American debut in the 1939 film Intermezzo.
The supporting characters in Casablanca are just as poignant as the leads - Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault, Conrad Veidt as Major Heinrich Strasser, Sydney Greenstreet as Signor Ferrari, Peter Lorre as Signor Ugarte, and of course Dooley Wilson as Sam are equally as memorable in their respective roles as Bogart and Bergman are as conflicted lovers Rick and Ilsa.
Casablanca is a tour of humor and heartache, a patriotic film that continues to capture the hearts of its viewers, even seventy years after its initial release. Its iconic nature has awarded it a devoted fan base of viewers who continue to enjoy the tale of Rick and Ilsa’s fated romance – The Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for example, has screened the film during the week of Harvard University’s final exams since 1957, and the film has spawned numerous parodies, including 2001’s Out Cold and Woody Allen’s 1972 hit Play it Again, Sam.
Casablanca was nominated for eight and won three Academy Awards in 1943, ranked number two on the American Film institute’s list of the 100 best American movies (second only to Citizen Kane), and in 2006, the Writers Guild of America named its screenplay number one in its list of the 101 greatest screenplays of all time. These accolades are nothing, however, in comparison to the place Casablanca has earned in the hearts of millions of fans, who return again and again to experience the romance and suspense, and to hear that famous closing line : Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Maddie Butler
Film Club
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