The original: 

Casablanca (1942)

 

Directed by: 

Michael Curtiz (The Adventures of Robin Hood, White Christmas, We’re No Angels, The Jazz Singer)

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Starring: 

Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Paul Henreid, Dooley Wilson, Peter Lorre, Conrad Veidt 

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What’s it about? 

In French Morocco during the Second World War, jaded and broken American café owner Rick Blaine (Bogart) has his comfortable bubble of profiteering and self-loathing threatened by the arrival of the lost love of his life, Ilsa Lund (Bergman), who needs his help in getting her fugitive husband away from the Nazis to safety. 

 

A tight script, fluid direction and solid performances from a top-notch cast all combine to make this a simple story told very well indeed; a romantic, exciting, thrilling melodrama, which, like its hero, slowly reveals itself to be a committed idealist. 

 

With an embarrassingly rich supporting cast of characters, not least the slyly witty and impossibly mauve Louis (Rains), the heroic and realistically human Lazlo (Henreid), the pure of heart Sam (Wilson) and the sweaty, fidgety, constantly-moments-from-utter-panic Ugarte (Lorre), all pieces fit together to create a perfect tapestry, a fully realised world. 

 

Casablanca is a film that works on its own merits, never needing support from its classic status. 

But if ever there was a film worthy of the term Classic, not to mention the very definition of Iconic, Casablanca is the one. 

 

A tale of finding courage, losing love, and forever having Paris. 

 

Rick- “Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.” 

 

Captain Renault- “What in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?”   

RicK- “My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.”   

Captain Renault- “The waters? What waters? We're in the desert.” 

Rick- “I was misinformed.” 

 

Yvonne- “Where were you last night?” 

Rick- “That’s so long ago, I don’t remember.” 

Yvonne- “Will I see you tonight?” 

Rick- “I never make plans that far ahead.” 

 

Rick- “And remember, this gun is pointed right at your heart.” 

Renault- “That is my least vulnerable spot.” 

 

Rick- “Here’s looking at you, kid.”