Casablanca
| Year: | 1942 |
| Director: | Michael Curtiz |
| Cast: | Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Dooley Wilson |
The movie that was nearly called Everybody Comes to Ricks is the favourite movie of so many people in the world you couldn't call yourself a movie aficionado and not see it.
Bogey is at his best as Rick Blaine, nightclub owner in French Morocco during the Second World War. The drop off point for an endless procession of refugees fleeing to Lisbon to escape the Nazis, Casablanca is a hard town full of shady characters, but all Blaine wants to do is keep his head down, make a living and mind his own business in his popular nightclub.
But then, as the classic line says, 'Of all the gin joints in all the world, why'd she have to walk into mine?'. Back into his life comes Ilsa (Bergman), the beautiful woman he fell in love with in Paris in a past he doesn't want to talk about anymore because she stood him up at the station when they were planning to flee together.
She shows up with the husband she thought she'd lost, Laszlo (Henreid), begging Rick to help secure their passage out of Casablanca, knowing he has the papers they need.
Trouble is the Nazis are there too, and they've given local police captain and confidante of Rick's, Renault (Rains) instructions to make sure he doesn't leave.
A high-level resistance leader, Laszlo will do anything to escape with his wife. But after she ditched the now terminally cynical Rick in Paris, he doesn't feel like doing her any favours, even if they both feel strange and familiar feelings for each other again.
So full of famous lines from movie lore most people get most of them wrong (not once is the line 'Play it again Sam' uttered), and an undisputed romantic classic.
Bogey is at his best as Rick Blaine, nightclub owner in French Morocco during the Second World War. The drop off point for an endless procession of refugees fleeing to Lisbon to escape the Nazis, Casablanca is a hard town full of shady characters, but all Blaine wants to do is keep his head down, make a living and mind his own business in his popular nightclub.
But then, as the classic line says, 'Of all the gin joints in all the world, why'd she have to walk into mine?'. Back into his life comes Ilsa (Bergman), the beautiful woman he fell in love with in Paris in a past he doesn't want to talk about anymore because she stood him up at the station when they were planning to flee together.
She shows up with the husband she thought she'd lost, Laszlo (Henreid), begging Rick to help secure their passage out of Casablanca, knowing he has the papers they need.
Trouble is the Nazis are there too, and they've given local police captain and confidante of Rick's, Renault (Rains) instructions to make sure he doesn't leave.
A high-level resistance leader, Laszlo will do anything to escape with his wife. But after she ditched the now terminally cynical Rick in Paris, he doesn't feel like doing her any favours, even if they both feel strange and familiar feelings for each other again.
So full of famous lines from movie lore most people get most of them wrong (not once is the line 'Play it again Sam' uttered), and an undisputed romantic classic.