CASABLANCA

I remember watching this movie with a friend of mine a few years ago, and both of us commented how the movie is better with each viewing. This is the greatness of Casablanca. The movie was structured in the perfect way to be watched and re-watched with only increasing admiration. The dialogue was sharp, crisp, tinged with a deadly combination of cynicism and hope. The acting was top-notch. And the plot was concise, fluid, and universal.

Casablanca has long been known as America's film. Part of its mass appeal is its message, one of heroism above love. When Rick lets Ilsa go at the airport, the viewer cannot deny the goodness of the move. Rick chose patriotism above his love for his girl. In reality, there is no reason why Rick should not have gone with Ilsa to Portugal and then to America (freedom). But this ending would have been a gargantuan mistake. The resolution remembers the rest of the film, in which the main players are good people.

These main players are the saloon owner Rick (Humphrey Bogart), a man of outward neutrality and inward fierce loyalty; Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), a woman whose love for two men for different reasons makes her majestic, sympathetic, and confused at the core; Laszlo (Paul Henreid), a French hero whose cause to end the Nazi atrocities makes him a very wanted man; and Louis (Claude Rains), the captain in the Morocco town that was a magnet for men and women of villainy and resistance. Even Casablanca itself had its good intentions while its visible dealings were suspicious, deceitful, and often violent.

Rick's saloon is the main setting for the film. We see a location full of spirits, anxiousness, hope, and evil. The bar is a haven for spies and traitors, loyalists and civilians. Rick calls it a crazy world; indeed, it is. But Casablanca's genius is making the good intentions of the few the world's hope.

The plot of the film is well-known and exquisitely structured. Rick holds two letters of passage for a flight to Portugal and more importantly away from the threatening occupation of the Nazis. Laszlo and Ilsa enter the saloon (with Rick's very famous line soon following), bringing a flood of memories back to both Rick and Ilsa regarding a past love in Paris just before the Germans invaded. We flash back to this period, one of wonder and full of hope and dreams. Two people who seem perfect together. Rick plans a way for them to escape before Paris is stormed by the Nazi army, but Ilsa does not arrive at the train station. Rick believes he has been abandoned, but Ilsa's return soon shows that Ilsa has remained in love with him to the present day.

Laszlo, meanwhile, is a very wanted man. The Nazis do not plan for him to escape and soon also plan for him not to live at all. Laszlo and Ilsa are fully aware of the threat and ask for Rick's help. Rick is at first resistant, but after reuniting with Ilsa, he plans a scheme for Rick and Ilsa to escape on the departing plane, so it seems. However, at the airport, his true intentions are finally revealed.

Louis is powerless to intervene between the Nazis and Laszlo's resistance; he must abide by the Nazis' wishes, but his motives are also fully realized in the famous airport scene. When a Nazi general (played by Conrad Veidt) threatens to prevent the plane from taking off, Rick shoots him. Louis then protects his friend: "Round up the usual suspects."

The key to this movie's success, in addition to the flawless story progression, is that the characters make the right choices in difficult circumstances. None of them are perfect, but all of them are heroic. This is a movie of true heroes, a remarkable feat for the time this film was made (and still refreshing today). The heartbreak of the man not getting the girl is instead replaced with something more beautiful and more satisfying: genuine humanity. Casablanca is a film of humanity in an inhumane world.

There are many famous scenes of the movie, but perhaps my favorite is when Ilsa tells piano player Sam (Dooley Wilson) to play "As Time Goes By" for the first time. Ingrid Bergman gives this scene such a beautiful touch, as her eyes begin to glisten and her face shows a longing sadness. And when Humphrey Bogart appears, his heartbreak is just as powerful. It is their introduction that will forever be etched in the minds of the sentimentalists and romanticists everywhere: a meeting of regret, memories, and love lost. It is perhaps the most genuine moment in moviemaking history, certainly up there with The Tramp's acceptance and gratitude by the blind girl in City Lights.

After 65 years, the film still seems fresh and new. The picture remains as clear and crisp as the dialogue. The storyline is timeless, and the characters are eternal. Everything about this movie is as accessible today as it was in the 1940s. This is undoubtedly a sign of the film's mastery.

When Rick and Louis stroll off together at the conclusion of the film, Rick offers a great line: "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." Casablanca offers a miraculous conclusion. After a sacrifice of immense magnitude, it is Rick who gives us consolation. His selflessness, even after his great heroic gesture, allows us to bask in the glow of bittersweet denouement. Casablanca never forgets its theme to the very end. There are things just as important as love, but sometimes three people need to tell us and not the crazy world.