Casablanca

Some movies stay with you for your entire life. It might be a movie that resonates with you and something happening in your life. It could be a movie that helps you get through a tough time, or one that brings you unbridled joy, or one that was so intriguing you are still thinking about it. One of my favorites, one that I’ve seen too many times to possibly count, is the Academy Award Best Picture of 1943 – “Casablanca.” I know what you are thinking! How can you enjoy a movie made before you were born during the height of WWII, not to mention in black and white? Well, believe me, it isn’t a classic for no reason. “Casablanca” on the surface is the story of cynical American Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) who for reasons never explained (who cares?) owns a nightclub in Nazi occupied Casablanca. The plot, a trifle to hang the emotions on, involves letters of passage that will allow two people to leave Casablanca for Portugal, and freedom. Those people are Ilsa, love of his life, whom he thought jilted him (think again), now married to the heroic Victor Laslo, a key Resistance fighter. The upshot of this romantic, exciting movie is that Rick and Ilsa re-discover, yet then unselfishly renounce their love, as a contribution to the greater cause of defeating the Nazis. This is just the tip of the iceberg though. The supporting cast is a virtual who’s who of classic old actors. And that dialogue! Heard the expression “round up the usual suspects?” Chief of Police Louis Reynard (Claude Rains) from this movie! How about “Play it again, Sam?” (From this movie but not phrased exactly that way “Play it, Sam. You played it for her, you can play it for me.” Play what? Why just superbly memorable “As Time Goes By!”). How about “Here’s Looking at you, Kid?” or “we’ll always have Paris.” Roger Ebert, the late great reviewer, had this to say about the opening, “The opening scenes dance with comedy; the dialogue combines the cynical with the weary; wisecracks with epigrams. We see that Rick moves easily in a corrupt world. “What is your nationality?” the Nazi officer Strasser asks him, and he replies, “I’m a drunkard.” His personal code: “I stick my neck out for nobody.” This a movie that will entertain you without violence (people are shot, but you never see the blood) or sex (except for some genteely romantic shananigans) or being ultimately pessimistic. This is, in the final moment, an optimistic movie that lets us know that we little people, whether fighting Nazis or Covid-19, will prevail when all is said and done. As Rick and Louis fade into the mists of legend, Rick utters the classic “Louis, I think this is going to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

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