Here's looking at Ingrid Bergman

Rating: 10/10 (30 November 2004)

Wow! Ingrid Bergman was at her best in this one, as well as her most sad, doe-eyed, beautiful. The part of Rick seemed made for Bogey, with the snappy repartee, and the cynical shell around what Renault refers to as "a rank sentimentalist". It seems like every time I see this film I notice something new. This time it had to do with the Bulgarian woman, Annina Brandel, who Rick rescues from the carnal plotting of Captain Renault. I never gave this scene much thought, just assuming that it was a way to plumb the limits of Rick's cynicism, as noted above. But later, during the scene where Ilsa tells Rick that she'll stay with him if he will use the letters of transit for Laszlo, I realized that the two scenes were a common theme, that Rick realizes he'd be no different from Renault if he followed through with that. I guess one gets lazy seeing modern Hollywood fare. Nowadays, the director would have used a flashback image or something, in order to bludgeon the viewer with the correlation. But back then, with a better-educated public, one could allow audiences to discover things for themselves. It was also skillful how these films could be more or less suitable for children, as well as adults. When I saw this film as a child, it never occurred to me that Rick and Ilsa had had sex. But the clues, while too subtle for a child, were pretty obvious to me as a man. Like many people this film is my all-time favorite. Grade: A+++++