Casablanca isn't Casablanca without Humphrey and Ingrid!

Rating: 10/10 (22 July 2004)

Casablanca, starring the cool Humphrey Bogart and the angelic Ingrid Bergman is more than just a movie. It is a landmark film, transcends deep into American culture, and become the most popular motion picture of all the worlds of all the times. What makes Casablanca so popular? I can't explain it, so does everybody I supposed. I sincerely don't think that the pairing of Bogart and Bergman made them the best of all time. Bogart is better with his real life partner, and Bergman is far better with Cary Grant, her match in terms of good-looks and sexual tension. Nevertheless, Rick is Bogart's best role, the role really suited him. Bogart typically played smart, playful, courageous, tough, occasionally reckless characters who lived in a corrupt world, anchored by a hidden moral code. Rick seemed as cool as cucumber, but didn't dare to hear somebody played 'As Time Goes By'. Other than Casablanca, his best films are The Maltese Falcon and The Treasure of Sierra Madre. If you want to appreciate good acting, Bogart's Rick is the first to start. Ilsa is hardly Bergman's best role. She's more convincing as a tortured wife in Gaslight or an alcoholic woman in Hitchcock's Notorious. But when the most beautiful woman in the history of films played the role of Ilsa, Ilsa too had become the most beautiful female character in the history of cinema. I can't remember seeing a face more beautiful than hers; she is breathtaking, illuminating every scene. To watch Casablanca is to fall in love with Ingrid Bergman. Both Bogart and Bergman wanted to quit during filming, because they thought the story was ridiculous and unbelievable. Bergman was more critical, she hoped that nobody will ever screened Casablanca again after she died. The whole production was a chaos; nobody thought that they were making the best film of the 20th century. Bogart having problems with his third marriage, Bergman worried about her future role in her next film, the producers didn't know the ending yet and so on. For those who might think of remaking Casablanca, just forget it. For the greats Bogart and Bergman have long been dead, and for Casablanca isn't Casablanca without the two of them.