One of the Best Films Ever Made

Rating: 10/10 (15 September 2019)

With the Nazis having already occupied France and conquered much of Eastern Europe, a stream of refugees desperately attempt to get to America by embarking on a tortuous path which includes getting to the small city of Casablanca in French Morocco and from there to Lisbon. However, as difficult as it is for these refugees to actually get to Casablanca, their travel is further complicated by the fact that nobody is allowed to take the daily flight from there to Lisbon without the written permission of the corrupt Vichy French police commander by the name of "Captain Louis Renault" (Claude Rains). So quite often these refugees have to wait for quite a long time and this-in and of itself-creates even more of a financial and logistical hardship upon them. So in an effort to find a solution to their problem or temporarily forget about their troubles, many of them flock to the most popular nightclub there known as "Rick's Café Americain" which is owned by a tough and worldly American expatriot named "Rick Blaine" (Humphrey Bogart). Yet, even though he is quite successful in Casablanca, he finds it hard to find any great happiness due to a previous romance which devastated him a year and a half earlier. However, things take a sudden turn for the worse when a famous anti-German activist named "Victor Laszlo" (Paul Henreid) walks into his nightclub-and with him is the woman who broke his heart that bleak and rainy day in Paris. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this is not only my favorite movie of all time but is also considered to be one of the best films ever made with a number of movie stars possibly turning in the best performances of their careers. I especially liked the chemistry between Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman (as "Ilsa Lund") along with the performance of Dooley Wilson as Rick's loyal companion "Sam". Be that as it may, I believe that this is one of the very few films that each and every viewer ought to see at least once and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. A classic in every sense of the word.