Play it again and again

Rating: 9/10 (2 January 2020)

Like all great art, "Casablanca" is a film that stands repeat viewings time after time, until you get to the point where you're saying whole lines of dialogue in lip-synch with the actors. I've just watched it again for the umpteenth time and still get caught up in the foreign intrigue, instinctive direction and superb playing of all the leads.
The film's screenplay has won awards as the best ever, which is of course ironic considering it was going through rewrites right up until shooting and the actors themselves didn't always understand the convoluted plotting. Perhaps their uncertainty helps give the film its edge, no-one quite knows how it's all going to finish until the pieces fall perfectly into place in the closing ten minutes at the airfield.
With more classic lines than any other film I can think of, including the most misquoted one ever, every plot and sub-plot is deftly handled and resolved. Moreover, it was undoubtedly brave of Warner's to take a patriotic stand at a time when the war was going badly for the Allies and one can only imagine the boost to morale the famous scene, when the patrons of Rick's Place drown out the provocative would-be triumphal and mocking singing of the German soldiers with their heartfelt rendition of the Marseillaise, gave to watching filmgoers in free Europe, especially France.
At its heart of course is a love story, a beautiful, twisted, dangerous and ultimately doomed love story, but it never upsets the balance of the film which helps it to ultimately satisfy on so many levels.
The acting, of course, is beyond reproach, Bogart as the cynical bar-owner with a conscience, Bergman, luminously beautiful but subtle and sensitive as she guards her heart, Rains, brilliant as the weather-vane local cop playing every angle and Heinreid as the noble, brave partisan who's also enough of a man of the world to forgive his wife's accidental transgression. Plus of course, even in the minor roles, some little more than cameos by Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Dooley Wilson and others, there are eye-catching and memorable performances.
And let's not forget the astute direction of Michael Curtiz, often regarded and indeed derided by some critics as a journeyman, contractual director, known as a reliable and efficient studio-man who got the job done in an unflashy way. Be that as it may, I know he's directed many Hollywood features which are favourites of mine and if ever a movie needed an unflashy treatment, it was this one.
Curtiz knew that when it comes to great story-telling in celluloid, the fundamental things apply and that's why "Casablanca" will be loved and revered, as time goes by.