the bar is the star

Rating: Null/10 (5 December 1999)

I've seen Casablanca about a dozen times and it is certainly up there in my top five. What I love most about it is Rick's Cafe. Don't you wish you could go to a place like that? Full of beautiful, desperate people who will do anything to make some money, get a plane ticket or get some information about the Resistance. It's seething with spies, secret agents, Nazis and Free French. The staff are quirky and witty, the piano player is sublime and over it all there is Rick's brooding presence. I love the croupier, who looks so reproachfully at Rick when he allows the Bulgarian couple to make enough money for their plane ticket out.
I don't think any film has matched Casablanca for romance, intrigue and suspense. Corny, but wonderful. And, as someone said of Hamlet, it's so full of quotes.