One Night of Love? The unanswered questions. !! SPOILER !!

Rating: 10/10 (27 December 2002)

!! SPOILER !!
Without doubt a work of genius. Full marks, 10 out of 10. When this film appeared in 1942 Bogart was yet the great Star he was to become. During the 30s he had regularly featured in Warner Bros. gangster films as a typical hoodlum; all churned out on the WB assembly line with little of interest in them. His reputation at the time was on a par with that of the dependable B-movie actor Lloyd Nolan, perhaps even lower. However, recently he had been cast in The Maltese Falcon where he had displayed a previously unknown potential; Casablanca, in retrospect, transformed his career for him. It also enhanced that of Ingrid Bergman. Others on this website have said much in praise of this film which screams out for its missing sequel (did Hollywood fear a flop so they shied away from it?) a prequel would not come amiss either. So many things are unexplained in the story that there is ample material for further development. Was it coincidence that the man who showed Laszlo the Cross of Lorraine ring, Berger, and Ilsa were both Norwegian? Why does Laszlo, the great underground leader want to go to America at a time, 1941, when all external resistance movements are centred in London? Signor Ferrari is a very mysterious character, is there something more to him than just a clever black marketeer and owner of the Blue Parrot bar? What really took place between Ilsa and her lost lover Richard on that last night together? What happened to Ilsa and Laszlo after they left for America? Did she and Richard ever meet again? Why was the attitude of Laszlo towards her so cold? What was the powerful force that tore the recently reunited lovers apart when they could easily have stayed together? As for a prequel, there are the untold stories of Ilsa and Laszlo, Ilsa and Richard (briefly related in the film) and Laszlo himself.
Here is how I see the story continuing. After Ilsa and Laszlo depart on the plane, Berger goes to Ferrari who turns out to be a British agent and the contact man for all agents operating from London in the region. Berger identifies himself as a Norwegian resistance member sent out from London and requests help in getting back urgently. He gives Ferrari a brief coded message for radioing to London. Ferrari promptly sends this off and routinely adds the information that Ilsa and Laszlo are en route for Lisbon. He also requests that Rick and Captain Louis Renault, who have gone into hiding, should accompany Berger as they are in mortal danger from the Nazis who are seeking revenge for the killing of Major Strasser. The next night a small boat takes the three men out to sea where they rendezvous with a Royal Navy warship which carries them safely to England.
After arriving in Lisbon, Ilsa and Laszlo go to the American embassy to get the required travel documents and are whisked into the office of the ambassador who tells them that he has been urgently informed by the American ambassador in London that Laszlo has been requested to fly to London by the next plane to participate in a top secret high level conference of senior resistance leaders. However when the couple reach the Norwegian resistance HQ in London, Ilsa promptly denounces Laszlo as a Nazi plant who has infiltrated the upper echelons of underground movements throughout Europe; he holds the rank of colonel in the SS. She learns from Berger that Richard is in England serving in General deGaulle's Free French Army; so the lovers are brought together again. The beautiful, alluring Ilsa is, in reality, a member of the Norwegian secret service who had been deployed as a honey trap to bait Laszlo when suspicions first arose about him following the Nazi take over of Czechoslovakia. Ilsa entered into her sham marriage with Laszlo in England before the war in order to get evidence of his duplicity and, later, his links to the Norwegian traitor, Quisling. Ilsa had explained all this to Richard on their last night together. The two promised each other that they would marry but first she had to complete her work on exposing Laszlo. Richard was sworn to secrecy. Afterwards when the waiter, Carl, escorted Ilsa back from Rick's place she had given him a note in Norwegian to be delivered at once to her compatriot, Berger, instructing him to inform London that she had all the evidence against Laszlo. This was the coded message that he sent via Ferrari. Berger's mission all along had been to ensure the safety of Ilsa.
It takes a few months in England before Ilsa's marriage can be annulled on the grounds that it was not consummated due to the impotence of Laszlo (this explains the puzzling brother and sister like relationship between the two in the film). She and Richard married shortly thereafter with Louis as best man. A few weeks later she gives birth to Richard's son, conceived on that last night of passion at Rick's place.
Laszlo, still a Czech citizen, was imprisoned under the notorious British regulation 18b as an undesirable alien. His true reason for wanting to get to America had been to set up an underground sabotage ring to undermine American aid to Britain. Major Strasser's secret assignment had been to ensure that Laszlo "escaped" to America and to prevent his cover as an underground leader from being blown. In doing this he willingly sacrificed his own life by deliberately aiming wide at Rick so allowing Rick to fire the fatal shot.
Postscript: after the war Rick opened a bar in the sleazy Soho district of London, laconically calling it "Bar of the American Patriot".
Sam's piano playing was performed by Elliot Carpenter http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0139325/bio.