Greatest Film Ever for Me

Rating: 10/10 (1 April 2019)

Why do I consider this to be the greatest film ever, to begin with I consider it to be the most enjoyable film I have ever watched and the most re-watchable. The key ingredients in my mind include; wonderful dialogue (so many quotable oft repeated lines), amazing performances, a superb story that while relatively straightforward is also highly enjoyable and finally the great black and white cinematography. Beyond these ingredients its also a film moves quickly and I can't think of a single scene I found either uninteresting or unnecessary.
For those that desire a synopsis, Rick (Humphrey Bogart) is an American expatriate running a popular nightclub in Casablanca a city under Vichy control. The cool disinterested facade Rick maintains is shaken when Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) his former lover whom he thought dead appears suddenly in his club with her husband a resistance leader who requires safe passage out of German controlled territory. In order for the escape to succeed Rick must not only hide them from the Germans but also the local French police commander (Claude Raines) who is a friend but also a collaborator.
My favorite performance here will always be that of Humphrey Bogart as Rick a man of nobility while evidencing ambivalence, but his performance is closely followed by the wonderful Claude Raines and the limited but iconic performances of Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre. While Ingrid Bergman apparently did not enjoy her experience and it may not be among her greatest roles I thought it was still a great performance, and also that the chemistry between Bogart and herself was utterly convincing. Further I found both Paul Henreid in the thankless role of the other man in the love triangle and Conrad Veidt as the local German commander to be quite effective along with a good supporting cast.
As I have seen more and more of Michael Curtiz films I have come to believe he is an underrated director, its true he was not an auteur but a studio director who made the films he was assigned and he was not apparently a pleasant person to work with he has did leave behind an incredible legacy of films.