Perfect

Rating: 10/10 (13 February 2001)

I first saw Casablanca on the big screen. It was around 1993. I was visiting a friend at the University of Missouri who had a load of work to do on her Master's Thesis. So, her boyfriend and I went to see it in the student union. It's a shame that, being a guy, I first saw this incredibly romantic love story with another guy, but it still jerked tears. I was most amazed with how the familiar and famous lines, so many of which were already part of my psyche, just kept coming and coming.
Now, I own the movie and have most of it memorized. I get a great thrill from introducing it to people, watching them hear those line for the first time in context. I teach English now and use the film as a study in plot, foreshadowing, and Freytag's Triangle (or Climactic Triangle).
As a list maker, i have for years made favorite movies lists. This went straight to number one after my first viewing and is so entrenched there that only an act of God would break it from that spot. If you've never seen it, try, by all means, to see it on the big screen first.