One of my 3 all-time faves

Rating: Null/10 (18 September 2011)

This is the best movie I've ever seen, ranking as one of my three all-time favorites.* Bogart and Bergman are pitch-perfect in their roles, Rains is debonair and corrupt, Veidt is snakely and villainous as he should be, and Henreid is forgettable, but who cares? We even get Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre, along with S.Z. Sakall.
The typical movie is boy meets girls, boy loses girl, boy gets her back. In this version, Rick has already lost Ilsa, he gets her back, then he gives her up for the greater glory of France. Well, okay not France but for democracy and all that's decent. The dialogue is excellent with more memorable lines in each minute than most other movies generate in the whole show.
Sigh - they all come rushing back: "Round up the usual suspects!" "Oh, he's just like any other man, only more so." "'I came to Casablanca for the waters.' 'It's a desert - there are no waters.' 'I was misinformed.'" "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
The movie presents Rick as a cynical egoist, interested only in preserving himself. But we learn from his dossier that he's been involved with freedom fighters in several countries, then we learn of Ilsa. We decide that Rick is a cynic because she broke his heart, and he thinks he was a sap. Cynicism is a shell. Ilsa walks into his gin joint and back into his life, and Rick's shell thickens before our eyes. Of course, as the movie goes on, we see his shell melt away, and Rick emerges as the hero we knew was hidden deep inside all along.
The dialogue is excellent, and so is the directing (Michael Curtiz). "Casablanca" is full of minor characters who add to the richness of the world Rick lives in, adding depth that his character hides. Through his interactions with them, their affection for him and his gruffness toward them, we see his cynicism for the shell it is. Inside that steel exterior beats a heart of concrete.
The ending is superb, melodramatic, and heartbreaking without being maudlin and tearjerking. Noble, but not overdone, maintaining the breeziness and snappy dialogue in the face of Nazi jackboots. (Okay, so jackboots don't have faces, but you get the point, see.)
Everything works. It all comes together and stays together throughout the whole movie.
*I call "Casablanca" a movie because it's a great romantic movie about a guy and a girl. I call "The Dresser" a film because it's about marvelous characters, and we get to watch their development during the film; "The Dresser" is art on a high level. "The Princess Bride" -- I dunno where it fits. It's just my favorite fantasy epic swashbuckler that rises so far above whatever genre it is that it doesn't fit anywhere.