A Film-noir classic

Rating: 7/10 (12 November 2011)

This is considered to be one of the greatest movies of all time. I loved this movie but I found that there is a lot of hype surrounding it. The hype does not say that the movie is better than it is, but rather tries to entice us to watch the movie when we don't need it. Casablanca can and does stand on its own. It is a movie that does not need advertising for if it appears on television people will watch it.
The year is 1942 and France has fallen to Nazi invaders. People are fleeing Europe to America to escape the war and it is only through Lisbon that they can do that. So they go from Paris to Marselle across the Mediterranean and then across the Sahara to Casablanca where they catch a plane to Lisbon. Casablanca thus becomes a refugee city and a haven of pirates and thieves and people desperate to get to Lisbon. The only way out is by plane which is controlled by the local police through the Nazis. Casablanca is called neutral territory but in reality the Nazis have a lot of control over the city.
The movie is based around a man named Rick (Humphery Bogart) who runs the Cafe Americain. He was a mercenary who fought for the Royals in the Spanish Civil War and ran guns into Ethiopia during the Italian invasion. He now sits in Casablanca, after fleeing France, remaining strictly neutral. The movie is about how Rick is pulled by both sides and the desire he has for a woman that is forbidden to him. A woman who he knew and lost in Paris and now returns with her husband. Rick is torn by anger and frustration with the woman that he loved who left him alone in Paris.
Rick struggles with the side that he is on. He is a successful business man but he remains aloof from his customers. His only friend is the piano player Sam (though the line "Play it again Sam" does not seem to appear in the movie). He has been emotionally hurt by this woman and because of this he cannot have any other relationships. Yet we see his character change when the woman appears. The chief of police notice this when Rick sits down and has a drink with her and Victor Laslow, the head of the resistance. Rick struggles with love and hatred for this woman to come to the end realising that his love for her means that he wants her to be happy and that is to have her leave with Victor. Even though he wants her, and suggests betraying Victor so that he might escape Casablanca with her, he realises that he cannot and sends her off in the airplane at the end (though the airplane scene at the end isn't as sad as people have made it out to be).
I don't think I need to say how great this movie is. It stands up on its own. It is a movie where the characters interact in a real way and grow and change. They have a solid background, one that rises up and brings them great pain when they face each other again. Casablanca is not as dark as the Maltese Falcon, yet it is a great movie and little more needs to be said.