a movie classic: pure and simple

Rating: 10/10 (15 August 2003)

There are movie classics and there are movie classics. And then there is "Casablanca." Shot in 1942, it is over sixty years old and more than holds its own against anything that one can throw up against it today. For Humphrey Bogart, this was a career defining moment that launched the Bogie mystique. Ingrid Bergman's performance is nothing less than scintillating. The cast of supporting actors and actresses is superlative. This is one of the rare movies that makes the viewer suspend disbelief. Almost everything in the movie is first rate. The editing was superb with no extraneous scenes. There is no fat. It is a movie in which extremes exist and yet there is no contradiction. It is the rarest kind of movie that can be watched a hundred times and yet, one never tires of it. "Casablanca" is pure cinema magic that few, if any, movies will ever match. Words cannot reach it. "Casablanca" is an experience that one simply has to experience and preferably, at least once, on a big screen. On a scale of one to ten with ten being best, it is an easy one hundred.