Triple Oscar winning classic movie with all star cast and a memorable collection of quotable lines

Rating: 8/10 (18 December 2000)

"Casablanca" featured one of those all star casts that only come along once in a lifetime - Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, S. Z. Sakall, Dan Seymour, Marcel Dalio and Dooley Wilson. (The first choice of leading players was to have been Ronald Reagan, Ann Sheridan and Dennis Morgan but if this proposed casting had gone ahead I very much doubt if the film would have received the cult following it has today!). "Casablanca" won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director (Michael Curtiz) and Best Screenplay (Julius and Philip Epstein). It also had nominations for Best Actor (Bogart), Best Supporting Actor (Claude Rains), Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing and Best Score.
Surely almost everyone has seen this film and everybody knows the plot which is set during World War 2 at a night club owned by American Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) in Casablanca frequented by many dubious characters of all nationalities when just to complicate matters in walks Ilsa Lund Laszio (Ingrid Bergman) his ex-lover from years before who had abandoned him. She is now married to resistance leader Victor Laszio (Paul Henreid) on the run from the Germans. Bogart can help by supplying them with the vital transit papers they desperately need to escape to America but is he willing to do that when his policy has always been: "I stick my neck out for nobody"? In addition he still holds strong feelings for Bergman so will this influence his decision?
One of the great Warner Bros. films of the forties - possibly the most productive decade in the history of Hollywood .... and how about all those "classic lines"? It is very unlikely that any other movie produced as many quotable lines as did "Casablanca". Here are just a few of those legendary lines I still remember to this day:
Bogart: "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine".
Bergman: "Play it Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By'."
Bogart: "You played it for her, you can play it for me .... if she can stand it, I can. Play it".
Bogart: "Here's looking at you kid".
Bogart: "The problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world".
Rains: "Round up the usual suspects".
Bogart: "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship".
"Casablanca" is worth seeing over and over again just to hear Bogart uttering those unforgettable lines in his inimitable style. And of course that celebrated song by Dooley Wilson - "As Time Goes By". 10/10. Clive Roberts.