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Plot Summary: Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), who owns a nightclub in Casablanca, discovers his old flame Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) is in town with her husband, Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid). Laszlo is a famed rebel, and with Germans on his tail, Ilsa knows Rick can help them get out of the country.
*Recognition: Nominated for Best Actor (Bogart), Best Supporting Actor (Claude Rains), Film Editing, Cinematography, and Score; Won for Best Picture, Director (Michael Curtiz), and Screenplay; AFI #2 (1998), Rick Blaine #4 Hero on the AFI 100 years...100 Heroes and Villains (2003), "As Time Goes By" #2 AFI Song (2004), It led AFI's List of Top 100 Movie Quotes with 6 (2005), AFI #3 (2007); National Film Registry (1989); Consistently Ranks among many lists in the Top 5 of Greatest Films of All-Time.
What is this movie is about?: Love, Loss, and Sacrifice.
Best Performance: Humphrey Bogart (Rick Blaine)
Best Secondary Performance: Ingrid Bergman (Ilsa)
Most Charismatic Award: Claude Rains (Captain Renault)
Best Scene: First Scene at Rick's, As Time Goes By, Rick Helps the Bulgarians, La Marseillaise, Rick and Ilsa reunite, Rick and Laszlo, The Airport
Favorite Scene: La Marseillaise or Rick Helps the Bulgarians
Most Indelible Moment: The Airport
Best Lines:
Capt. Louis Renault: Round up the usual suspects.
Maj. Heinrich Strasser: What is your nationality? Rick Blaine: I'm a drunkard. Capt. Louis Renault: That makes Rick a citizen of the world.
Ilsa: Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.'
Rick Blaine: Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Rick Blaine: Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.
Rick: Because you're getting on that plane.
Ilsa: I don't understand. What about you?
Rick: I'm staying here with him [Renault] 'til the plane gets safely away.
Ilsa: No, Richard. No. What has happened to you? Last night...
Rick: Last night, we said a great many things. You said I was to do the thinking for both of us. Well, I've done a lot of it since then and it all adds up to one thing. You're getting on that plane with Victor where you belong.
Ilsa: But Richard, no, I've...
Rick: Now, you've got to listen to me. Do you have any idea what you have to look forward to if you stayed here? Nine chances out of ten, we'd both wind up in a concentration camp. Isn't that true, Louis?
Renault: I'm afraid Major Strasser would insist.
Ilsa: You're saying this only to make me go.
Rick: I'm saying it because it's true. Inside of us, we both know you belong with Victor. You're part of his work, the thing that keeps him going. If that plane leaves the ground and you're not with him, you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.
Ilsa: But what about us?
Rick: We'll always have Paris. We didn't have it before...we'd...we'd lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.
Ilsa: When I said I would never leave you...
Rick: And you never will. But I've got a job to do too. Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of. Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that. Now, now. Here's looking at you, kid.
Funniest Line:
Maj. Heinrich Strasser: Are you one of those people who can not imagine the Germans in their beloved Paris?
Rick Blaine: It's not particularly my beloved Paris.
Maj. Heinrich Strasser: Can you image us in London?
Rick Blaine: When you get there ask me!
Capt. Louis Renault: Hmmmh! Diplomats!
Maj. Heinrich Strasser: How about New York?
Rick Blaine: Well there are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to invade.
Customer: Um, waiter? Will you ask Rick if he will have a drink with us?
Carl Headwaiter: Madame he never drinks with customers. Never. I have never seen it.
Customer: What makes saloon keepers so snobbish?
German Banker: Perhaps if you tell him I run the second largest banking house in Amsterdam?
Carl Headwaiter: Second largest? It wouldn't impress Rick. The leading banker in Amsterdam is the pastry chef in our kitchen.
German Banker: We have something to look forward to.
Carl Headwaiter: And his father's the bellboy.
Capt. Louis Renault: I'm shocked that there is gambling in this establishment.
Waiter: Sir, here are your winnings.
The Stanley Rubric
Legacy: 9.75
Impact/Significance: 8.25
Novelty: 7.25
Classic-ness: 9.25
Rewatchability: 9
Audience Score: 9.5
Total: 53
Remaining Questions:
How did Laszlo just escape a Nazi concentration camp?
Why does Laszlo have a cut above his eye?
Why did Renault not arrest Rick?
What are the other endings?