16.
Casablanca: 1942 (PG)
USA / Warner Brothers
97% (CF)
This is a movie most people would not expect me to love. When you look at my list as a whole you see certain commonalities like satire, post apocalyptic movies, zombie movies, B-grade horror comedies, Kurosawa, classic sci-fi, comic book movies, action movies, thrillers, and movies dealing with the Cold War. So a movie that’s focus is centered primarily on a love story don’t generally come to mind when one would think of my favorite movies. Now I have seen some very good romance movies like Ghost, The Quiet Man, and Princess Bride, but they are not among my favorite movies. So what makes this movie so special? Let’s find out. But first some back story. Humphrey Bogart plays Rick, a cynical American expatriate who runs a night club/gambling hall in the Moroccan city of Casablanca. Casablanca is a part of Unoccupied France and is free from Nazi rule. It has also become a beacon for refugees seeking to escape the War and try to go to a safer country. In order to escape to either Portugal or America they need a visa, which they can buy, but they are hard to get, and very expensive. As such many of the now broke refugees are stuck in Casablanca. In Rick’s club a guy named Ugarte (Peter Lorre) has killed two German couriers and stolen letters of transit, which would allow the holder to leave Casablanca and travel to Portugal and he gives the letters to Rick for safe keeping. One of the people to step into Rick’s club is his former lover, Ilsa (Ingrid Bergmen) and her Czech Resistance Leader husband Laszlo (Paul Henreid). The rest of the movie centers on what to do with the letters and the Nazi’s pursuit of Laszlo for his escape from a concentration camp, but the biggest emphasis in on Rick and Ilsa and their past in Paris. Now I love these characters, particularly Rick. Rick is established early on as the ultimate neutral party in the goings on of the world. And after you learn of his past with Ilsa you think he is just a broken cynic. But as you learn more about him you learn that is not the case. You learn he was a gun runner who ran weapons to the Ethiopians when Italy invaded in 1935, and during the Spanish Civil War he fought with the Loyalists against the fascists. Deep down under that hard boiled shell is the heart of a true underdog. This cynic with a heart character is the signature Bogart role which made him a cinema icon. Ilsa’s affair with Rick is also complicated. She loves her husband very much, but she still has feelings for Rick from their time together. You feel the tension the two have, particularly when Ilsa first steps into Rick’s club when she has Sam (Dooly Wilson) play their song “As Time Goes By.” The end scene is one of the most famous in all cinema, and it is one I am not ashamed to say makes me tear up when Rick and Ilsa say goodbye. Deep down I am a very sentimental bastard, and this movie knows how to play my heart strings. And I am not the only one; it is consistently named as one of the greatest films of all time and the greatest romance movie ever. What can I say, I love the movie, and it is my 16th favorite movie.