#2: Casablanca

There are those films we admire, and there are those films we love. "Casablanca" certainly goes under the latter category for me, can you think of any other film that is more beloved than this film? (For me it would be the #1 film on my list but that's it). Whoever coined the phrase "They don't make them like they used to", must've been referring to "Casablanca". Many people have tried to copy its style, it's plot, it's characters, but so far none have succeeded.

I think the treat in watching a film like "Casablanca" is its familiarity, everyone knows it, even if you haven't seen the movie (although if you haven't you really should get on that). I even remember hearing the lines "We'll always have Paris", "You'll regret it, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life", and "Of all the gin joints in all the places in all the world, she walks into mine" before I saw one celluloid fragment of the actual film. When I first saw the movie it was as if I knew it already, even the ending was so famous I knew what was going to happen but I didn't mind.

I keep going back to "Casablanca" for those special moments, moments that can only happen in a movie, such as the first time Rick sees Ilsa in his cafe. That one look sums up an entire romantic history for us. Rick Blaine as played by Humphrey Bogart speaks volumes for any man who has been scorned, more than any other character, we understand the sadness behind his eyes, his bitterness, and his cynicism, but we can also see the mask he keeps to hide his humanity.

If you look at it, "Casablanca" is really Rick's story, it's how he's able to let go of his bitter past and become the man we all know he's destined to be. The emotion of the film doesn't lie in the star crossed romance between Rick and Ilsa, but in the unselfish act Rick does by letting her go.

Humphrey Bogart was the perfect man to play Rick at this time in his life, he had already played gangsters like Duke Mantee in "The Petrified Forrest" (My personal favorite gangster in the 30s period) and tough cynical anti-heroes (Sam Spade in "The Maltese Falcon). Bogart always made his heroes and villains complicated, we liked them when we were suppose to hate them, and hated them when we were suppose to like them. Part of Bogart's appeal and why he is perhaps the most admired movie star of all time is because his characters never pretend to know what the right thing to do is, but they most often do the right thing anyway. Bogart didn't become a movie star until he hit middle age, at this point it was as if his face had caught up with the characters he was born to play. There's a world weariness in Bogart that we see, someone who has been kicked and beaten but stands his ground, Rick's rebirth of patriotism at the end of "Casablanca" is such a heroic event because it gives validity to the old saying "you can't keep a good man down."

I watch "Casablanca" at least once a year, if I were to introduce a person to classic films, it would no doubt be the first movie I would give them. I could quote the film by heart, yet it still surprises me, I often catch myself smiling at my favorite parts. It's a pleasure to hear the dialogue, to see the cigarette smoke reflect from the light in the black and white film, to hear Dooley Wilson sing "As Time Goes By", to be caught up in the whole romance, intrigue, and melodrama of it all. To go on like this would be rambling, let me just say if you're not moved by a moment of "Casablanca", check your pulse, you must be dead.