Casablanca (1942)

Terry's Grade: A

I probably don't need to say much about this movie, since everyone's already seen it and written about it. I'd seen it before, probably twice before, but it'd been a while and of course there's always more to appreciate any time you re-watch a good movie. That's what makes good movies good.

Yes, this is the movie that inspired the naming of Rick's American Cafe in Ann Arbor. Never has so good a movie inspired the name of so bad a bar/club/vomit-production-center.

Also, this is a movie that has thoroughly permeated the culture we live in. Here are some of the more famous lines that I remember:

• Here's looking at you, kid.
• Play it again, Sam.
• We'll always have Paris.
• Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world...
• Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow...
• Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

I think pretty much everyone in America has been exposed to those lines through parodies or just everyday usage, even if they've never even though about watching Casablanca.

But sometimes "great" movies don't live up to the hype. I wasn't a fan of Casablanca when I saw it as a teenager. Of course, when I was a teenager I liked way too many movies that were all style and no substance; Casablanca has got plenty of style, but it's 1940s style. I think one of the ways in which I've grown the most as a film-watcher is that I can enjoy watching older movies with a little more suspension of disbelief, overlooking the sets and effects, and even some bad acting, to really appreciate the message that the film is trying to convey. Casablanca is a love story, and so of course it also helps if you're old enough to have been in love before to really appreciate that aspect of the movie.

Casablanca also has a number of bit characters and subplots (or mini-plots) that I'd forgotten about; of course there's Peter Lorre at the beginning of the film, but there's also Sascha the Russian bartender, Yvonne the floozie, and my favorite, Annina Brandel, the Bulgarian refugee whom Rick saves from disgrace by helping her husband win at the roulette table. These all help round out the depiction of Casablanca, the town. After all, the movie is named "Casablanca", not "Rick and Ilsa."

Either Humphrey Bogart is good at playing expat Americans, or maybe my sample size is just skewed, having watched Treasure of the Sierra Madre just a few weeks ago. I suppose he was the quintessential American man at the time, though. Exotic settings always make for interesting movies, and Casablanca is both of those.