Movies You Should Have Seen By Now #5

Casablanca

Just like Citizen Kane, this is quite simply one of the greatest movies ever made. AFI has ranked it as #2 ten years ago and this year dropped it just behind The Godfather, as well as naming it the top romantic movie. Hollywood does not make movies like this anymore. Not that this should sway you considering the Academy's track record, but Casablanca took home the Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay Oscars in 1943.

Humphrey Bogart is perfect as Rick, the owner of a nightclub in Casablanca, Morocco during the early part of WWII. Rick's plays host to refugees looking to get documentation to leave war-torn Europe and travel to America. Rick is has that special trait that he knows people and has a way with people. Captain Renault put it best when he said "Well, Rick is the kind of man that... well, if I were a woman, and I were not around, I should be in love with Rick. But what a fool I am talking to a beautiful woman about another man." The story really gets going when former flame and true love Ilsa arrives in Casablanca with a famed rebel looking to get to America. The love between Rick and Ilsa is reignited and she has thoughts of staying behind with Rick. It is in this dilemma that the movie becomes as amazing as it is and provides us with some of the most poignant dialogue:

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... I...
Rick: Now, you've got to listen to me! You have any idea what you'd 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, Louie?
Captain 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, we, we 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.

Some other great quotes from the film:

Rick: Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Rick: Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.

Ilsa: Kiss me. Kiss me as if it were the last time.

And of course, the actual dialogue (and not the misquoted - Play it again Sam)
Ilsa: Play it once, Sam. For old times' sake.
Sam: I don't know what you mean, Miss Ilsa.
Ilsa: Play it, Sam. Play "As Time Goes By."
Sam: Oh, I can't remember it, Miss Ilsa. I'm a little rusty on it.

[Quotes taken from imdb.com]