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Casablanca (movie)

Casablanca is a 1942 movie set during World War II in the Moroccan city of Casablanca. The film was directed by Michael Curtiz and stars Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, Paul Henreid[?], Sydney Greenstreet, and Conrad Veidt[?]. In the movie, Bogart (Rick) is a cynical bar owner in Casablanca; a woman he was in love with and who left him in Paris shows up with the leader of an underground movement and Bogart is put in a position of conflicting priorities.

In Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart is surrounded by a cut-throat businessman (Senor Ferrari, owner of the rival cafe, The Blue Parrot), petty crooks (Ugarte, who stole the letters of transit), fawning yes men, and admiring women in his cafe.

The story is based on Murray Burnett[?] and Joan Alison[?]'s unproduced play Everybody Comes to Rick's, to which Warner Brothers purchased the rights for $20,000. Julius G.[?] and Philip G. Epstein[?] wrote the first part of the script and left to work with Frank Capra on Why We Fight, a series of propaganda newsreels to convince the United States that becoming involved in World War II is a just cause. Howard Koch[?] worked on the screenplay next, adding most of the drama; and Casey Robinson[?] has an uncredited rewrite in which he added most of the romantic scenes.

The script was still undergoing changes during filming. None of the actors knew whether Rick and Ilsa would remain together or not until moments before the final scene was filmed; actress Ingrid Bergman reports that she was uncomfortable during filming because she thought the filmmakers didn't know what they wanted out of the film. Bogart was called in a month after shooting was finished to dub in the final line, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

The final scene includes midget extras as aircraft personnel and cardboard planes for scale, because of budgetary constraints. The fog in the scene was there to mask the unconvincing appearance of the cardboard planes. Interestingly, few have commented on the implausibility of fog in a northern African location.

The (mis)quote "Play it again Sam" originates with this film. Contrary to popular belief, this line was never uttered in the film. The closest lines are as follows.

At one point, Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) asked Sam (Dooley Wilson) to play "As time goes by", and said "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By'." Later, Rick (Humphrey Bogart) requested an encore by saying "You played it for her, you can play it for me!...If she can stand it, I can! Play it!"

The misquote was used as the title of Woody Allen's pastiche of Casablanca, Play It Again, Sam[?], and also in the earlier Marx Brothers film A Night in Casablanca[?].

This film does have many genuine memorable quotes. Two of the best known ones are uttered by Rick:

"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."

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

Other quotes can be found in this Internet Movie Database webpage (http://us.imdb.com/Quotes?0034583).

Casablanca was ranked by the American Film Institute as the 2nd greatest American film, after Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, and has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Casablanca won three Oscars:

It was also nominated for another five Oscars:

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