Casablanca (film)  

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"When all the archetypes burst out shamelessly, we plumb the depths of Homeric profundity. Two cliches make us laugh but a hundred cliches moves us because we sense dimly that the cliches are talking among themselves, celebrating a reunion . . . Just as the extreme of pain meets sensual pleasure, and the extreme of perversion borders on mystical energy, so too the extreme of banality allows us to catch a glimpse of the Sublime." -- Umberto Eco, "Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual Collage" (1984) from Travels in Hyperreality

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Casablanca is an Oscar-winning 1942 romance film set in the Vichy-controlled Moroccan city of Casablanca. The film was directed by Michael Curtiz and stars Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine and Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund. It focuses on Rick's conflict between, in the words of one character, love and virtue: he must choose between his love for Ilsa and doing the right thing, helping her and her Resistance leader husband escape from Casablanca to continue his fight against the Nazis.

Quotations

One of the lines most closely associated with the film—"Play it again, Sam"—is a misquotation. When Ilsa first enters the Café Americain, she spots Sam and asks him to "Play it once, Sam, for old times' sake." After he feigns ignorance, she responds, "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By'." Later that night, alone with Sam, Rick says, "You played it for her, you can play it for me," and "If she can stand it, I can! Play it!"

Rick's toast to Ilsa, "Here's looking at you, kid", used several times, is not in the draft screenplays, but has been attributed to something Bogart said to Bergman as he taught her poker between takes. It was voted the 5th most memorable line in cinema in AFI's 100 Years…100 Movie Quotes by the American Film Institute.

Six lines from Casablanca appeared in the AFI list, the most of any film (Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz tied for second with three apiece). The other five are:

  • "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."—20th
  • "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By'."—28th
  • "Round up the usual suspects."—32nd
  • "We'll always have Paris."—43rd
  • "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."—67th




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Casablanca (film)" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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