Casablanca

Set in unoccupied Africa during the early days of World War II: An American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.

• Director: Michael Curtiz
• Genre:Drama / Romance

Cast

Humphrey Bogart : Richard ‘Rick’ Blaine
Ingrid Bergman : Ilsa Lund
Paul Henreid : Victor Laszlo
Claude Rains : Captain Renault
Conrad Veidt : Major Strasser

Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) is a bitter, cynical American expatriate living in Casablanca. He owns and runs “Rick’s Café Américain”, an upscale nightclub and gambling den that attracts a mixed clientele: Vichy French, Italian, and Nazi officials; refugees desperately seeking to reach the United States, as yet uninvolved in the war; and those who prey on them. Although Rick professes to be neutral in all matters, it is later revealed that he had run guns to Ethiopia to combat the 1935 Italian invasion, and fought on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War against Francisco Franco’s Nationalists.

Ugarte (Peter Lorre), a petty criminal, arrives in Rick’s club with “letters of transit” obtained through the murder of two German couriers. The papers allow the bearer to travel freely around German-controlled Europe and to neutral Portugal, and from there to America. The letters are almost priceless to any of the continual stream of refugees who end up stranded in Casablanca. Ugarte plans to make his fortune by selling them to the highest bidder, who is due to arrive at the club later that night. However, before the exchange can take place, Ugarte is arrested by the local police under the command of Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), a corrupt opportunist who later says of himself, “I have no convictions… I blow with the wind, and the prevailing wind happens to be from Vichy.” Unbeknownst to Renault and the Nazis, Ugarte had entrusted the letters to Rick because “… somehow, just because you despise me, you are the only one I trust.” Ugarte dies in police custody without revealing the location of the letters.

At this point, the reason for Rick’s bitterness re-enters his life. His ex-lover, Norwegian Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) arrives with her husband, Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), a fugitive Czech Resistance leader long sought by the Nazis. The couple need the letters to leave for America to continue his work. German Major Strasser (Conrad Veidt) arrives to see to it that Laszlo does not succeed. Read more