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Casablanca

Favorite Moments

Casablanca is practically the ultimate in great film quotes. Part of what makes the script by the Epstein twins and Koward Koch a truly great one is that every line has value and almost every line is memorable.

Are my eyes really brown? RICK
[reading the Nazi file on him]
Are my eyes really brown?
FERRARI
We might as well be frank, Monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you out of Casablanca -- and the Germans have outlawed miracles.
UGARTE
You despise me, don't you?

RICK
If I gave you any thought, I probably would.
RICK
Don't you sometimes wonder if it's worth all this? I mean what you're fighting for.

VICTOR
You might as well question why we breathe. If we stop breathing, we'll die. If we stop fighting our enemies, the world will die.
RICK
Don't forget this gun is pointed at your heart.

RENAULT
That is my least vulnerable spot.
22 (11K) CROUPIER
Vingt-deux!

And let us not forget
my favorite scene in the whole movie.

If I live to be a hundred and twelve I may never understand why this film is often considered a "chick flick." It's got Nazis! And guns! And narrow escapes from secret meetings in the dead of night! And clandestine deals and gambling and murder and corrupt police and bribes and double-crosses! Maybe I don't understand what defines a "chick flick."

ilsa-adoring (32K) Anyway. In my opinion, Ingrid Berman's eyes alone would make this film worth loving. And I recognize that this is partly thanks to the magnificent photography of Arthur Edeson. But this image is a special favorite of mine. In my favorite scene in this great film, Ilsa gazes adoringly at Victor as he leads the cafe patrons in defying the Nazis by singing "Le Marseillaise." When I was a teenager I used to say that I could die a happy man if a woman ever looked at me in this way.

groundhogs (11K)
In that same scene, watch Yvonne (Madeleine LeBeau) crying and ask yourself, "Are these the tears of the character -- or the actress?" I say it has to be a little of both: two years before making this film she and her husband had been forced to flee their native France just ahead of Nazi occupation! And she wasn't the only real refugee in this picture: S. Z. Sakall ("Professor Karl" in this movie) also escaped from Europe a few steps ahead of the Nazis. Interestingly, LeBeau and Sakall were both born on February 2nd ... and pardon me if I find that interesting but I too was born on February 2nd! So Yvonne and Karl and I are all fellow Groundhogs.

rick-firstglimpse (36K)
Our first glimpse of "Monsieur Rick." What a great cinematic introduction to a character. Who is this man who drinks and smokes and plays solitaire chess (think about that!) while running a busy cafe? All the questions about Rick -- about his complexity and ambiguity -- are all here, and we haven't even seen his face yet. Brilliant.

All photos © 1942 Warner Bros Pictures