(spoiler alert. read at you own peril)
"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine", says American Rick Blaine (played by Humphrey Bogart) as he downs a scotch. He is of course speaking about his beautiful ex-girlfriend Ilsa (played by the beautiful Ingrid Bergman). Rick and Ilsa get separated during the chaos of the invasion of France by the advancing Nazis. Rick and Ilsa were dating and living together in Paris before the invasion.
Rick of course lands on both his feet in French occupied Casablanca operating a bar/nightclub. He is most probably a spy for the nascent CIA and has done interesting things including being a gun runner to rebels in Ethiopia and a mercenary for the loyalists in the Spanish civil war. He is dealing with the semi-loyal French police and has made enemies with the incoming German leadership who are still trying to get a handle on the place.
Rick is heart broken over Ilsa leaving him in Paris and then she comes to his bar in Casablanca with her husband Laszlo whom she found was alive during the invasion of Paris after thinking him for dead during the German invasion of Czechoslovakia. She had nursed Laszlo back to health
Rick is in possession of papers that will let two individuals escape Casablanca. Ilsa asks Rick to give one to her husband Laszlo so he can escape to the United States and resurrect the Czech resistance movement against the Nazis.
A cat and mouse game ensues for the papers for the two individuals who can escape to America.Is it Rick and Ilsa or just Laszlo as a parallel game emerges where Nazi agents are trying to arrest Laszlo. Ilsa and the viewers are kept guessing until the last minute of the outcome of the confusing drama that ensues. Rick of course play his card close and at the end in an exciting finale and killing of the Nazi agent gives up both of the papers to Ilsa and Laszlo as they escape to America.
Ilsa is moved by Rick's nobel gesture and cannot express it because Laszlo is not aware of the relationship between Ilsa and Rick.
A scotch drinking cool guy with no commitments but is in madly in love with a woman and gives up an escape to freedom and embraces trouble with the Nazis to truly help the woman he loves.
A poignant love story and any woman who has been loved like Rick loved Ilsa is lucky indeed.
We all want to be Rick Blaine,the Noble savage. War, Romance, love, courage, coolness, drama and heroism, this movie had it all. And that is why Casablanca is one of the greatest movies of all time.
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