Humphrey Bogart gave one of the finest performances of his career in the role of Rick Blaine in Casablanca , and created plenty of iconic moments. Casablanca is often ranked alongside Citizen Kane , The Godfather , and Vertigo as one of the greatest American movies ever made. Casablanca represents the pinnacle of Old Hollywood filmmaking. It was put together like any other movie back then: the studio grabbed a piece of material — in this case, an unproduced play — and gave it to a director-for-hire and a couple of stars under contract.
But it was the perfect storm: the timely material tapped into the ongoing resistance against the Nazis; the director-for-hire, Michael Curtiz, had the ideal temperament for the story; and the contracted stars, Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, shared electric on-screen chemistry.
The song sets the mood perfectly for this bittersweet romantic reunion, and Bogart plays the scene beautifully. He sits alone in the dark, knocking back drink after drink, trying to process those feelings.
Sam comes in and tries to convince Rick to put down the bottle and go to bed. The subtext of this line is applicable in all walks of life. Life has a way of surprising people with coincidences that completely change the course of their lives.
But then, by pure chance, she wandered back into his life. From the moment Ilsa comes back into his life, Rick struggles to hide the fact that he resents her for leaving him without even giving a reason. She confesses that she still loves him and explains why she left him. When they met and fell in love, she was under the impression that her husband had been killed while escaping from a concentration camp. Upon discovering that Laszlo was alive and hiding out nearby, Ilsa had to leave Rick to take care of him.
