Finding Casablanca

I watched the 1942 movie "Casablanca" for maybe the tenth time on Thursday. My TiVo has a feature that allows you to find TV shows by actor, and among a pretty long list of my favorites is Humphrey Bogart. I admired the lifestyle, his long marriage to Lauren Bacall. He looked great in a suit. He appeared to have fun with his life.

Casablanca is a great movie. It is a superb movie for its pace, particularly because nothing noteworthy happens during the movie.

The movie keeps you off balance throughout. It's like an open marketplace, and everyone is dealing, trying to snare an advantage for themselves. Will the letters of transit be obtained? Will Rick get back with Ilsa?

There's a pending sense of doom in the movie, and with good reason: it is 1942, and for the United States it is the worst year of World War II. The outcome of the war was not at all clear at the time. The Nazis and the Japanese seemed to be unstoppable, their armies sweeping across Europe, Africa and the Pacific Ocean. The conquering Nazis had already goosestepped into Paris, confident, cruel.

The dialogue is snappy and clever. The protagonists are multidimensional, with a generous helping of self-interest and a willingness to cheat to achieve their ends.

Beautiful Ilsa had an affair with Rick while a married woman? Those eyes of Bergman's are luminous. Only Elizabeth Taylor, for me, matched Bergman's beauty.

In the end, the good guys win - sort of. Husband and wife fly off to continue the struggle, and Rick decides to carry on the fight with the Nazis. But unlike Rhett Butler who joined a lost cause toward the end of the Civil War, Bogie stands tall despite his disappointment, and walks off into the airport fog with Captain Renault, vowing to fight on.

Each of the characters is flawed, at times deeply so, and yet each, except the Nazis, is redeemed in some manner. It's quite the movie, for a myriad of reasons.