Casablanca's tragically unfulfilled romance is famous enough to single-handedly evoke fond memories of classical Hollywood stars smoking cigarettes and drinking too much hard liquor. Moreover the picture is filled with as many bon mots as any other work every produced and has been the recipient of numerous copies, rip-offs and homage as one of the bedrocks of the Hollywood cannon.

It tells the story of Rick Blain (Humphrey Bogart), an American ex-patriot, who lives in the title city where he runs a saloon called Rick's Café Américain and observes the changing tides of World War II from his relatively safe bar perch. He's a man with a history, not all of it pleasant, the lynchpin being his one lost love in the form of the beautiful Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman).

One night Rick's as he's managing his bar an associate named Ugarte (Peter Lorre) reveals how he's acquired immigration visas from two murdered German couriers. Because of Nazi expansion the visas are extremely valuable to the still free French colony of Casablanca, each member of whom wishes to find safe passage to the United States. Ugarte entrusts Rick with the visas but is snatched up by the local police under the direction of Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains). Unfortunately Renault is merely acting under the direction of his visiting Third Reich master, Major Heinrich Strasser (Conrad Veidt), who is ultimately trying to capture the man chosen to receive Ugarte's stolen papers.

Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) is that man and he's also long lost Ilsa's husband, much to Rick's surprise and chagrin. Significantly he's an important resistance leader at odds with German interests and this makes him a marked man in Casablanca. Though his political actions and status as a revolutionary figure put him in danger, it's Ilsa's struggle to choose between the two men in her life that concentrates his geopolitical problem into a personal concern and then blows it back out again, though not before a number of heartrending reversals.

During one such moment Rick goes on a drunken bender and is comforted by Sam (Dooley Wilson), his longtime friend. Remembering an earlier time in Paris before the Nazi invasion Rick recoils at the thought of how Ilsa loved and then left him without a word. Hoping their paths would never again cross he's reluctantly forced to deal with her and despite the palpable tension between them in recognition of their once perfect romantic moment. Fortunately his anger subsides when he learns that she left him only after discovering how Victor survived a concentration camp where he was rumored to have died thus earning them Rick's allegiance and the use of Ugarte's stolen visas to escape the country.

Before completing his plan, however, he sells his saloon to Ferrari (Sydney Greenstreet), an underworld rival, after ensuring the safety of his business associates, Sam included, and then double crosses Renault to force his plan through. Just as Ilsa and Victor fly safely away Rick also manages to choose sides in the coming global conflict by killing Strasser and enjoying Renault's help in covering up the crime.

In the end, and under the fog of Casablanca's darkening night, the two cynical bystanders stand up to their small slice of tyranny and become heroes. Walking off together in the film's final image the two men are bonded together by a high mutual regard and an understanding of their coming sacrifices in the war.

Hastily released, and expected to bomb, Casablanca was a hit with audiences and critics alike. Its popular appeal was only further enhanced by the real life Nazi invasion of Casablanca just prior to the film's release. Poised for greatness, spurned on by global events and produced with acknowledged excellence, Michael Curtiz's film was something both unexpected and thrilling. In the early months of 1943 it's aspirations changed from being one of nearly 50 films produced under the aegis of Warner Bros. that very year and was eventually turned into a more robust fantasy of cinematic success and profitability.

Budgeted for some $950,000 it went on to earn nearly $4 million in domestic rentals. Just as importantly it also went on to win three of eight different Academy Award nominations and to finally earn its place in the National Film Registry with its election to that august body in 1989.

By now Casablanca is to film scholarship and movie memory what Da Vinci's work is to enthusiasts of Renaissance Italian art. It's part and parcel of all that Classical Hollywood ever aspired to be with the subsequent joy of finding a vast and enthusiastic audience that agreed with such a sentiment. But it's also a story of studio production as the sum of factory-like, efficient parts managing to work together and synthesize, arguably, Curtiz's greatest work as a director and producer Hal Wallis's greatest picture as an old style movie mogul.

Originally derived from the unpublished play "Everybody Comes to Rick's" written by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison, Casablanca bore the stamp of mass production from the very beginning. Optioned for some $20,000, then an unheard of sum for an unpublished play, Wallis immediately assigned a small group of writer's to adapt the property for the big screen. Topical events concerning the patriotic fervor for fighting World War II were added and numerous casting options were discussed.

One of the iterations preferred by Wallis involved Ronald Reagan and Ann Sheridan in the central roles. Another involved Hedy Lamarr who was approached with the role of Ilsa despite her contractual obligations with the rival studio, MGM. She later declined because the movie's script was unfinished and was likely to stay that way throughout production and this theme of incompletion plagued the entire production.

Throughout it was unclear to the writers, director, producer or even the actors themselves if Ilsa would end up with Rick or Victor in the final reel. The result of this schizophrenic process was everywhere a problem and resulted in almost daily rewrites. It also lent confusion to casting of the supporting cast made most clearly evident in the role of Sam. Originally intended as a man's part, the role was nearly rewritten and cast with a female performer. Hazel Scott, Lena Horne and Ella Fitzgerald were all tested but Dooley Wilson was finally given the job, and this despite being a professional drummer with only the most limited skill as a pianist.

Even after production was complete Wallis waffled about how to end the film while working to integrate the final elements of the picture like its soundtrack. Bogart was eventually called in to dub the film's famous final line some three weeks after production wrapped but it was composer Max Steiner's decision to include the Herman Hupfeld song "As Time Goes By" rather than write his own song and lyrics that remains one of the most lasting icons of the film.

Altogether there was a crapshoot of 10 different films vying for the Outstanding Motion Picture Academy Award of 1943. Though Casablanca ended up with the top Oscar for Wallis's mantelpiece it wasn't for a lack of competition. Pitted against the likes of For Whom the Bell Tolls, Heaven Can Wait, The Human Comedy, In Which We Serve, Madam Curie, The More the Merrier, The Ox-Bow Incident, The Song of Bernadette and Watch the Rhine, Curtiz's movie was simply considered the most excellent movie of its moment. History has, of course, born out this impression and added to it the reflection of time to emphasize the overall greatness of the film and install it as an American classic.

With such an outpouring of 10 comparable films in its moment, though, it's a surprise, in retrospect at the very least, that three other films weren't considered for the year's top award as likable substitutes for any one of the co-nominated titles. Perhaps as demonstration of the difference between Academy sensibilities during the voting season of 1944 and the strains of interest surrounding Shadow of a Doubt, Cabin in the Sky and I Walked with a Zombie in subsequent decades, it seems that each of these films is worthwhile in their own right despite being overlooked for Oscar consideration.

Even so I hasten to add that Casablanca is certainly the correct choice for movie of the year, 1943. It's story, famously sharp-witted characters and tragic romance make it the envy of virtually any year in the history of cinema. Not for nothing it never hurt that Bergman and Bogart were its headliners or that virtually every technical aspect is executed with consummate skill, most especially Steiner's score and Arthur Edeson's cinematography. Nor is it a problem that Julius Epstein, Philip Epstein and Howard Koch managed to nail the zeitgeist of their times with a script exactly attuned to a nation at war with a setting at the northernmost end of Africa, in Casablanca.