Script After watching this again I think the dialogue and the script really stands out. (It's more impressive than I remembered) I loved a lot of the dialogue -- it's clever and insightful at times, and has that fast-paced, witty "Golden-Age-of-Hollywood" touch. (In fact, I had to rewind a couple times to catch a line I may have missed -- either it's my speakers or they were simply speaking too fast)
... I also think Claude Rains (Captain Renaut) had some of the film's best and most enjoyable dialogue:
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Rick Blaine: And remember, this gun is pointed right at your heart.
Captain Louis Renault: That is my
least vulnerable spot.
Captain Louis Renault: Oh, please, monsieur. It is a little game we play. They put it on the bill, I tear up the bill. It is very convenient.
Major Strasser: You give him credit for too much cleverness. My impression was that he's just another blundering American.
Captain Renault: We musn't underestimate American blundering. I was with them when they blundered into Berlin in 1918.
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And then there are the well-known lines that have been often spoofed, quoted, and imitated...the "hill of beans" speech and "Here's looking at you kid." "We'll always have Paris" is a very beautiful line because I think people identify with that line since there's always that one thing we've lost before but fondly remember. We all have our own "Paris" in one way or another. (not a romantic tryst necessarily, of course, but it could be anything we have a nostalgic feeling for that we can't have again. Childhood? An old friend? A loved one?) At least that's my take on the lines.
I also like the unconventional way the film plays out. Most of it takes place at one setting (Rick's saloon) and once in a while we venture outside. And halfway in the film, we get a 5-minute flashback that shows the the wonderful times Rick and Ilsa had. And then we go back to the present time, and the film continues from there. It reminds me a bit of
Lifeboat and
Dial 'M' For Murder where the majority of the film plays out with very few settings, and it works becuase the strength of th eperformances and the great dialogue carries it through. A good lesson to other filmmakers who tend to ignore the importance of a script, the real backbone of a film.
The "Dueling Anthems" sequence is emotional and very well done, with the editing and cross-cutting between the French Alliance supporters versus the Nazis. Notice how the Germans are photographed at a distance, while the camera gives the French supporters extreme glossy close-ups. It makes us sympathize with them more and look at the Nazis as if they were an unwelcome nuisance and the enemy-- even
their anthem gets drowned out eventually by the French anthem.