Having been slightly underwhelmed by so many classics in the past few months, I was reserved about revisiting a film that I hadn’t seen since I was 16 years old and of which I expected so much. Boy how I misjudged that one: Films just don’t get much better than this. Humphrey Bogart is the king of cool and he is chasing one of the most attractive and alluring film stars of all time in Ingrid Bergman. The screenplay is spot on with witty banter and quick paced dialogue (justly winning the ‘Best Writing’ Oscar), particularly between Bogie and Bergman and Bogie and Claude Rains – in fact, between Bogie and anyone he talks to. It is no wonder that this film has coined no less than six of the AFI’s Top 100 Movie Quotes. The storyline too, keeps you guessing, with twists and turns aplenty – right down to the final line. There are many truly memorable scenes, but of particular note is when ‘Marseillaise’ is sung drowning out the German’s bullish, insensitive and antagonistic rendition of ‘Watch on the Rhine’: stirring, impassioned and extremely powerful. This is bloody good cinema, a true classic. Thank God that for film that 'We’ll always have Casablanca'.
*****
*****