Casablanca [VHS]

The time: World War II. The place: Morocco, setting with European refugees desperate for passage to the neutral Lisbon. The film: Casablanca, "the best Hollywood movie of all time" (Leonard Maltin). The legends loom larger as time goes by. In the forty-fufth film of his carreer, tough guy Humphry Bogart at last becomes a romantic leading man (in a role originally intended for (Ronald Reagan). Bogart and luminous Ingrid Bergman portray former lovers briefly reunited in the chos of war. They'll "always have Paris." And well always have their incomparable on-screen magic. Bogart is Rick a worls-weary nighclub owner who claims, "I stick my neck out for nobody." Bergman is Lisa, fleeing the Nazis with her Resistance-here husband Only Rick can help the pair escape, but he refuses....until Lisa reawakens his idealism. This restored and digitially remastered edition includes the original theatrical trailer and a special twenty-minute making of documentary narrated by Lauren Bacall. Here's Looking at You!!

A truly perfect movie, the 1942 Casablanca still wows viewers today, and for good reason. Its unique story of a love triangle set against terribly high stakes in the war against a monster is sophisticated instead of outlandish, intriguing instead of garish. Humphrey Bogart plays the allegedly apolitical club owner in unoccupied French territory that is nevertheless crawling with Nazis; Ingrid Bergman is the lover who mysteriously deserted him in Paris; and Paul Heinreid is her heroic, slightly bewildered husband. Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Conrad Veidt are among what may be the best supporting cast in the history of Hollywood films. This is certainly among the most spirited and ennobling movies ever made. --Tom Keogh