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I know some people who have avoided this for years, feeling like it'd be a chore to watch. It isn't. It's staggeringly fast-moving and funnier than people tend to mention. https://twitter.com/MrRobValentine/status/1341692912703311873
Not to say it's flawless - it's a very masculine approach to romance etc, but if it works for you, it's blisteringly good.
One thing in Casablanca people don't talk about enough: Conrad Veidt. The man had, by any measures, one of the most amazing careers an actor could have.
He was one of a number of German actors who had fled the country. He was asked to declare his race to keep working in Germany, and he answered 'Jew', in an act of solidarity with Jews (including his wife). He then made a string of anti-Nazi films in Britain and the US.
This wasn't his first brush with protest - he starred in a 1919 film called Different From The Others, which was about the unfairness of anti-homosexual laws. It's believed to be the first pro-gay movie ever.
The following year, Conrad Veidt starred in one of the most influential films ever - the Cabinet of Dr Caligari. He's Cesare, the Somnambulist, and one of the earliest screen monsters. And he's magnetic in it.
The three male actors in Caligari are a fascinating contrast. Veidt was an anti-Nazi protestor. His co-star Friedrich Fehér was Jewish. And Werner Krauss (Caligari) was an anti-semite who ended up collaborating with the Nazis and making propaganda.
And if all that isn't enough, he was also the star of another classic film, The Man Who Laughs. He plays Gwynplaine, forced by a surgeon to carry this rictus smile for the rest of his life. Remind you of anyone? Yep - this was a direct inspiration for The Joker.
And then caps off his career by playing the villain (in another swipe at the Nazis) in what's widely agreed to be one of the greatest films ever made. Conrad Veidt. What a career.
