“Cinema Snapshot”

Rick’s Café Américain – “Casablanca”

“Casablanca” (1942)

Rick’s Café Américain is the most memorable location in the classic “Casablanca”. American expatriate Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) keeps his club successful by catering to a wide-ranging clientele. Whether its German Nazis and the sympathetic Vichy French or an assortment of smugglers and gamblers, Rick stays in business by embracing neutrality and adhering to his one policy – “I stick my neck out for nobody”.

Rick’s Place is a bustling den of music, socializing, and backroom gambling. He doesn’t allow the politics or divisions of war in his front door but as tensions rise in the area he finds himself in a precarious position. Things are complicated even more by the surprise appearance of old flame Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) and her resistance leader husband Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) who is on the run from his Nazi pursuers. All of this makes things around Rick’s Café Américain very interesting.