1. The supporting cast is chock full of great actors giving beautiful cameos that make every moment of it a treat - they draw you into such a complete world, where you really feel all the desperate human stories passing through the town. Every moment is alive with wit and truth. Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, S.Z. Sakall, Leonid Kinskey all giving perfect little jewels of performances. It's like really, really good Chekhov.
2. Chemistry. Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman have such a hot relationship seething beneath the calm 1941 surface. There's such ache in their every encounter. It's really interesting to read that most of the people making the movie thought it was fairly run of the mill. Bergman called it "pretty ordinary stuff", and writer Julius Epstein said it had "more corn than in the states of Kansas and Iowa combined. But when corn works, there's nothing better." But it won best picture in 1942 and survives as one of the best movies of all time.
3. Humphrey Bogart is one of the most extraordinary film actors ever ever ever. This movie is one of the first old flicks I every saw, when I was about 15, and it started me on a lifelong love these great pictures, but I, of course, was completely in love with Ingrid Bergman. She was the most radiant, beautiful, expressive and deep women I had ever seen, and I have continued to adore her through the years.
But as a young man, I never appreciated Bogart's genius. I liked him - he was tough and dry - but I confess that I sometimes found his delivery monotonous, and he seemed a little stiff to me. Ah youth. Watching this movie again, now, I am overwhelmed with the subtlety and specificity of his acting, how much he is in the moment at every moment, and how incredibly passionate he is, how bold and honest his choices. It's miraculous stuff.
And let's not forget Dooley Wilson, who gives as sensitive and genuine a performance as you are like to see. And he didn't even really know how to play the piano. Beautiful.
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