Note: This Week in the Box is a year-long series where Sam works through the entire Warner Brothers 50 Film Collection box set. To find reviews of the other films in the series and see the complete list, click here.

Sometimes running behind can be useful. I have remained on schedule all year so far with seeing a movie every week from this box set, but I’ve consistently run 2-4 movies behind in writing about them for this blog. In the case of Casablanca, that is fortunately going to save me from looking even sillier than I usually do.

Unfortunately, the revelation that changed what I think about Casablanca didn’t happen until The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, so I’m not going to talk about it here. The moral of the story is that Humphrey Bogart– spoiler alert– is actually a really good actor.

If you think, as I did before I saw Casablanca, that Humphrey Bogart is not a very good actor at all, you will read his performance, as I did, as being wooden and unable to emote when the movie wants him to emote. While that isn’t actually the case, I haven’t rewatched Casablanca since Treasure, so my views on it are still kind of shaded. I suspect if I rewatched it now, I would have a much greater appreciation for it. Lacking that re-view, I don’t have all that much to say.

Because this one is so famous and thoroughly written about, I’m also invoking The Wizard of Oz Rule I just invented, which means I don’t need to bother writing a summary or anything about the movie because everyone already knows it. Instead, here are the miscellaneous things I took from the movie:

• This movie has way more famous quotes than even I realized it did. I could tell you several of them before the movie, and I knew it was very quoted, but it felt like a drinking game watching it. “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.” DRINK! “Round up the usual suspects.” DRINK! “We’ll always have Paris.” DRINK!
• You surely already knew this, but the most famous quote from the film is never actually said. While Woody Allen’s movie is called Play it again, Sam, the closest anyone gets in Casablanca itself is “Play it, Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By'” As a Sam myself, I am fond of trivia related to my name.
• I liked that the score used the melody of the song. I see what you did there, movie!
• It’s really a pretty sweet love story. I know, I’m going against the grain here, but I liked it.

Recommended.  Because, I mean, it’s Casablanca