Also Conrad Veidt, one of the most famous actors of Weimar cinema, as Major Strasser.
S. Z. Sakall, who played Carl the head waiter, also fled the Nazis:
“Have you tried 22 tonight?” (Pause.) “I said 22.” (Wink to the croupier.) Number 22 wins.
“Leave it there.” (Another wink.) Again, number 22 wins.
“Cash it in and don’t come back.”
Probably my favorite movie of all time.
When you look at it in context, “We’ll always have Paris” is a line that has layers. I wonder if the writers put that in there in part to stoke fervor in some of the audience.
It was the Allied landings in NW Africa (Operation TORCH) that finally prompted Hitler to order the occupation of Vichy France (Operation ANTON) on 11 November 1942, the anniversary of the Armistice ending WWI. The Vichy regime’s prime minister, Pierre Laval, traveled from Vichy to Munich by car to try and prevent the occupation, but he was basically ignored by Hitler and the Italian representing Mussolini.
Laval, like Quisling in Norway, was easy to hate because he looked like a traitor.
When Sasha said “Eto prosto zamechatel’no!” (“That’s simply marvellous!”) upon hearing of Rick’s generosity, my Russian friends who went to see the movie with me all went “He spoke Russian! He spoke Russian!”
I think there’s a “Paris” in everyone’s past. There certainly is in mine. :o
“Are you sure this place is honest?”
“Honest? As honest as the day is long!”
We saw it in high school film club. The next week, we saw Plan 9 from Outer Space. Our teacher wanted us to have a full appreciation of film’s breadth, by showing us both the best and the worst.
I’m not sure that was a wise juxtapositioning. Plan 9 is one of the greatest (albeit unintentional) comedies of all time. 
Surely your teacher could have found a movie equally bad that doesn’t make people laugh?
“One thing’s for sure: Inspector Clay’s been murdered. And somebody’s responsible!”
Well, it’s not like he was a sadistic monster or anything. I’m sure he wanted us to get at least some enjoyment (of some sort) out of whatever we watched.
The worst movie I can think of (in terms of being just plain **bad **and boring) is the original Emmanuelle, but I guess that would be a little too racey for a high school film club. I remember the lights coming back on after 90 tedious minutes had passed, and I thought “That’s IT? That’s the flick? NOTHING HAPPENED!!!”
In terms of just plain crap, I guess I’d go with Entrapment instead. Probably the only time I ever left a theater actually wanting my money back.
Your winnings, sir. 
Ugarte: You despise me, don’t you?
Rick: If I gave you any thought I probably would.
Well there are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn’t advise you to try to invade.
And I’ll bet the magical papers still don’t make any sense.
aside from the signatures on it and why the heavy-handed Nazis would honor those papers, there’s one thing that’s always been a slight nagging feeling about the papers. Rick took them and hid them in Sam’s piano, simply opening the top and stuffing them in.
I always assumed that this matter-of-fact and direct method of hiding them (He even did it while the place was open to business, with Sam playing the piano at the time) was meant to say to the audience “This isn’t the big point here, OK? This ain’t The Purloined Letter. the point is that Rick hid them where they wouldn’t be found by The Bad Guys, so let’s just assume that and get on to the important stuff, which is Rick and Lazlo and Ilsa.”
Nevertheless, it still bugs me that Captain Renault’s men, no matter if they were classic movie Dumb Henchmen or not, didn’t bother to do something as simple and obvious as just looking inside the hinged top of the piano.
I dunno - it was probably* too *obvious. They’d figure, given the value of the letters, that Rick would have hidden them someplace safe. If he’s just leaving them in the relative open, they could have been anywhere, and they’d have to have checked everything.
Hiding in plain sight isn’t always a bad idea.
Naah – we’re not talking about C. Augute Dupin here, using ratiocination to figure out where the letters were hidden without wasting too much of his own physical effort. Renault’s men were a bunch of goons who were told to Find the Letters, and Mess the Place Up a Bit So It Looks Like You Did Something. So they simply go looking every place that looks like it might have a letter, while busting up some furniture on the side. You want to look busy, so you look in the obvious places. You don’t say to yourself “Oh, that’s Too Obvious, he wouldn’t hide it there”. You just look. Is it a possible hiding place? Yup. Open and stick your nose in.
There’s no way they wouldn’t have flipped open the lid of the piano.
as I say, I know why they did it – they didn’t want to make this a puzzle story about how and where Rick hid the letters – but they could’ve avoided that by showing him stashing them in a hidden compartment somewhere. It’d be just like Rick to have a hidden compartment.
As was noted earlier in this forum, the Nazis at this point in the war were less heavy-handed than they might have been, since they needed the cooperation of the Vichy government. Gen Henri Giraud, who was captured in the Battle of France in 1940, escaped from captivity in Germany and made it to Unoccupied France. The Nazis wanted him back, but Vichy refused to extradite him. Eventually, in November 1942, he joined the Allies in NW Africa and vied with deGaulle for leadership of the Free French.
Also, it is not true that the papers were signed by Gen deGaulle (who was in exile in London at the time), as has often been claimed. If you watch a clip of the scene where Peter Lorre shows the papers to Rick and follow the movements of his mouth, it’s clear he’s saying “General Weygand.” His German accent makes it hard to understand otherwise.