"Casablanca"

I sometimes miss the carefully-crafted dialogue of the time when Casablanca was filmed. Today, Rick would just say, “You’re no better than a fuckin’ whore.” Instead, we get this exchange (he calls her a whore in the last exposition).

Ilsa: Can I tell you a story, Rick?
Rick: Has it got a wow finish?
Ilsa: I don’t know the finish yet.
Rick: Well, go on. Tell it - maybe one will come to you as you go along.
Ilsa: It’s about a girl who had just come to Paris from her home in Oslo. At the house of some friends, she met a man about whom she’d heard her whole life. A very great and courageous man. He opened up for her a whole beautiful world full of knowledge and thoughts and ideals. Everything she knew or ever became was because of him. And she looked up to him and worshiped him… with a feeling she supposed was love.
Rick: [bitterly] Yes, it’s very pretty. I heard a story once - as a matter of fact, I’ve heard a lot of stories in my time. They went along with the sound of a tinny piano playing in the parlor downstairs. “Mister, I met a man once when I was a kid,” it always began.

No!
Shame on you, Sir!

He doesn’t call her a whore, he says she’s full of shit. Problem is that she was telling the truth. She loved both of them in different ways.

I don’t recall any melting, but I do recall a wall sign (in the beginning, where the police are rounding up the “usual suspects”) that shows a picture of Marshal Petain; and says, in French, “Je tiens mes promesses meme celles des autres,” which translates to English as, “I keep my promises, even those of other people.” But while I understood the French (I can read and understand French), I don’t recall it “melting” into English.

Regardless, the wall sign and Marshal Petain set the scene: here we are, during WWII, in a land governed by Vichy France, that has some sort of connection to neutral Portugal; and in which bribes and connections overcome politics. Now, what are we going to do about it when Rick’s old flame–and her husband, who is a Nazi-fighter–walk in?

That’s it, in a nutshell. And how the question was answered, made a memorable movie.

As an aside, as regards languages in the movie: I’ve been to Morocco. I saw signs in Arabic, in Spanish, in French, and in English. I was not always in tourist areas where English, or at least French, might be expected. Although I do not speak Spanish or Arabic, I was able to use my French with merchants and others who did not speak English; and when neither of us understood the other, we bargained over tea with numbers written on a piece of paper and a lot of pointing. After all that, I can easily believe that the “house language” of Rick’s Cafe is English; but somebody there can always speak French, Spanish, or Arabic should the need arise.

And the tea is nice. Problem is, to be invited to tea while negotiating, you have to tacitly agree to buy something. In the end, I bought a nice handwoven blanket that I still have today.

I saw what you did there, Jules…

‘Was it Laslo you left me for, or where there others in between, or aren’t you the kind that tells?’
He’s calling her a whore, the line about a tinny piano in the parlor is a brothel reference.

Ah, I’ve never been in a brothel. That I know of. I thought it was just a way of saying it’s a sad song and dance story, being sarcastic.