AE116
King & Country
Not yet Released - expected in late November.
‘Sam’ the iconic piano player in ‘Casablanca’ is the resident entertainer and close, personal confidant of Rick Blaine at ‘Rick’s Café Americain’.
‘Sam’ played memorably by Dooley Wilson serves as the emotional heart of the film. He also delivers the legendary rendition of “As Time Goes By” which, in various forms, is the musical motif and theme of the movie.
This figure portrays him in his stage, ‘gold-lame’ suit singing and playing his colourfully-decorated stand-up piano.
‘Casablanca’ (1942) is widely considered one of the greatest American movies in cinema history. Filmed almost entirely at Warner Brothers studio in Burbank, California it was directed by Michael Curtiz, produced by Hal B. Wallis and starred Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.
Set during the early years of World War II in Vichy-controlled French Morocco, the film follows Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), a cynical, detached American expat who runs an upscale nightclub / casino called ‘Rick’s Café Americain’.
Rick’s carefully maintained neutrality is completely upended when his former lover Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) arrives unexpectedly into his life again… complete with her husband!
The husband, Victor Laszlo is a famous Czech resistance leader fleeing from the Nazis. With the Germans closing in, Ilsa turns to Rick to help Laszlo flee to America.
Rick is faced with an agonizing dilemma: pathing a future with the woman he loves, or sacrificing his personal desires to do what is right in the global fight against fascism.
Over the years, the reputation of this relatively small movie has grown and grown in popularity to become a great Hollywood classic together with the characters portrayed in it.