What can I say?  I don't have a romantic bone in my body, I learned after watching Kate and Leopold, but this is THE most romantic flick I've seen.  Sure, Rick (Bogart, of course) starts out as a drunken, bitter, callous prick, but he gets better. How many guys could reunite with a one true love, then make her "get on that plane?"  That ass Victor Laszlo doesn't deserve his woman, and Rick knows it, but he also knows that Laszlo (and indirectly, the world) needs her.

But the Big Noble Love Story isn't what pushes this film into greatness for me.  Nay, it is Claude Rains as the "poor, corrupt police official," Captain Renault.  His captain's cap worn as askew as his morals and philosophy, Renault both outsmarts and is outsmarted by the pompous Nazis determined to make a show of capturing Laszlo.  He's responsible for one of my Greatest Movie Moments after being ordered to shut down Rick's Cafe Americaine.  Immediately after insisting to Rick that he is "shocked... SHOCKED to find there is gambling going on here!", a croupier passes by with Renault's winnings, which he promptly pockets.

Even bit characters have their "moments."  From Ugarte to Sasha the bartender to Carl to Yvonne to the young couple trying to win money for Brisbon to, of course, Sam, Rick's pianist and - Rick would never admit it- friend.  My regrets are that Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet didn't have more screentime.  But my concerns don't matter to a hill of beans in this crazy world.