"Casablanca" - 1942

A cynical expatriate American café owner struggles to decide whether or not to help his former lover and her fugitive husband escape the Nazis in French Morocco.

Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid. Filmed and set during World War II, it focuses on an American expatriate who must choose between his love for a woman and helping her husband , a Czechoslovak resistance leader, escape from the Vichy-controlled city of Casablanca to continue his fight against the Germans.

Although Casablanca was an A-list film with established stars and first-rate writers, no one involved with its production expected it to stand out among the many pictures produced by Hollywood yearly. Casablanca was rushed into release to take advantage of the publicity from the Allied invasion of North Africa a few weeks earlier. It had its world premiere on November 26, 1942, in New York City and was released nationally in the United States on January 23, 1943. The film was a solid success in its initial run.