Released: January 1943

Directed By: Michael Curtiz

Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre.

By the time we meet Richard Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) in the first act of Casablanca, two German couriers have been murdered and two valuable letters of transit have been stolen, Capt. Louis Renault (Claude Rains) has rounded up the usual suspects, Major Strasser (Conrad Veidt) of the Third Reich shows up ahead of the impending arrival of Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), a resistance leader whom Strasser must keep from leaving Casablanca, and a significant arrest has been arranged for Strasser’s amusement that evening a Rick’s Café American. Why Rick’s? Well, everyone comes to Rick’s. Casablanca is also filled with vultures, vultures everywhere, willing to steal, exploit, and con to buy their way out of Casablanca on one of the handful of flights that depart for Lisbon every day.

At this point Rick is an enigma. An expatriate American who runs a saloon in one of the most corrupt places in the world, Casablanca in French Morrocco. But Rick’s Café is special, and seemingly as enigmatic as its owner.

When the audience first meets Rick, sitting at a chess board, he approves or rejects patrons who are allowed to enter. When he refuses a prominent German banker (Gregory Gaye), the banker raises a fuss, and Rick deals with the situation personally. While Rick insults the banker, unceremoniously Signor Ugarte (Peter Lorre) squeezes through the door. Rick greets him in passing and continues to berate the banker. The commotion over, Ugarte joins Rick. The conversation that follows is one of the best, and most important in the entire film.

On the surface the scene establishes Rick’s cynicism and Ugarte as a petty criminal who needs Rick to hold some documents for him. The all-important letters of transit. But the dialogue does much more than convey information, it gives a minor, but no less important character a backstory that allows the viewer to use their imagination and expand the world that Casablanca exists in.

Rick and Ugarte have crossed paths many times, Rick for the most part turning a blind eye to Ugarte’s petty criminal activities. What is implied is Ugarte is very active, though a minor character in the criminal underworld and hardly worthy of Rick’s admiration. However, it is strongly implied right from the beginning of the scene that Ugarte is responsible for the deaths of the couriers and theft of the letters of transit. These facts are confirmed by the end of the scene. The viewer is free to imagine how Ugarte accomplished this, which could be a story unto itself.

Imagining the lives of characters outside of what is being presented makes the world they inhabit that much more real. It isn’t so much how Ugarte did it, or the events leading to it, rather reactively imaging him doing away with the couriers and stealing the letters. Add to that everything we’ve learned about life in Casablanca up to this point.

Ugarte is a pathetic figure. A petty criminal who for some reason wants Rick’s admiration, even approval for what he’s done. He’s dying to come straight out and tell Rick he murdered the couriers, but he knows better. Like many criminals, they can’t help but boast, and Rick is the only one Ugarte feels safe boasting, to a point.

As a bonus, the dialogue in the scene is some of the sharpest in the entire film. Rather than coming straight out with information, it plays as two characters beating around the bush, yet the audience knows exactly what is being spoken about. This is how these two people would speak to one another, and it is completely believable, rather than dishing information out on a silver platter. The whole build up to this scene is like that, and it works.

Now let’s allow the scene to speak for itself:

Without directly spelling anything out Ugarte’s world is being built right from the moment he squeezes his way into the casino. A fully rounded character with two scenes in Casablanca’s first act sits next to the cornerstone to build Casablanca’s world, making the entire environment, beyond Rick’s Café that much more believable. And Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) hasn’t even shown up yet.

Everything is building to this scene and is conveyed in such a thoroughly entertaining way, with questions, sketchy characters, dangerous characters, and with humor and atmosphere. When Rick and Ugarte meet, it’s a tremendous pay-off.

Personally, I first watched Casablanca in 1981 and this is the impact it had on me right from the point the opening titles end. I was completely immersed in the film and its world well before Rick and Ugarte meet. The wheeling and dealing, hushed voices, everyone has an angle trying to get out of Casablanca. However, there is no getting out of Casablanca. From where I’m sitting, why would you want to?