Daily Dialogue — July 11, 2012

Rick takes the letters of transit out of his pocket and hands them to Renault, who turns and walks toward the hangar.

RICK: If you don’t mind, you fill in the names. That will make it even more official.

RENAULT: You think of everything, don’t you?

RICK: (quietly) And the names are Mr. and Mrs. Victor Laszlo.

Renault stops dead in his tracks, and turns around. Both Ilsa and Renault look at Rick with astonishment.

ILSA: But why my name, Richard?

RICK: Because you’re getting on that plane.

ILSA: (confused) I don’t understand. What about you?

RICK: I’m staying here with him ’til the plane gets safely away.

Rick’s intention suddenly dawns on Ilsa.

ILSA: No, Richard, no. What has happened to you? Last night we said –

RICK: — Last night we said a great many things. You said I was to do the thinking for both of us. Well, I’ve done a lot of it since then and it all adds up to one thing. You’re getting on that plane with Victor
where you belong.

ILSA: (protesting) But Richard, no, I, I –

RICK: — You’ve got to listen to me. Do you have any idea what you’d have to look forward to if you stayed here? Nine chances out of ten we’d both wind up in a concentration camp. Isn’t that true, Louis?

Renault countersigns the papers.

RENAULT: I’m afraid Major Strasser would insist.

ILSA: You’re saying this only to make me go.

RICK: I’m saying it because it’s true. Inside of us we both know you belong with Victor. You’re part of his work, the thing that keeps him going. If that plane leaves the ground and you’re not with him, you’ll regret it.

ILSA: No.

RICK: Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life.

ILSA: But what about us?

RICK: We’ll always have Paris. We didn’t have, we’d lost it, until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.

ILSA: And I said I would never leave you.

RICK: And you never will. But I’ve got a job to do, too. Where I’m going you can’t follow. What I’ve got to do you can’t be any part of. Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you’ll understand that. Now, now…

Ilsa’s eyes well up with tears. Rick puts his hand to her chin and raises her face to meet his own.

RICK: Here’s looking at you, kid.

— Rick (Humphrey Bogart), Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), Louis (Claude Rains), Casablanca (1942), screenplay by Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch, based on a play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison

The Daily Dialogue theme this week is departure, suggested by MatchesMalone. Today’s suggestion by Shaula Evans.

Trivia: The first writers to tackle a screenplay were Æneas MacKenzie and Wally Kline, who spent six weeks on the project. Afterwards, Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein came on board, and their major contribution was the building up of Claude Rains’ Capt. Renault character.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Some of the most famous dialogue cinema history.

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