Classic Scene #23: Casablanca

Here’s looking at you, kid…

Casablanca

by empire |
Published on

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: But Richard, no, I, I...

RICK: Now 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?

LOUIS: 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: What about us?

RICK: We'll always have Paris. We didn't have it, 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 o' beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that. (She begins to cry) Now, now. Here's looking at you kid...

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