Casablanca is one of my favorite movies.  It is set in the city of Casablanca (what are the odds?) during World War II.  Casablanca is in Morocco, a French colony at the time.  Under the 1940 settlement with Germany, France retained its overseas territories.  However, France was under the firm control of Germany.  The city’s location on the Atlantic coast of Africa and its ambivalent political situation made it a natural crossroads for people trying to escape Europe’s troubles.

The main plot deals with a love triangle.  A rootless, cynical American named Rick (Humphrey Bogart) owns a bar in Casablanca.  (In another coincidence, it is named Rick’s.)  He is in love with a woman named Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), who may be in love with him, but is married to the idealistic anti-Nazi Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid).  She may also be in love with Laszlo.  No one is sure.

One of the most stirring moments in the film is the scene in the bar where a group of German soldiers led by the manifestly evil Major Strasser are engaged in an a cappella performance of a German patriotic song.

All of the good people in the bar are disgusted by this boorish display.  Laszlo (a patron in the bar that night along with the beautiful Ilsa) rises to his feet, marches to the band that is watching the Germans in grizzled silence, and says to the conductor, “Play the Marseillaise!”

The conductor looks to Rick, standing across the room.  Rick gives a small but perceptible nod.  The band starts to play the French national anthem.  All the decent oppressed people in the bar join in.  The Germans try to finish their song above the stirring strains of the Marseillaise.  They may have rolled through the French Army in the Ardennes.  They may have booted the British off the continent at Dunkirk.  But in Rick’s bar on that night, they have to give up.  The patrons finish singing their song while the Germans look on, their anger building.

It is a wonderful scene.  I saw the movie in a theater one time when the audience burst into applause when at the end of the Marseillaise the non-Germans in the film shouted “Vive la France!”

The movie also has tender moments.  It’s obvious to the audience that Rick and Ilsa had a very close relationship at one time.  We don’t know the details.  These come into focus through a song.  When Ilsa first enters the bar with her husband, she sees Rick’s piano player and asks him to play “As Time Goes By”.  Rick is in the back room.  When he hears the song, he rushes to the piano, unaware that Ilsa is standing there.

He shouts at Sam, “I told you never to play that song!”  Then he sees Ilsa and falls silent.

After hours, he turns to Sam and says, “Play it, Sam.  If she can stand it, so can I.”  (I will just point out in passing that he does not say “Play it again, Sam.”)

As the music plays, we enter a flashback.  Rick and Ilsa are driving through Paris in the spring of 1940.  They are laughing, enjoying life, falling in love.  May of 1940 was not an ideal time to find love in Paris.  The city was about to be occupied by the Wehrmacht.  The two lovers realize that they have to get out of town.

They make arrangements to meet the next day.  She stands him up, leaving him in a pouring rain with a note telling him goodbye.  We find out later what happened.  She had thought Victor was dead.  When she found out that he was alive, she abandoned Rick for her husband.  But what does her heart say?  The movie never really tells us.  Part of the folklore of the film is that right up to the movie’s climax, the writers, producer, and director hadn’t decided which way Ilsa was going to jump.  The ambiguity in the plot may be the result of indecision rather than artifice.

It’s a wonderful film. It’s been decades since I saw it.  I may have to renew my acquaintance.

What put me in mind of this great film is something that happened yesterday.

During the movie’s flashback, while Rick and Ilsa are in what turns out to be the last moments of their romance, loudspeakers all over Paris begin to broadcast a message to the populace.  It’s in German, so Rick doesn’t understand it.  Ilsa translates for Rick (and for the audience).

The Germans will be entering the city the next day.  They are setting out their expectations for how the populace is to behave.  It is clear from the tone of the public announcer’s voice and from the look on Ilsa’s face that this is not going to be a moment of joyous celebration for anyone except the victors.

I have an Alexa in my living room, the gift of a family member.  It is silent nearly all of the time.  Every once in a while, I use it for a video call with family, although I think everyone has decided that the video call feature on our phones is more convenient.

When Amazon delivers a package, I’ll get a two-note signal from the device telling me to look on my porch.  Rarely, it will send a sound to get me to look at the screen to remind me of things that Amazon thinks I may be running out of.  (Even when they are right, I will wait a couple of days so as not to encourage them.)

Yesterday, June 9, I was on a call for work one room away from Alexa when it (she?) began to talk at a very high volume!  It was a long message.  I had to race to the device to unplug it.  I couldn’t think straight with this booming voice coming out of the device.  I didn’t want to disturb my teammates on the call.  Also, my spouse was on her own call upstairs.  The thing was a menace.

As I ran to unplug Alexa, I realized it was telling me to watch the House hearings on the events of January 6, which would be broadcast on NPR that night.  Amazon wants us listening to that presentation.

It’s the only time that Amazon has used Alexa to intrude into my life to that extent.

When Alexa began to boom its voice into my house, it reminded me of the scene in Casablanca where the Germans address the people of Paris through the public address system.

When I finally plugged Alexa back in, I put it on “Mute” permanently.  That reminded me of the scene in Casablanca where the band plays the Marseillaise.

Gerry Bresslour