Casablanca 1942 - As Time Goes By (original song Dooley Wilson)

"As Time Goes By" is a song written by Herman Hupfeld in 1931. It became very famous in 1942 when it was sung by Sam (Dooley Wilson) in the film " Casablanca " Casablanca is a 1942 Hollywood romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman . The film is set at the beginning of World War II in the Moroccan city of Casablanca , then under the control of Vichy France. The plot focuses on the internal conflict of a man who must choose between duty and love , between the woman he loves and the need to help her and her husband, the leader of the Resistance movement , escape from Casablanca to continue the fight against the Nazis. Although Casablanca was created as an A-movie, with famous actors and first-rate scriptwriters, no one expected to achieve exceptional results

• and indeed, the first screenings brought a solid, but not spectacular success. It was considered to be one of dozens of run-of-the-mill films churned out in Hollywood every year . The film was quickly released to take advantage of the resonance surrounding the Casablanca Conference of the Allies and the landing of troops in North Africa , which took place a few weeks before the film's premiere and was still fresh in the minds of audiences.

Despite multiple changes of screenwriters who were trying to adapt a play that had not yet been staged for the big screen, and despite the fact that it was Bogart's first romantic role, Casablanca won three Oscars , including Best Picture . The American Film Institute declared the film the best American romantic comedy of all time . The characters, dialogue, and music became some of the most beloved by Americans, and the film's popularity grew to such a scale that it is still often named among the best films in Hollywood history. The film's premiere was timed to coincide with the city of Casablanca making headlines in the United States: in November 1942, the Allied forces occupied Casablanca, and in January 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill met there . Given this circumstance, Warner Brothers decided not to postpone the film's premiere. However, American soldiers in North Africa did not see it: the authorities did not want to provoke the numerous supporters of the Vichy regime in the French colonies. Casablanca was the seventh-largest film in the U.S. box office in 1943, but its appeal was not in its box office receipts or Academy Awards , or even its artistic originality (just compare Casablanca to Orson Welles's Citizen Kane ). Its strength was its timeliness, a reflection of Hollywood's ability to create movie magic despite its near- assembly-line production. Rick Blaine's reluctance to take risks for anyone was a metaphor for American society's attitude toward World War II, which was expressed in the isolationist policies that prevailed before Pearl Harbor . And the change that Rick experienced by the end of the film was symbolic of the change in American sentiment after the declaration of war.