Casablanca (film) misquotation. One of the lines most closely associated with the film—"Play it again, Sam"—is inaccurate. When Ilsa first enters the Café Americain, she spots Sam and asks him to "Play it once, Sam, for old times' sake." After he feigns ignorance, she responds, "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By'." Later that night, alone with Sam, Rick says, "You played it for her, you can play it for me," and "If she can stand it, I can! Play it!" Rick's toast to Ilsa, "Here's looking at you, kid", used four times, was not written into the draft screenplays, but
Humphrey Bogart considered among his best performances, and many Bogart biographers and actress/writer Louise Brooks feel the role is the closest to the real Bogart of any he played. She wrote that the film "gave him a role that he could play with complexity, because the film character's pride in his art, his selfishness, drunkenness, lack of energy stabbed with lightning strokes of violence were shared by the real Bogart". The character even mimics some of Bogart's personal habits, including twice ordering Bogart's favorite meal of ham and eggs. Something of a parody of "The Maltese Falcon", "Beat the Devil" was their