Of all the films in all the cinemas in all the world . . . why this? The answer might sound as familiar as sliced bread, but there is nothing remotely prosaic about the magic. Casablanca is the greatest romantic thriller yet painted on screen. No one could accuse Curtiz of minting high art, but does that honestly matter?

Casablanca is shameless entertainment. It’s not, as many would have it, a noble melodrama about a grumpy nightclub owner with a broken heart. It is a terrific comedy of bad Vichy manners with genuine twists of repulsion and fear. The Second World War is still in its ghastly pomp, and loyalties are bought and sold in this Moroccan stew like black market favours.

Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine is a bastard with a broken heart. How broken becomes apparent when the girl who broke his heart in Paris (Ingrid Bergman) walks through the door with her new husband, Resistance leader Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid). Rick has the only two plane tickets out of Casablanca — a pair of precious transit papers. According to the screenwriter, Howard Koch, no one had a clue whose names would be on the boarding passes until the very end of the chaotic shoot. With no certainty about the ending, the actors went into scalding scenes with their hearts on their sleeves. The emotional shorthand between the two leads resonates more with every viewing. The dry-eyed lack of sentiment is, of course, exactly what you would expect from cinema’s most hard-boiled romantic. James Christopher

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• Original Times Casablanca review