Casablanca

The unspoken conflict between Viktor Laszlo, Ilsa Lund, and Rick Blaine is a classic love triangle that is kept up with during the whole movie. Ilsa has a very hard time deciding who she wants to be with after her long lost love Rick unintentionally makes his way back into her life. Viktor, her loving husband, is a noble man who always keeps his word and plays it safe, but Rick is very mysterious, keeping the audience is on the edge of their seats the entire movie, wondering if he is hiding something or not. There is a certain appeal that men like Rick have to women, as they are much more unpredictable and exciting than average guys like Viktor. This tells us that Ilsa was very bored of her marriage with Viktor (especially because she was with Rick at two separate occasions) and needed to live a little and satisfy her need for excitement in her life. So for Ilsa, who knows that both men love her very much, it was a matter of who she could be herself around. We see that she is a free spirit and it is hard to stay that way when you constantly have to follow your husband around to all of his important business affairs and act like you know what's going on. Ilsa always seemed so much more bubbly and carefree around Rick, like they were the only two people in the world, which cannot be said about her and Viktor. In reality, Viktor was kind of getting the short end of the stick the entire movie, since Ilsa kept running off with Rick and leaving him in the dark. At the end of the movie there was only one thought going through my mind, which was: Why was Viktor okay with the fact that his wife almost left him for another man and snuck behind his back to do it (even though he eventually got his way)? There is a huge trust issue between Viktor and Ilsa, where in the movie she would lie to his face and he would think nothing of it because he believes that they have a healthy, honest marriage. The fact that he doesn't let Ilsa's questionable actions with Rick get in the way of his marriage is a true sign of what a mature and forgiving person Viktor is, which are good qualities to have in a partner, and Ilsa should be grateful to have someone with the character that Viktor Laszlo has.

Something I found interesting as I read The History Channel Magazine's article "Play It Again And Again" was that Humphrey Bogart was "morally opposed to dallying with costars" even though in the film, Rick snuck around with Ilsa behind Viktor's back. I just think it's charming that he is the exact opposite of his character in real life in terms of relationships. Ingrid Bergman (Ilsa) on the other hand, reportedly "engaged in numerous affairs with her directors or leading men," even though she was apparently married at the time. So, she was exactly like the character she played in Casablanca, as she liked to live on the wild side.