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American expatriate Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) runs a nightclub that draws a large following, from corrupt police chiefs and refugees to old flames. On a sweet Moroccan evening, one of those flames waltzes through Rick’s establishment: his former lover, Ilsa Lund, the woman responsible for his hardened and cynical character. Immediately drawn to Sam, the bar’s pianist, Ilsa asks about their mutual friend. Taking up Ilsa’s intentions, Sam urges her to leave Sam alone. But Ilsa’s relationship to the past is a romantic one, and so she makes a request, “Play it once, Sam, for the sake of the good old days.” After a slight decline, Illsa pushes again, more gently: “Play it, Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By.†Unable to resist Ilsa’s charms, Sam concedes, and as the love song fills the room. The air, Rick rushes in, furious. that the song he expressly banned – the inextricably linked song to the life he tried to forget – gets airtime. Later, as he tries to drown out his resurfaced feelings, Rick echoes Ilsa’s request, “Play it.”
So how did this pesky little adverb “again†fit into one of the most famous lines in movie history? It is easy to understand the error. Ilsa and Rick’s requests both carry an implied, nostalgic “still”. It’s their song, and Sam has already played it for them. And yet, the erroneous quote “Play it again, Sam” persists in popular consciousness. Perhaps we can blame our collective ability to read between the lines. Or, better yet, the Woody Allen movie “Casablanca” indebted “Play It Again, Sam”.
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