Here's looking at you, kid.
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"Here's looking at you, kid." is a line from the 1942 film Casablanca. It was voted fifth in the American Film Institute's 2005 poll of the "100 greatest movie quotes of all time."
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[edit] Origins
The line was said by Rick Blaine (played by Humphrey Bogart) to Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman). This happens four times in the film.
The significance of the quote in the film, which influences its usage, is that it links Rick to his love for Ilsa.
[edit] Film plot
In the film, Rick Blaine is the owner of an upscale cafe, bar, and gambling den in the Moroccan city of Casablanca which attracts a mixed clientele of Vichy French, Nazi, refugees and thieves. Rick is a bitter and cynical man, and it is just as well: The success of Rick's Cafe is due in no small part to Rick's ability to mingle with all his customers.
A petty crook, Guillermo Ugarte (played by Peter Lorre), arrives in Rick's club with "letters of transit" he has obtained by killing two German couriers. The papers allow the bearer to travel freely around German-controlled Europe, including to neutral Lisbon, Portugal, and from there to the United States. Ugarte is killed trying to evade the police. But, unbeknownst to both the local Vichy French police and the Nazis, Ugarte had left the letters with Rick for safekeeping, because "...somehow, just because you despise me, you are the only one I trust."
At this point, the reason for Rick's bitterness re-enters his life. His ex-lover, Ilsa Lund arrives with her husband, Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), to purchase the letters. Laszlo is a famous Resistance leader from Czechoslovakia with a huge price on his head, and they must have the letters to escape. At the time Ilsa first met and fell in love with Rick in Paris, she believed her husband had been killed by the Nazis. When she discovered that he was in fact still alive, she left Rick abruptly without explanation and returned to Laszlo, leaving Rick feeling betrayed.
Later, Laszlo speaks privately with Rick concerning the letters, but they are interrupted when a group of German officers, led by Major Strasser (Conrad Veidt), begins to sing "Wacht am Rhein", a German patriotic song from the nineteenth century. Laszlo tells the house band to play "La Marseillaise". He starts singing it, alone at first; then patriotic French customers join in and drown out the Germans. In retaliation, Strasser orders Renault to close the club.
That night, Ilsa confronts Rick in the deserted cafe. Despite initially refusing to give her the documents, even when threatened with a gun, Rick eventually decides to help Laszlo. He and Ilsa reaffirm their love for each other and she is led to believe that she will stay with Rick when Laszlo leaves. Local police Captain Renault (Claude Rains) is forced at gunpoint to assist in the escape. At the last moment, Rick makes Ilsa get on the plane with Laszlo, telling her that she would regret it if she stayed. "Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life." Major Strasser drives up, tipped off by Renault. Rick shoots him when he tries to intervene. When the police arrive, Renault saves his life by telling them to "round up the usual suspects". He then suggests that they both go join the Free French. They disappear into the fog with another of the most memorable exit lines in movie history: "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
[edit] Appearance of the quote
The line "Here's looking at you, kid" appears for the first time in a long flashback where Rick remembers his happy time with Ilsa. In Rick's Paris apartment, Ilsa joins Rick as he is opening a bottle of champagne. Rick starts asking about Ilsa's past, but Ilsa silences him with, "We said, 'no questions.'" Rick lifts his champagne and says, "Here's looking at you, kid."
The second time is part of the same flashback sequence. Rick and Ilsa are in a cafe in Montmartre, and Sam the piano player is there, playing "As Time Goes By." This would lead to another memorable line from Casablanca: "Play it once, Sam, for old times' sake." As Rick and Ilsa gather around Sam's piano, they strike up a conversation about being occupied by the Nazis. Halfway through the conversation with Sam, Rick turns to Ilsa and says, "Here's looking at you, kid."
The third time is when Ilsa meets Rick in his cafe alone at night. As Ilsa tells her story and how she ran away when she found her husband was alive, she pleads with Rick to help Laszlo. And she confesses, "I ran away from you once. I can't do it again. Oh, I don't know what's right any longer. You'll have to think for both of us, for all of us." To which Rick responds, "All right, I will. Here's looking at you, kid."
The fourth time Rick says it, is the very last thing he says to Ilsa before she flies off and he goes back to face the Nazis.
[edit] Usage
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The context of the phrase is in the form of a toast or dedication (as noted above) and can be used in any such situation.
It has been used on any occasion when the act of looking is part of the emphasis. Thus, a news story about traffic cameras at intersections could start with: "Here's looking at you." Or one about security cameras. Or about eye laser surgery. Or about digital photography. Or, as in the Sydney Morning Herald, a story about paparazzi.
On more formal or somber occasions, the phrase is often used as a dedication to a loved one, such as to a daughter who gets married, or at a wake for a deceased friend. Such uses would be more in line with the context in which the line was used in the film.
[edit] Influences, parodies and spoofs
- Warner Bros studio's documentary DVD about itself is called "Here's looking at you."
- In the film Brazil, Sam's office-mates are secretly tuning their computer screens in to a television broadcast of Casablanca whenever Mr. Kurtzman's door is closed. As Sam leaves a meeting Mr. Kurtzman, the line and backing score can be heard as he opens the door. Sam says "here's looking at you'" to Mr. Kurtzman, apparently trying to cover-up his coworkers' slacking off.
- The television series Frasier contains an episode in its first season titled "Here's Looking At You."
- A tongue-in-cheek feature on ESPN's web site about people who look like each other, is called Here's looking at you.
- A oft-used pun by mathematicians is "Here's looking at Euclid" - sometimes used as title of seminars about the ancient geometer.
- When news broke about scientists cloning a sheep, many newspapers chose the headline: "Here's looking at ewe."
- The line is used in the chorus of Key Largo, a Bertie Higgins song inspired by the film, which landed in the Top 40 in 1982.
- Aya Brea, the protagonist of Squaresoft's PlayStation game Parasite Eve 2 says it while taking a look in a mirror.
- In the fourth episode of season three of House, "Lines in the Sand," Dr. Gregory House recites the line to a young female that has been following him, despite their obvious age difference.
- The line "Here's looking at you, kid" is used in the song 2HB by The Venus in Furs in the 1998 film Velvet Goldmine.
- Art of the scene was seen in the forth episode of Pani Poni Dash!.
- It also influenced hardcore band Every Time I Die, for their song title: Here's Lookin' At You, off their debut CD.
Corey Crowder has a song Here's Looking at you, Kid on his 2007 album
