In the airport's hangar in the film's final departure scene, the plane is readied to take off in ten minutes in the misty fog: "Visibility: one and one half miles. Light ground fog. Depth of fog approximately five hundred. Ceiling unlimited." Rick, Renault, Laszlo, and Ilsa drive up in a government vehicle. Wearing a hat and trenchcoat (in which he conceals a gun in his right hand), Rick orders Renault to have an orderly get Laszlo's luggage and load it on the plane. As Laszlo walks away to make luggage arrangements, Rick orders Renault to write the names of the married couple - the names are Mr. and Mrs. Victor Laszlo - on the letters of transit.
[It is by his own choice that Rick changes his mind about who will be leaving Casablanca. Rick chooses to renounce Ilsa to Victor, not because he is weak or has nothing to offer, but because her work for the Cause with him is too important to sacrifice - and because she has to remain with her legal husband.]
Bewildered, Ilsa protests Rick's change in plans, as the film's theme song plays softly in the background:
Ilsa: But, why my name, Richard?
Rick: Because you're getting on that plane.
Ilsa: I don't understand. What about you?
Rick: I'm staying here with him [Renault] 'til the plane gets safely away.
Ilsa: No, Richard. No. What has happened to you? Last night...
Rick: Last night, we said a great many things. You said I was to do the thinking for both of us. Well, I've done a lot of it since then and it all adds up to one thing. You're getting on that plane with Victor where you belong.
Ilsa: (protesting) But Richard, no, I've...
Rick: Now, you've got to listen to me. Do you have any idea what you've have to look forward to if you stayed here? Nine chances out of ten we'd both wind up in a concentration camp. Isn't that true, Louis?
Renault: I'm afraid Major Strasser would insist.
Ilsa: You're saying this only to make me go.
Rick: I'm saying it because it's true. Inside of us, we both know you belong with Victor. You're part of his work, the thing that keeps him going.
Rick betrays Ilsa with the same reasoning she had used to betray him earlier in Paris at the train station - the greater Cause represented by Laszlo. In a supreme moment of romantic self-sacrifice and nobility while maintaining his dignity and self-esteem, he affirms his love for her - by urging her to leave Casablanca with her husband and the precious letters of transit that Renault is counter-signing:
Rick: If that plane leaves the ground and you're not with him, you'll regret it.
Ilsa: No.
Rick: Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life.
Ilsa: What about us?
Rick (romantically): We'll always have Paris. We didn't have - we'd - we'd lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.
Ilsa: When I said I would never leave you...
Rick: And you never will. I've got a job to do too. Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of.
For Rick, no sacrifice (political or romantic) is too noble or great for their idealized Parisian love - and where he must go (to jail or into exile again?) she cannot "follow":
Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that. (She drops her head tearfully. He touches her chin and raises it to gently bolster her up.) Now, now. Here's looking at you, kid.
When Laszlo returns and explains that everything is in order, he insists that Rick not "explain anything." Rick overrules Victor and tells him that Ilsa had visited him the night before - but only to beg for the letters. He claims that she pretended to be in love with him and he "let her pretend." [Although they actually consummated their love for each other, his statement clears her of any adulterous guilt. In his fabricated explanation, she came to him to strengthen her marriage and save her husband.]
She tried everything to get them, and nothing worked. She did her best to convince me that she was still in love with me, but that was all over long ago. For your sake, she pretended it wasn't, and I let her pretend.
Rick vindicates Victor's faith in him - Laszlo responds sympathetically that he accepts and understands Rick's explanation regarding his wife's faithfulness. He is presented with the exit visas, and then shakes Rick's hand as a new member of the committed and collective Pan-European underground movement: "Welcome back to the fight. This time, I know our side will win."
Through the dense airport fog, the plane's engine propellers begin to spin. By her husband's side, Ilsa compassionately looks one final time at Rick and bids him a goodbye:
Good-bye, Rick. God Bless You.
As Ilsa and Victor walk across the runway to board the plane for Lisbon, a tear sparkles in Ilsa's eye - she is numb as she accompanies her husband back into their unfulfilling relationship (in a romantic sense) - and Victor notices her expression. Rick is left standing alone on the edge of the runway. Renault chastises Rick's romanticism and 'fairy tale' sentimentality for giving an unwilling Ilsa back to Victor. [Ilsa obliged and left with Laszlo because of her love for Rick.] Renault promises him that he will be arrested. Yet Rick still holds a gun in his pocket - until the plane leaves:
Renault: Well, I was right. You are a sentimentalist...What you just did for Laszlo, that fairy tale you invented to send Ilsa away with him. I know a little about women, my friend. She went, but she knew you were lying.
Rick: Anyway, thanks for helping me out.
Renault: I suppose you know this isn't going to be very pleasant for either of us, especially for you. I'll have to arrest you, of course.
Rick: As soon as the plane goes, Louis.
A determined Major Strasser breathlessly rushes into the airport hangar and is informed that Victor Laszlo is on the departing airplane. Without heeding Rick's warning: "I was willing to shoot Captain Renault, and I'm willing to shoot you," Strasser attempts to halt the plane on the runway - he runs to a phone to connect to the radio tower. Rick orders him to put the phone down as Strasser grabs the receiver. The Nazi leader pulls out a gun with his other hand and fires a shot at Rick - who must in self-defense shoot him. Strasser crumples to the hangar floor - dead.
A carload of gendarmes pulls up. In the distant background, the plane is taxi-ing and turning on the runway. Five policemen run up to the amoral Capitaine Renault who announces climactically:
Major Strasser has been shot.
In a tense, dramatically effective moment, there is a long pause. Renault first looks at Rick and then back at the gendarmes. [Will he side with Rick or protect the status quo?] Renault indicates that he will not arrest Rick, delivering a famous command to his men:
Round up the usual suspects.
[The catchphrase was used for the title of a 90s film featuring a police identity lineup, The Usual Suspects (1995).] Knowing that there are no witnesses, Renault overlooks Rick's crime and the police carry away Strasser's body. Rick looks back at his French friend with a half-smile. "La Marseillaise" begins to play slowly on the soundtrack. Next to a stand-up desk, Renault picks up a bottle of Vichy water and opens it:
Renault: Well, Rick, you're not only a sentimentalist, but you've become a patriot.
Rick: Maybe, but it seemed like a good time to start.
Renault: I think perhaps you're right.
He pours the Vichy water into a glass, but then sees its label. With a look of disgust, he quickly drops the bottle into a trash basket and kicks it over. [His act symbolizes his open rejection of Vichy France's appeasement of the German Nazi government and support for the anti-Nazi Allied cause.]
Then, in the fog, they watch the plane ascend into the air for neutral Lisbon. Renault suggests to Rick a way out of Casablanca - join the Free French at Brazzaville, but Rick reminds him that the offer can't be in exchange for cancelling their wager:
Renault: It might be a good idea for you to disappear from Casablanca for a while. There's a Free French garrison over at Brazzaville [in French Equatorial Africa]. I could be induced to arrange a passage.
Rick: My letter of transit? I could use a trip. But it doesn't make any difference about our bet. You still owe me ten thousand francs.
Renault: And that ten thousand francs should pay our expenses.
Rick (quizzically) Our expenses?
[Will Renault join Rick in the resistance movement as a fellow patriot, accompanying Rick to Brazzaville?]
Rick walks off with Capitaine Renault across the wet runway into the mist, as they discuss what they might do together with the 10,000 francs [$300] - the payment due on their earlier bet over whether or not Laszlo would get out of Casablanca. The closing in the fog brings another great classic line [dubbed in later] as Rick tells Renault that they have forged a new alliance:
Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Their new partnership is underscored with the triumphant sounds of La Marseillaise.
as time goes bye
