Rick’s Café in Casablanca is a center for war refugees awaiting visas for America. The world of the cynical callous nightclub owner suddenly turns upside down when his lost love, Ilsa, returns. In the end, Rick abandons his cynicism to help Ilsa escape the Nazis with her underground leader husband (Paul Henreid). The perfect cinematic blending of romance and intrigue, Casablanca is a studio melodrama par excellence, with one of most famous endings in cinema history. Although his appearance in the film is brief, Peter Lorre, as small time crook Ugarte, is superb.