Although incorrectly believed to be a line from the cult movie Casablanca by many people, this line does not appear in the original movie. Both Ingrid Bergman and Humprey Bogart say "Play it, Sam" at separate occasions, but the fame of the line "Play it again, Sam" is likely due to the fact that it appears in the movie "A night in Casablanca" starring the Marx brothers.

The same phenomenon can be observed with "Hamlet" and the scene that specifically does not contain Hamlet with a skull in his hand declaring that "to be or not to be, that is the question".

Play It Again, Sam is, however, both a play and a movie by Woody Allen, in which he plays a film critic who is dumped by his wife. In his effort to rebuild his shattered ego, he is assisted by a hallucination in the shape of Humphrey Bogart, who gives him advice on women. The film also starred Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts and Jerry Lacy.


With regard to beak's example from Hamlet: the stage directions for Hamlet's soliloquy do not specify that he doesn't have a skull in his hand while saying it, although choosing to give him this prop would be a strange decision, as the scene which actually does involve a skull is much later in the play. It is this scene which gives us the much more common misquote: "Alas poor Yorick, I knew him well". What Hamlet actually says is, "Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio."

The line in Casablanca goes:

"Play it once, Sam, for old times' sake...Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.'"

-- as said by Ilse (Ingrid Bergman)

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