<P> Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz based on Murray Burnett and Joan Alison 's unproduced stage play Everybody Comes to Rick 's . The film stars Humphrey Bogart , Ingrid Bergman , and Paul Henreid ; it also features Claude Rains , Conrad Veidt , Sydney Greenstreet , Peter Lorre , and Dooley Wilson . Set during World War II , it focuses on an American expatriate who must choose between his love for a woman and helping her and her husband , a Czech Resistance leader , escape from the Vichy - controlled city of Casablanca to continue his fight against the Nazis . </P>
who played the female lead in the 1942 film casablanca
romantic drama