THE USUAL SUSPECTS

Arguably "Casablanca" is the greatest Oscar-winner in history. Less arguably, it has the most remembered lines ("Here's looking at you, kid," "We'll always have Paris," "Play it, Sam"). Of these the one most often repeated may be, "Round up the usual suspects." Now, finally, I've decided exactly who those suspects are.

My best guess: Fear! Love! Honor! To round up these three is to round up the entire plot. Not only to "Casablanca" in 1942, but perhaps to America here in 2010.

Fear -- and its ultimate achievement, terror -- haunts each of the leading characters. Elsa fears for her hero- husband. Victor fears for his heroic cause. Rick -- the world weary cynic only Bogart could personify for both our generation as well as his own -- fears he has lost the feeling fear itself requires.

In the screenplays of our own lives, we're continually haunted by the 101 faces of fear. Threats to health and wealth, to personal philosophies and political parties. From the moment we're born, it would seem the blind forces of nature conspire to annihilate our little physical existence. Then when the forces of human nature join the conspiracy, there are probably few nights we can really lay our heads down to a perfect sleep.

Love -- and its ultimate realization in that someone we find is our other half -- fuels different flames in "Casablanca." Very much as happens in the scripts of our own lives. The loves in war-weary 1942 intersect and eventually rip into each other. Secrets slip out, passions seep forth, the nobility that was once patriotism turns cruel. Everyone's heart bleeds. Exactly as in 2010.

Honor -- now this is what eventually salvages the individual tragedies in "Casablanca." A misty airport finale in which Rick finds what all Americans still would like to believe beats within us. The courage to say no to personal passions, and yes to a greater passion. Hokey...? Not the way it happens in those last few moments in the Casablanca fog. And not the way it could still happen if enough people would re-find our recently lost sense of honor

Come Oscar Night, most everyone watching -- from Hollywood to Chicago to Washington -- might try recalling that foggy finale in war-ravaged 1942. And say to one another, along with Rick, "I think this is going to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship..."