A beautiful Norwegian stealing weapons to arm the fledgling anti-Nazi Resistance seeks to make one last huge score before fleeing Paris with her American lover.

SYNOPSIS:

A severely injured Victor Laszlo escapes from a prison camp in Austria and is a hero on a mission to reunite with his beautiful wife, Ilsa Lund, in Paris. Ilsa is there using her cover as a translator to arrange the theft of weapons and ammunition from a defense plant for Victor’s anti-fascist political groups.

Hearing a mistaken story that Victor died during the escape, Ilsa is emotionally devastated and unthinkingly walks into the path of an oncoming car. A man pushes her to safety but is himself struck by the car.

That man is Rick Blaine, an American ex-pat racketeer tortured by his memories of the Spanish Civil War. Not only is he on the Gestapo’s wanted list, but more immediately, he is on the hit list of Andria Anciani, the Corsican mobster responsible for having his men try to run Rick over.

Incorrectly feeling responsible for Rick’s accident, Ilsa stays with him in the hospital and helps to nurse him back to health. When they part, both are impressed with each other.

After the Germans attack the Low Countries and France, Ilsa hatches a new plot with her political cell to make one large last theft of war material from the defense plant before the German army seizes Paris. A member of the cell convinces her to “vamp” Rick to draw him into the plot. Instead of successfully manipulating Rick into helping, Ilsa unexpectedly falls in love with him — a love which Rick completely reciprocates.

When the lovers take a late night walk, one of Andria’s clients emerges from the darkness and accosts Rick. A fight ensues, and even though Rick is battling for his life, the shock and fear of the violence overwhelms Ilsa, and she freezes.

Ilsa’s inability to act shatters her faith in herself. Humiliated before Rick, Ilsa cuts herself off from him. In her depressed state, she impulsively accepts an assignment to facilitate the planned theft by seducing a fascist coworker at the plant.

The seduction occurs.

Repelled by what she did, Ilsa runs back to Rick for solace, and the two lost souls find renewed happiness in each other’s arms. As the German army grows nearer and nearer to Paris, the lovers prepare to flee to make a new life together far from the City of Lights.

Ilsa and Rick’s happiness, however, is short-lived. When Andria’s flunkies attempt to kill Ilsa and thwart the planned theft, Ilsa and Rick strike back, and secure the arms and ammunition for the future French Resistance.

Then Victor reaches Paris, and Ilsa and Rick find that they cannot run from fate. She rejoins her husband, and Rick must escape the Gestapo by leaving Paris without her.

WE'LL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS