There’s a good reason why the 1942 film “Casablanca” continues to enjoy periodic re-releases. Simply stated, it’s one of the great films of the 20th century.

That’s not just my opinion. In its 2008 10th-anniversary list of the top films that represent “excellence in the art form” of cinema,” the American Film Institute place “Casablanca” in the third spot of 100 films. Only “Citizen Kane” (1941) and “The Godfather” (1972) ranked ahead of it.

Not bad for a film that was based on an unproduced stage play titled “Everybody Comes to Rick’s,” was adapted by a team composed of writers with conflicting opinions about plot, character motivation and dialogue, and that the script they came up with repeatedly ran into problems with the Motion Picture Production Code of the time.

That’s the same system of rules, also known as the Hays Code, that was designed to censor any overt references to sex and even minor uses of profanity.

But for the purposes of this blog, my interest in “Casablanca” the film concerns Casablanca the actual city. And specifically, I’m drawn to a conversation in the movie that takes place between the police captain Louis Renault (played by Claude Rains) and the American nightclub owner Rick Blaine (played by Humphrey Bogart).

Duplicitous to the core, but an admirer of Rick, Louis asks Rick, “What in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?” To which Rick answers, “My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.”

Confused, Louis replies, “The waters? What waters? We're in the desert.” Undeterred, Rick answers, “I was misinformed.”

Rick wasn’t alone. So were the makers of the film, director Michael Curtiz and Hal B. Wallis -- or maybe unconcerned would be a better description. The thing is, there are waters near Casablanca since the city itself is located on Morocco’s Atlantic coast.

In previous posts, I’ve written about the trip that my wife and I took in 2019 to Morocco. Most recently, I wrote about the historic coastal town of Essaouira. Casablanca, though, was one of the cities I most wanted to visit, largely because of the 1942 movie.

And speaking of water, it rained throughout our two-night stay. That didn’t stop us from exploring, of course, but it did conflict -- given what the film had prepared me to expect -- with my anticipations of the city being a desert mecca.

During our short stay, it being basically a layover before we flew home, we were able to get an Uber driver to take us -- despite the pouring rain -- past one of the city’s great mosques and then along one of its famous beaches: Ain Diab Beach.

Unlike many of the mosques that you can find elsewhere in Morocco, the Hassan II Mosque is relatively new. It was in 1986 that King Hassan II personally set the first stone in the planned project. Designed as a whole complex, comprising some 10 hectares, its focal point is the mosque’s 200-meter-high minaret (the top of a mosque that is used to broadcast the Muslin call to prayer).

It took seven years to complete the construction, not just of the mosque itself but also the accompanying madrasa (a school for teaching the Koran), baths, a library and a large esplanade fronting the whole area that was designed to handle as many as 80,000 worshippers. The mosque doors were opened on Aug. 30, 1993.

I’d love to be able to describe the mosque’s interior, and we were excited to see inside because the Hassan II Mosque is said to be the only one in Morocco that is open to non-Muslims. But, unfortunately, the day we visited -- and the only day we could visit -- it was closed.

Still, we were able to walk around the mosque’s exterior, in the rain, while dodging the waves of the Atlantic Ocean -- talk about waters -- splashing against the wall that shields the complex from the ocean.

Yet the highlight of our Casablanca visit, especially so for movie fans such as we are, was the dinner we enjoyed at Rick’s Café, which is a re-creation of the movie’s famous restaurant/nightclub. The idea for the place came from an American woman named Kathy Kriger, a former “commercial counselor for the U.S. embassy who has lived in Morocco since 1998.”

“In the aftermath of 9/11, I decided to leave the government, stay in Morocco and do something that demonstrated true American values,” she wrote on the café’s website. “Developing a Rick’s Café in Casablanca seemed like a perfect way to do this.”

The place opened in 2004, following two years of construction. And from the moment we entered, the atmosphere felt less like that of a tourist trap and more like something straight out of the movie -- even if the place never previously existed outside of the Warner Bros. studio. Our waiter, whose name I can’t remember, was resplendent in his tuxedo -- and he was the perfect blend of courteous and genial host without being unnecessarily unctuous.

As we ate our dinner, accompanied by a fine red wine (something not found in all Moroccan restaurants), I imagined Dooley Wilson sitting at his piano playing “As Time Goes By.” Or Paul Henreid leading the restaurant patrons in a spirited singing of “La Marseillaise.” If only Rick and Ilsa had been there, too.

I didn’t miss the Nazis at all.