BY KAREN BOSSICK

It’s considered the most romantic movie of all time by the American Film Institute and an endless list of film critics.

And Rick Kessler is offering free showings of “Casablanca” on the big screen at Ketchum’s Magic Lantern Cinema as his Valentine’s Day gift to the community.

Kessler will offer free screenings of the iconic award-winning film starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman beginning at 4:30 and 7 p.m. today and running through Thursday, Feb. 18. (the theater is closed Mondays and Tuesdays).

Kessler has talked often of his desire to be able to show the 1942 film in grand style.

The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards. It went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture while earning its director Michael Curtiz an Academy Award for Best Director. Brothers Julius and Philip Epstein and Howard Koch were honored for writing the Best Adapted Screenplay.

Filmed and set during World War II the movie revolves around an American expatriate and nightclub owner  who must choose between his love for a woman and helping her husband, a Czech resistance leader, escape from Casablanca to fight against the Germans.

It boasts a number of immortal lines, including Bogart’s “Here’s looking at you, kid.”

“New Yorker” called “Casablanca “the most sociable, the most companionable film ever made.”

“The most familiar movie in the world is still fresh,” the reviewer added. “It has so many little busy corners to nestle in.”

Magic Lantern has a number of COVID-19 protocols in place to keep movie goers safe.