ASK A PROFESSIONAL cocktail piano player to name the most frequently requested song and the answer is invariably, "As Time Goes By." Casablanca, the immensely popular movie from 1942, brought Herman Hupfeld's song to the broad attention of a War weary audience anxious for a little hope. Although the song had been featured in the 1931 Broadway show, Everyone's Welcome, and had also been a hit record for Rudy Vallee, it wasn't until Ingrid Bergman's character requested Dooley Wilson perform the song in the movie that it reached its highest level of popularity.

In Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart's Rick has just walked into his club in Morocco to hear the piano player singing a song that brings back too many memories. Bogart says, "Sam, I thought I told you never to play..." when he realizes that Bergman's Ilsa is sitting at the next table. This is the moment captured in the still from the film above. Within the next few moments of the movie, we learn by observing their furtive glances and body language that their common history holds a love affair, a passionate love­ the kind that both devours and fills up the participants, the kind that's somehow doomed from the beginning.

For it's the War, and in Northern Africa representatives of both allied and enemy countries are keenly observing their surroundings, learning secrets, and reporting back to their respective home offices. A love, no matter how consuming, cannot last through this. But still, they had their song. They had "As Time Goes By."

And for movie purists, the real lines spoken by Bergman's Ilsa with such emotion are "Play it once, Sam, for old time's sake. Play it, Sam, play 'As Time Goes By.' I'll hum it for you." She had the right idea.

You'll have the right idea when you stop by The Keys piano bar on Duval Street. Each evening after five, you may make your own song requests from one of Key West and New York's best cocktail pianists. You may want to ask for one of Herman Hupfeld's other hits, "When Yuba Plays The Rhumba On The Tuba" or "Goopy Geer (He Plays Piano And He Plays By Ear.)" And if you're lucky enough to be there with the love of your life, request your favorite song. Or feel free to request Rick and Ilsa's.