THE DISCREPANCY // 031
The reported line is Play it again, Sam. The American Film Institute notes that this exact request is not spoken in Casablanca. The remembered phrase is concise enough to feel like a perfect scene fragment, even when the scene refuses to supply it.
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A little aeroplane is drawn inside a piano key. Some departures never leave the frame.
WHO ASKS FOR THE SONG?
The piano, the song and the two people who address Sam can blend into one remembered request. Record which speaker you picture, then compare the actual scene. This is a file about the exact wording, not whether anyone asks Sam to play. A familiar paraphrase and dialogue are different kinds of trace.
A LINE WITH ANOTHER LIFE
The phrase also became the title of a later work. That gives it a public trail beyond the original film. AFI’s reference separates the famous shorthand from the dialogue. Which source made your version feel like a direct quotation: the movie itself, an imitation, a poster or a retelling you can still hear?
Keep your first version
Record the detail before opening a reference. Keep the exact object, release or edition with your comparison. A first recollection and a later discovery can be followed as separate traces.
FOLLOW THE SOURCES
Reference material for this particular object, wording or version.
Independent collection of commonly reported discrepancies.