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Casablanca (film)

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Films

               Casablanca
     Directed by   Michael Curtiz
     Produced by   Hal B. Wallis
     Written by    Julius J. Epstein,
                   Philip G. Epstein,
                   Howard Koch
      Starring     Humphrey Bogart,
                   Ingrid Bergman,
                   Paul Henreid,
                   Claude Rains,
                   Conrad Veidt,
                   Sydney Greenstreet,
                   Peter Lorre
                   S.Z. Sakall
   Distributed by  Warner Brothers
   Release date(s) November 26, 1942
    Running time   102 min.
      Language     English
       Budget      $950,000 (est.)
              IMDb profile

   Casablanca is a 1942 romantic film set during World War II in the
   Vichy-controlled Moroccan city of Casablanca. The film was directed by
   Michael Curtiz, and stars Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine and Ingrid
   Bergman as Ilsa Lund. It focuses on Rick's conflict between, in the
   words of one character, love and virtue: he must choose between his
   love for Ilsa and his need to do the right thing by helping her
   husband, Resistance hero Victor Laszlo, escape from Casablanca and
   continue his fight against the Nazis.

   The film was an immediate hit, and it has remained consistently popular
   ever since. Critics have praised the charismatic performances of Bogart
   and Bergman, the chemistry between the two leads, the depth of
   characterisation, the taut direction, the witty screenplay and the
   emotional impact of the work as a whole.

Plot

   Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

   Humphrey Bogart plays Rick Blaine, the owner of an upscale club and
   gambling den in the Moroccan city of Casablanca which attracts a mixed
   clientele of Vichy French and Nazi officials, refugees and thieves.
   Rick is a bitter and cynical man, who professes to be neutral in all
   matters, but still displays a clear dislike for the fascist part of his
   clientele.

   A petty crook, Guillermo Ugarte ( Peter Lorre), arrives in Rick's club
   with "letters of transit" he has obtained by killing two German
   couriers. The papers allow the bearer to travel freely around
   German-controlled Europe, including to neutral Lisbon, Portugal, and
   from there to the United States. They are almost priceless to any of
   the continual stream of refugees who end up stranded in Casablanca.
   Ugarte plans to make his fortune by selling them to the highest bidder,
   who is due to arrive at the club later that night. However, before the
   exchange can take place, Ugarte is arrested by the local police, under
   the command of Rick's friend Captain Renault ( Claude Rains). As a
   corrupt Vichy official, Renault accommodates the Nazis, but remains
   ambivalent about their influence in Casablanca. Unbeknownst to either
   Renault or the Nazis, Ugarte had left the letters with Rick for
   safekeeping, because "...somehow, just because you despise me, you are
   the only one I trust."

   At this point, the reason for Rick's bitterness re-enters his life. His
   Norwegian ex-lover, Ilsa Lund ( Ingrid Bergman) arrives with her
   husband, Victor Laszlo ( Paul Henreid), to purchase the letters. Laszlo
   is a famous Resistance leader from Czechoslovakia with a huge price
   placed on his head by the Nazis, and they must have the letters to
   escape to America to continue his work. At the time Ilsa first met and
   fell in love with Rick in Paris, she believed her husband had been
   killed by the Nazis. When she discovered that he was in fact still
   alive, she left Rick abruptly without explanation and returned to
   Laszlo, leaving Rick feeling betrayed. After the bar closes, Ilsa
   returns to try and explain all this, but he bitterly refuses to listen.

   The next night, Laszlo, suspecting Rick has the letters, speaks
   privately with him about obtaining them, but they are interrupted when
   a group of German officers, led by Major Strasser ( Conrad Veidt),
   begins to sing " Wacht am Rhein", a German patriotic song from the
   nineteenth century (the producers wanted to use the more Nazi-oriented
   " Horst-Wessel-Lied", but it was copyrighted by a German publisher).
   Infuriated, Laszlo orders the house band to play " La Marseillaise".
   The band leader looks to Rick for permission; he nods his head. Laszlo
   starts singing, alone at first; growing patriotic fervor overtakes the
   crowd and everyone joins in, drowning out the Germans. In retaliation,
   Strasser orders Renault to close the club.

   That night, Ilsa confronts Rick in the deserted cafe. Despite his
   initial refusal to give her the documents, even when threatened with a
   gun, Rick eventually decides to help Laszlo. He and Ilsa reaffirm their
   love for each other and she is led to believe that she will stay with
   Rick when Laszlo leaves. Renault is forced at gunpoint to assist in the
   escape. At the last moment, Rick makes Ilsa get on the plane with
   Laszlo, telling her that she would regret it if she stayed. "Maybe not
   today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life."
   Major Strasser drives up, tipped off by Renault, but Rick shoots him
   when he tries to intervene. When the police arrive, Renault saves his
   life by telling them to " Round up the usual suspects". He then
   suggests to Rick that they both go join the Free French. They disappear
   into the fog with one of the most memorable exit lines in movie
   history: "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful
   friendship."
   Spoilers end here.

Production

   The film was based on Murray Burnett and Joan Alison's then-unproduced
   play Everybody Comes to Rick's. The story analyst at Warner Brothers
   who read the play, Stephen Karnot, called it (approvingly)
   "sophisticated hokum", and story editor Irene Diamond convinced
   producer Hal Wallis to buy the rights for $20,000, the most anyone in
   Hollywood had ever paid for an unproduced play. The project was renamed
   Casablanca, apparently in imitation of the 1938 hit Algiers. Shooting
   began on May 25, 1942 and was completed on August 3.

   The entire film was shot in the studio, except for the sequence filmed
   at Van Nuys Airport showing the arrival of Major Strasser. The street
   used for the exterior shots had recently been built for another film,
   The Desert Song, and was redecorated and used for the Paris flashbacks.
   It remained on the Warners backlot until the 1960s. The set for Rick's
   cafe was built in three unconnected parts, so the internal layout of
   the building is indeterminate. In a number of scenes, the camera looks
   through a wall from the cafe area into Rick's office. The background of
   the final scene, which shows a Lockheed Model 12 Electra Junior
   airplane with personnel walking around it, was staged using midget
   extras and a proportionate cardboard plane because of budgetary and
   wartime rationing constraints. Fog was used to mask the model's
   unconvincing appearance.

   Bergman's height caused some problems. She was one and a half inches
   taller than Bogart, so he sometimes had to stand on boxes or sit on
   cushions in their scenes together.

   The film cost a total of $950,000, slightly over budget, but average
   for the time. Bogart was called in a month after shooting was finished
   to dub in the final line ("Louis, I think this is the beginning of a
   beautiful friendship.") Later, there were plans for a further scene,
   showing Rick, Renault and a detachment of Free French soldiers on a
   ship, to incorporate the Allies' 1942 invasion of North Africa; however
   it proved too difficult to get Claude Rains for the shoot, and the
   scene was finally abandoned after David O. Selznick judged that "it
   would be a terrible mistake to change the ending."

Writing

   The original play was inspired by a 1938 trip to Europe by Murray
   Burnett, during which he visited Vienna shortly after the Anschluss, as
   well as the south coast of France, which had uneasily coexisting
   populations of Nazis and refugees. The latter locale provided the
   inspirations for both Rick's cafe (the nightclub Le Kat Ferrat) and the
   character of Sam (a black piano player Burnett saw in Juan-les-Pins).
   In the play, the Ilsa character was an American named Lois Meredith and
   did not meet Laszlo until after her relationship with Rick in Paris had
   ended; Rick was a lawyer.

   The first main writers to work on the script for Warners were the
   Epstein twins ( Julius and Philip), who removed Rick's background and
   added more elements of comedy. The other credited writer, Howard Koch,
   joined later, but worked in parallel with the Epsteins, despite their
   differing emphases (Koch highlighting the political and melodramatic
   elements). Important scenes were also added by the uncredited Casey
   Robinson, who contributed the series of meetings between Rick and Ilsa
   in the cafe. Curtiz seems to have favoured the romantic elements,
   insisting on retaining the flashback Paris scenes. One of the most
   famous lines— "here's looking at you"— is not in the draft screenplays,
   and has been attributed to the poker lessons Bogart was giving Bergman
   in between takes. The final line of the film was written by Wallis
   after shooting had been completed, and film critic Roger Ebert calls
   Wallis the "key creative force" for his attention to the details of
   production (down to insisting on a real parrot in the Blue Parrot bar).

   Despite the many different writers, the film has what Ebert describes
   as a "wonderfully unified and consistent" script. Koch later said that
   it was the tension between his own approach and that of Curtiz which
   accounted for this: "surprisingly, these disparate approaches somehow
   meshed, and perhaps it was partly this tug of war between Curtiz and me
   that gave the film a certain balance". Julius Epstein would later note
   that the screenplay contained "more corn than in the states of Kansas
   and Iowa combined. But when corn works, there's nothing better."

   The film ran into some trouble from Joseph Breen of the Production Code
   Administration (the Hollywood self-censorship body), who opposed the
   suggestions that Captain Renault extorted sexual favours from his
   supplicants and that Rick and Ilsa had slept together in Paris. Both,
   however, remained strongly implied in the finished version.

Direction

   Wallis' first choice for director was William Wyler, but when Wyler was
   unavailable, Wallis turned to his close friend Michael Curtiz. Curtiz
   was a Hungarian Jewish emigre; he had come to the U.S. in the 1920s,
   but some of his family were refugees from Nazi Europe. Roger Ebert has
   commented that in Casablanca "very few shots ... are memorable as
   shots", Curtiz being concerned to use images to tell the story rather
   than for their own sake. However, he had relatively little input into
   the development of the plot: Casey Robinson said that Curtiz "knew
   nothing whatever about story... he saw it in pictures, and you supplied
   the stories". Critic Andrew Sarris called the film "the most decisive
   exception to the auteur theory", to which Aljean Harmetz responded
   that, "nearly every Warner Bros. picture was an exception to the auteur
   theory". Other critics give more credit to Curtiz: Sidney Rosenweig, in
   his study of the director's work, sees the film as a typical example of
   Curtiz's highlighting of moral dilemmas.

   The second unit montages, such as the opening sequence of the refugee
   trail and that showing the invasion of France, were directed by Don
   Siegel.

Cinematography

   The Cross of Lorraine, emblem of the Free French
   Enlarge
   The Cross of Lorraine, emblem of the Free French

   The cinematographer was Arthur Edeson, a veteran who had previously
   shot The Maltese Falcon and Frankenstein. Particular attention was paid
   to photographing Bergman: she was shot mainly from her preferred left
   side, often with a softening gauze filter and with catch lights to make
   her eyes sparkle. The whole effect was designed to make her face seem
   "ineffably sad and tender and nostalgic". Bars of shadow across the
   characters and in the background variously imply imprisonment, the
   crucifix, the Free French symbol and emotional turmoil.

   Dark film noir and expressionist lighting is used in several scenes,
   particularly towards the end of the picture. Rosenzweig argues that
   these shadow and lighting effects are classic elements of the Curtiz
   style, along with the fluid camera work and the use of the environment
   as a framing device.

Music

   The score was written by Max Steiner, who was best known for the
   musical score for Gone with the Wind. The song " As Time Goes By" by
   Herman Hupfeld had been part of the story from the original play;
   Steiner wanted to write his own song to replace it, but he had to
   abandon his plan because Bergman had already cut her hair short for her
   next role and could not re-shoot the scenes which mentioned the song.
   So Steiner based the entire score on it (and " La Marseillaise"),
   transforming them to reflect the changing moods of the movie.
   Particularly notable is the "duel of the songs", in which "La
   Marseillaise" is played by a full orchestra rather than just the small
   band actually present in Rick's club, competing against the Germans
   singing " Die Wacht am Rhein" at the piano. Other songs include "It Had
   to Be You" from 1924 with lyrics by Gus Kahn and music by Isham Jones,
   "Knock on Wood" with music by M.K. Jerome and lyrics by Jack Scholl and
   Shine from 1910 by Cecil Mack and Lew Brown with music by Ford Dabney.

Reception

   Reaction to the film at previews before release was described as
   "beyond belief". It premiered at the Hollywood Theatre in New York City
   on November 26, 1942, to coincide with the Allied invasion of North
   Africa and the capture of Casablanca; it went into general release on
   January 23, 1943, to take advantage of the Casablanca conference, a
   high-level meeting between Churchill and Roosevelt in the city. It was
   a substantial but not spectacular box-office success, taking $3.7
   million on its initial U.S. release (making it the seventh best-selling
   film of 1943). Initial critical reaction was generally positive, with
   Variety describing it as "splendid anti-Axis propaganda"; as Koch later
   said, "it was a picture the audiences needed... there were values...
   worth making sacrifices for. And it said it in a very entertaining
   way." Other reviews were less enthusiastic: The New Yorker rated it
   only "pretty tolerable". The Office of War Information prevented
   screening of the film to troops in North Africa, believing it would
   cause resentment among Vichy supporters in the region.

   The film's theme song, "As Time Goes By", enjoyed its own success,
   spending 21 weeks on the hit parade. At the 1944 Oscars, the film won
   three awards; Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Picture.
   Wallis' resentment when Jack Warner rather than he collected the best
   picture award led to the severing of ties between him and the studio in
   April that year.

   The film has maintained its popularity: Murray Burnett has called it
   "true yesterday, true today, true tomorrow". By 1955 the film had
   brought in $6.8 million dollars, although this still left it only the
   third most successful of Warners' wartime movies (behind Shine On,
   Harvest Moon and This is the Army). On April 21, 1957, the Brattle
   Theatre of Cambridge, Massachusetts showed the film as part of a season
   of old movies. It was so popular that it began a tradition of screening
   Casablanca during the week of final exams at Harvard University which
   continues to the present day, and it is emulated by many colleges
   across the United States. Todd Gitlin, a professor of sociology who
   himself attended one of these screenings, had said that the experience
   was, "the acting out of my own personal rite of passage". The tradition
   helped the movie remain popular while other famous films of the 1940s
   have faded away, and by 1977 Casablanca was the most frequently
   broadcast film on American television.

   However, there has been anecdotal evidence that Casablanca may have
   made a deeper impression among film-lovers than within the professional
   movie-making establishment. In the November/December 1982 issue of
   "American Film", Chuck Ross claimed that he had retyped the screenplay
   to Casablanca, using the play title Everybody Comes to Ricks;
   submitting it to 217 agencies. 85 of them read it, of which 38 rejected
   it outright, 33 generally recognized it (but only eight specifically as
   Casablanca), three declared it commercially viable, and one suggested
   turning it into a novel.

Critical response

   Critics have subjected Casablanca to many different readings. William
   Donelley, in his Love and Death in Casablanca, argues that Rick's
   relationship with Sam, and subsequently with Renault, is, "a standard
   case of the repressed homosexuality that underlies most American
   adventure stories". Harvey Greenberg presents a Freudian reading in his
   The Movies on Your Mind, in which the transgressions which prevent Rick
   from returning to the US constitute an Oedipus complex, which is
   resolved only when Rick begins to identify with the father figure of
   Laszlo and the cause which he represents. Sidney Rosenzweig argues that
   such readings are reductive, and that the most important aspect of the
   film is its ambiguity, above all in the central character of Rick; he
   cites the different names which each character gives Rick (Richard,
   Ricky, Mr Rick, Herr Blaine and so on) as evidence of the different
   meanings which he has for each person.

   Roger Ebert has claimed that the film is "probably on more lists of the
   greatest films of all time than any other single title, including
   Citizen Kane", because of its wider appeal; while Citizen Kane is
   "greater", Casablanca is more loved. Behlmer also emphasises the
   variety in the picture: "it’s a blend of drama, melodrama, comedy [and]
   intrigue". Ebert says that he has never heard of a negative review of
   the film, even though individual elements can be criticised (he cites
   the unrealistic special effects and the stiff character/portrayal of
   Laszlo).

   Ebert has also said that the film is popular because "the people in it
   are all so good". As the Resistance hero, Laszlo is ostensibly the most
   noble, although he is so stiff that he is hard to like. The other
   characters, in Rudy Behlmer's words, are "not cut and dried": they come
   into their goodness in the course of the film. Renault begins the film
   as a collaborator with the Nazis, who extorts sexual favours from
   refugees and has Ugarte killed. Rick, according to Behlmer, is "not a
   hero, ... not a bad guy": he does what is necessary to get along with
   the authorities and "sticks his neck out for nobody". Even Ilsa, the
   least active of the main characters, is "caught in the emotional
   struggle" over which man she really loves. By the end of the film,
   however, "everybody is sacrificing".

   A dissenting note comes from Umberto Eco, who wrote that "by any strict
   critical standards... Casablanca is a very mediocre film". He sees the
   changes the characters undergo as inconsistency rather than complexity:
   "It is a comic strip, a hotch-potch, low on psychological credibility,
   and with little continuity in its dramatic effects". However, he argues
   that it is this inconsistency which accounts for the film's popularity
   by allowing it to include a whole series of archetypes: unhappy love,
   flight, passage, waiting, desire, the triumph of purity, the faithful
   servant, the love triangle, beauty and the beast, the enigmatic woman,
   the ambiguous adventurer and the redeemed drunkard. Centermost is the
   idea of sacrifice: "the myth of sacrifice runs through the whole film".

Influence

   Many subsequent films have drawn on elements of Casablanca: Passage to
   Marseille reunited Bogart, Rains, Curtiz, Greenstreet and Lorre in
   1944, while there are many similarities between Casablanca and a later
   Bogart film, Sirocco. Parodies have included the Marx Brothers' A Night
   in Casablanca (1946), Woody Allen's Play It Again, Sam (1972), Neil
   Simon's The Cheap Detective (1978), and Barb Wire (1996), while it
   provided the title for the 1995 hit The Usual Suspects. Warner Brothers
   produced its own parody of the film in Carrotblanca, a 1995 Bugs Bunny
   cartoon. This is included on the special edition DVD release. The
   website angryalien.com produced a remake of Casablanca in its 30-Second
   Bunnies Theatre. In the movie Adaptation (2002), Casablanca is
   referenced as the greatest screenplay of all time, and the aspect of
   two brothers writing the screenplay is an important thematic device
   used in the film Adaptation.

Sequels and other versions

   Almost from the moment Casablanca became a hit, talk began of producing
   a sequel. One entitled Brazzaville (in the final scene, Renault
   recommends that he and Rick flee to the Free French city) was planned,
   but never produced.

   There have been two short-lived television series based upon
   Casablanca, both of which are considered prequels to the movie. The
   first aired from 1955 to 1956 (with Charles McGraw as Rick and Marcel
   Dalio, who played Emil the croupier in the movie, as Renault); it was
   aired on ABC as part of the wheel series Warner Bros. Presents. Another
   series, briefly aired on NBC in 1983, starred David Soul as Rick and
   included Ray Liotta as Sacha and Scatman Crothers as a somewhat elderly
   Sam.

   Media reports have occasionally arisen about plans to either produce a
   sequel, or an outright remake of Casablanca, but as of 2006 no studio
   has seriously put such plans into action. François Truffaut refused an
   invitation to remake the film in 1974, citing the "cult" status of the
   film among American students as his reason. To date, the only
   authorized sequel to Casablanca has been the novel, As Time Goes By,
   written by Michael Walsh and published in 1998. Walsh picks up where
   the movie leaves off, and also tells of Rick's mysterious past in
   America. David Thomson provided an unofficial sequel in his 1985 novel
   Suspects.

   Casablanca was also part of the film colorization controversy during
   the 1980s when a colour version of the film aired on Australian
   television. This was briefly made available on home video, but its
   unpopularity with fans caused the altered version to fade away, though
   the colorized version is still broadcast in other places, such as Hong
   Kong.

   A radio adaptation of the film was broadcast on April 26, 1943, again
   starring Bogart, Bergman and Henreid, while a second version on January
   24, 1944 featured Hedy Lamarr as Ilsa. Julius Epstein made two attempts
   to turn the film into a Broadway musical, in 1951 and 1967, but neither
   made it to the stage. The original play, Everybody Comes to Rick's, was
   produced in Newport, Rhode Island in August 1946, and again in London
   in April 1991, but met with no success.

   In the Spanish dubbing during the Franco era, the fact that Rick had
   worked for the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War was
   edited out.

Cast

   The cast is notable for its internationalism: only three of the
   credited actors were born in the U.S. The three top-billed actors were:
     * Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine. The New York City-born Bogart
       became a star with Casablanca. Earlier in his career, he had been
       typecast as a gangster, playing characters called Bugs, Rocks,
       Turkey, Whip, Chips, Gloves and Duke (twice). High Sierra (1941)
       had allowed him to play a character with some warmth, but Rick was
       his first truly romantic role.
     * Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund. Bergman's official website calls Ilsa
       her "most famous and enduring role". The Swedish actress's
       Hollywood debut in Intermezzo had been well received, but her
       subsequent films were not major successes — until Casablanca. Ebert
       calls her "luminous", and comments on the chemistry between her and
       Bogart: "she paints his face with her eyes". Other actresses
       considered for the role of Ilsa had included Ann Sheridan, Hedy
       Lamarr and Michèle Morgan; Wallis obtained the services of Bergman,
       who was contracted to David O. Selznick, by giving Olivia de
       Havilland in exchange.
     * Paul Henreid as Victor Laszlo. Henreid, an Austrian actor who fled
       Nazi Germany in 1935, was reluctant to take the role (it "set [him]
       as a stiff forever", according to Pauline Kael), until he was
       promised top billing along with Bogart and Bergman. Henreid did not
       get on well with his fellow actors (he considered Bogart "a
       mediocre actor", while Bergman called Henreid a "prima donna").

   The second-billed actors were:
     * Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault. Rains was an English actor,
       born in London. He had previously worked with Michael Curtiz on The
       Adventures of Robin Hood.
     * Sydney Greenstreet as Signor Ferrari, the rival clubowner. Another
       Englishman, Greenstreet had made his film debut with Lorre and
       Bogart in The Maltese Falcon.
     * Peter Lorre as Signor Ugarte. Lorre was a Hungarian character actor
       who left Germany in 1933.
     * Conrad Veidt as Major Strasser of the SS. He was a German actor who
       had appeared in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) before fleeing
       from the Nazis and ending his career playing Nazis in U.S. films.

   Also credited were:
     * Dooley Wilson as Sam. He was one of the few American members of the
       cast. A drummer, he could not play the piano. Hal Wallis had
       considered changing the role of Sam to a female character ( Hazel
       Scott and Ella Fitzgerald were candidates), and even after shooting
       had been completed, Wallis considered dubbing over Wilson's voice
       for the songs.
     * Joy Page as Annina Brandel, the young Bulgarian refugee, the third,
       credited American, was studio head Jack Warner's step-daughter.
     * Madeleine LeBeau as Yvonne, Rick's soon-discarded girlfriend. The
       French actress was Marcel Dalio's wife until their divorce in 1942.
     * S.Z. (or S. K.) "Cuddles" Sakall as Carl, the waiter, was a
       Hungarian actor who fled from Germany in 1939. A friend of Curtiz's
       since their days in Budapest, his three sisters died in a
       concentration camp.
     * Curt Bois as the pickpocket, was a German Jewish actor and another
       refugee. He may have a claim to the longest film career of any
       actor, making his first appearance in 1907 and his last in 1987.
     * John Qualen as Laszlo's Resistance contact, Berger, was born in
       Canada, but grew up in America. He appeared in many of John Ford's
       movies.
     * Leonid Kinskey as Sascha, was born in Russia.

   Notable uncredited actors were:
     * Marcel Dalio as Emil the croupier. He had been a star in French
       cinema, appearing in Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion and La Regle
       de Jeu, but after he fled the fall of France, he was reduced to bit
       parts in Hollywood. He also was a key performer in another of
       Bogart's films, To Have and Have Not.
     * Helmut Dantine as Jan Brandel, the Bulgarian roulette player.
       Another Austrian, he had spent time in a concentration camp after
       the Anschluss.
     * Norma Varden as the befuddled Englishwoman. She was a famous
       English character actress.

   Part of the emotional impact of the film has been attributed to the
   large proportion of European exiles and refugees among the extras and
   in the minor roles. A witness to the filming of the "duel of the songs"
   sequence said he saw many of the actors crying, and, "realised that
   they were all real refugees". Harmetz argues that these refugees,
   "brought to a dozen small roles in Casablanca an understanding and a
   desperation that could never have come from Central Casting". The
   German citizens among them nevertheless had to keep curfew as enemy
   aliens, and they were frequently cast as the Nazis from whom they had
   fled.

   Some of the exiled foreign actors were:
     * Wolfgang Zilzer who is shot in the opening scene of the movie, was
       a silent movie actor in Germany who left when the Nazis took over.
       He later married Casablanca actress Lotte Palfi.
     * Hans Twardowski as a Nazi officer who argues with a French officer
       over Yvonne. Born in Stettin, Germany (today Szczecin, Poland), he
       fled Germany not because he was Jewish, but because he was a
       homosexual.
     * Ludwig Stössel as Mr. Leuchtag, the German refugee whose English is
       not so good. Born in Austria, the Jewish actor was imprisoned
       following the Nazi Anschluss. When he was released, he left for
       England and then America. Stössel became famous for doing a long
       series of commercials for Gallo wine producers. Dressed in an
       Alpine hat and lederhosen, Stössel was their spokesman. His motto
       was, "That Little Old Winemaker, Me!"
     * Ilka Grünig as Mrs. Leuchtag. Born in Vienna, she was a silent
       movie star in Germany who came to America after the Anschluss.
     * Lotte Palfi as the refugee trying to sell her diamonds. Born in
       Germany, she played stage roles at a prestigious theatre in
       Darmstadt, Germany. She journeyed to America after the Nazis came
       to power in 1933. She later married another Casablanca actor,
       Wolfgang Zilzer.
     * Trude Berliner as a baccarat player in Rick's. Born in Berlin, she
       was a famous cabaret performer and film actress. Being Jewish, she
       left Germany in 1933.
     * Louis V. Arco as another refugee in Rick's. Born Lutz Altschul in
       Austria, he moved to America shortly after the Anschluss and
       changed his name.
     * Richard Ryen as Strasser's aide, Colonel Heinze. The Austrian Jew
       acted in German films, but fled the Nazis.

Rumors

   Several rumors and misconceptions have grown up around the film, one
   being that Ronald Reagan was originally chosen to play Rick. This
   originates in a press release issued by the studio early on in the
   film's development, but by that time the studio already knew that he
   was due to go into the army, and he was never seriously considered.

   Another well-known story is that the actors did not know until the last
   day of shooting how the film was to end. The original play (set
   entirely in the cafe) ended with Rick sending Ilsa and Victor to the
   airport. During scriptwriting, the possibility was discussed of Laszlo
   being killed in Casablanca, allowing Rick and Ilsa to leave together,
   but as Behlmer points out, "there was only one dramatically viable real
   possibility: Ilsa and Laszlo take the plane". It was certainly
   impossible for Ilsa to leave Laszlo for Rick, as the production code
   forbade showing a woman leaving her husband for another man. Such
   dispute as there was concerned not whether Ilsa would leave with
   Laszlo, but how this result could be engineered. The confusion was most
   likely caused by Bergman's later statement that she didn't know which
   man she was meant to be in love with. While rewrites did occur during
   the filming, Aljean Harmetz' examination of the scripts has shown that
   many of the key scenes were shot after Bergman knew how the film would
   end: any confusion was, in Ebert's words, "emotional", not "factual".

   Perhaps the most famous misconception is the belief that Ilsa says
   "Play it again, Sam." See Quotes for the actual wording.

Errors

   The film has several logical flaws, the foremost being the two "letters
   of transit" which enable their bearers to leave Vichy French territory.
   It is unclear whether Ugarte says the letters had been signed by Vichy
   General Maxime Weygand or Free French leader General Charles de Gaulle.
   The English subtitles on the official DVD read "de Gaulle", while the
   French ones specify "Weygand". listen  Weygand had been the Vichy
   Delegate-General for the North African colonies until a month before
   the film is set (and a year after it was written). De Gaulle was at the
   time the head of the Free French government, the enemy of the Vichy
   regime controlling Morocco. A Vichy court martial had convicted De
   Gaulle of treason in absentia and sentenced him to life imprisonment on
   August 2, 1940. Thus, it seems implausible that a letter signed by him
   would have been of any benefit. A classic MacGuffin, the letters were
   invented by Joan Allison for the original play and never questioned.
   Even within the film, Rick suggests to Renault that the letters would
   not have allowed Ilsa to escape, let alone Laszlo: "People have been
   held in Casablanca in spite of their legal rights."

   Also, Laszlo says the Nazis cannot arrest him as "This is still
   unoccupied France; any violation of neutrality would reflect on Captain
   Renault." However, "It makes no sense that he could walk around freely"
   in Casablanca, as Ebert points out: "He would be arrested on sight."

   Other difficulties include the airport searchlight pointing at the cafe
   rather than into the sky; a continuity error at the station in Paris
   (Rick's wet coat becomes dry when he gets on the train); and Renault's
   claim that "I was with [the Americans] when they blundered into Berlin
   in 1918." Curtiz's attitude toward these issues was clear — he said, "I
   make it go so fast, nobody notices".

   Finally, the movie depicts a flag of French Morocco that is incorrect,
   consisting of a French tricolour with an Islamic crescent moon and star
   in the middle . In 1942, the flag of the French Protectorate of Morocco
   was the same as the current Moroccan flag, and the civil ensign
   consisted of a common Moroccan flag with white fimbriated French flag
   in the canton . The same flag had been used in earlier films about the
   French Foreign Legion.

Awards

   Casablanca won three Oscars:
     * Academy Award for Best Picture — Hal B. Wallis, producer
     * Academy Award for Directing — Michael Curtiz
     * Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay — Julius J. Epstein,
       Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch

   It was also nominated for another five Oscars:
     * Academy Award for Best Actor — Humphrey Bogart
     * Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor — Claude Rains
     * Academy Award for Best Cinematography, black-and-white — Arthur
       Edeson
     * Academy Award for Film Editing — Owen Marks
     * Academy Award for Original Music Score — Max Steiner

   In 1989, the film was selected for preservation in the United States
   National Film Registry, while in 1999, it was ranked by the American
   Film Institute as the 2nd greatest American film ever made (bested only
   by Citizen Kane). In 2005, it was named one of the 100 greatest films
   of the last 80 years by Time.com.

   In 2006, the Writers Guild of America voted the screenplay of
   Casablanca as the best of all time in its list of the 101 Greatest
   Screenplays.

Quotes

   Ilsa says "Play it once, Sam, for old times' sake"; in response, Sam
   tries to lie, saying "I don't know what you mean, Miss Ilsa"; and she
   says "Play it, Sam. Play ' As Time Goes By.' " When Rick hears the
   song, not realizing yet that Ilsa is there, he rushes up and says "I
   thought I told you never to play that." Later, alone with Sam, he says
   "You played it for her and you can play it for me. If she can stand it,
   I can! Play it!" In A Night in Casablanca, all this dialogue was
   parodied using the line "Play it again, Sam" — a phrase which has
   incorrectly become associated with the original film.

   The line " Here's looking at you, kid", spoken by Rick to Ilsa, was
   voted in a 2005 poll by the American Film Institute as the fifth most
   memorable line in cinema history. Six lines from Casablanca appeared in
   the top 100, by far the most of any film ( Gone With The Wind and The
   Wizard of Oz were next, with three apiece). The others were: "Louis, I
   think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." (20th), "Play
   it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.'" (28th), "Round up the usual
   suspects." (32nd), "We'll always have Paris." (43rd), and "Of all the
   gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."
   (67th).

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