Casablanca (1942) Facts
| Director(s) | Michael Curtiz |
| Producer(s) | Hal B. Wallis, Jack L. Warner |
| Featured Cast | Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt |
| Total Facts | 108 |
"As Time Goes By" was written by lifelong bachelor Herman Hupfeld and debuted in 1931's Broadway show "Everybody's Welcome", sung by Frances Williams, It had been a personal favorite of playwright and high school teacher Murray Burnett who, seven years later, visited Vienna just after the Nazis had entered. Later, after visiting a café in south France where a black pianist had entertained a mixed crowd of Nazis, French and refugees, Burnett was inspired to write the melodrama "Everybody Comes to Rick's", which was optioned for production by Martin Gabel and Carly Wharton, and later, Warners. After the film's release, "As Time Goes By" stayed on radio's "Hit Parade" for 21 weeks. However, because of the coincidental musicians' union recording ban, the 1931 Rudy Vallee version became the smash hit. (It contains the rarely-sung introductory verse, not heard in the film.) Max Steiner, in a 1943 interview, admitted that the song "must have had something to attract so much attention".
"Here's looking at you, kid" was improvised by Humphrey Bogart in the Parisian scenes and worked so well that it was used later on again in the film. He originally used the same line in Midnight. It is also rumored that during breaks, Ingrid Bergman would play poker with other cast members. Since she was still learning English, Bogart would occasionally watch the game, and he added "Here's looking at you" to her poker repertoire.
"Rick's Café Américain" was modeled after Hotel El Minzah in Tangiers.
Humphrey Bogart had to wear platform shoes to play alongside Ingrid Bergman.
Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid later reprised their roles for a radio performance of on the CBS radio program "The Screen Guild Players", a war benefit show on April 26, 1943.
Humphrey Bogart's wife Mayo Methot continually accused him of having an affair with Ingrid Bergman, often confronting him in his dressing room before a shot. Bogart would come onto the set in a rage. In fact, despite the undeniable on-screen chemistry between Bogart and Bergman, they hardly spoke, and the only time they bonded was when the two had lunch with Geraldine Fitzgerald. According to Fitzgerald, "the whole subject at lunch was how they could get out of that movie. They thought the dialogue was ridiculous and the situations were unbelievable... I knew Bogart very well, and I think he wanted to join forces with Bergman, to make sure they both said the same things." For whatever reasons, Bogart and Bergman rarely spoke after that.
S.Z. Sakall, who plays the maitre d' at Rick's Cafe, actually has more screen time than Peter Lorre or Sydney Greenstreet.
Madeleine Lebeau, who plays Yvonne, and Marcel Dalio, who plays croupier Emil, were husband and wife at the time of filming. They had not long before escaped the Nazis by fleeing their native France.
Dooley Wilson (Sam) was a professional drummer who faked playing the piano. As the music was recorded at the same time as the film, the piano playing was actually a recording of a performance by Elliot Carpenter who was playing behind a curtain but who was positioned such that Dooley could watch, and copy, his hand movements.
Dooley Wilson was borrowed from Paramount at $500 a week.
Dooley Wilson was, in fact, the only member of the cast to have ever actually visited the city of Casablanca.
Joy Page, who played the young Bulgarian wife, was the stepdaughter of studio head Jack L. Warner. She, Humphrey Bogart and Dooley Wilson were the only American-born people in the credited cast. This film was her debut.
Hal B. Wallis didn't want Humphrey Bogart wearing a hat too often in the film, as he thought it made Bogart look like a gangster.
Hal B. Wallis's first choice for director was William Wyler.
Sydney Greenstreet wanted to wear something more ethnic to show that his character had assimilated into the Moroccan lifestyle. This idea was nixed by producer Hal B. Wallis who insisted that he wear his now-iconic white suit.
Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid make their first appearance 24 minutes into the film.
Ingrid Bergman considered her left side as her better side, and to the extent possible that was the side photographed throughout the film, so she is almost always on the right side of the screen looking towards the left regardless of who is in the shot with her. However, there are several shots where she is to the left and Humphrey Bogart is on the right, including the flashbacks to the street scene in Paris (0:41:50) and the scene at the window (0:43:40). There are also several scenes where Bergman is centered between Paul Henreid and Bogart, suggesting the triangle nature of their relationship; in these shots Henreid is usually to the left and Bogart is usually on the right, including the scene where she and Henreid enter the café at just before the famous "Battle of the Anthems" (1:07:40); the scene where Captain Renault arrests Victor Laszlo (1:34:00); and at the end of the final airport scene (1:39:00).
Ingrid Bergman's contract was owned by producer David O. Selznick, and producer Hal B. Wallis sent the film's writers, Philip G. Epstein and Julius J. Epstein, to persuade Selznick to loan her to Warner Bros. for the picture. After 20 minutes of describing the plot to Selznick, Julius gave up and said, "Oh, what the hell! It's a lot of shit like Algiers!" Selznick nodded and agreed to the loan.
Ingrid Bergman's line "Victor Laszlo is my husband, and was, even when I knew you in Paris" was almost cut from the film because during that time it was deemed inappropriate for a film to depict or suggest a woman romancing with another man if she were already married. However, it was pointed out that later in the film she explains that she had thought Laszlo was dead at the time, and the censors allowed the line to stay in.
Howard Hawks had said in interviews that he was supposed to direct Casablanca and Michael Curtiz was supposed to direct Sergeant York. The directors had lunch together, where Hawks said he didn't know how to make this "musical comedy", while Curtiz didn't know anything about "those hill people." They switched projects. Hawks struggled on how to direct the scenes that involved singing, namely the "La Marseillaise" scene. It is ironic to note that most of his other films involved at least one singing scene.
Paul Henreid was loaned to Warners for the role of Victor Lazlo by Selznick International Pictures against his will. He was concerned that playing a secondary character would ruin his career as a romantic lead.
Conrad Veidt, who played Maj. Strasser, was well known in the theatrical community in Germany for his hatred of the Nazis, and in fact was forced to hurriedly escape the country when he found out that the SS had sent a death squad after him because of his anti-Nazi activities.
Conrad Veidt's wife was Jewish and that is one of the reasons why Veidt had to flee Germany before his wife or himself was arrested.
Michèle Morgan asked for $55,000, but Hal B. Wallis refused to pay it when he could get Ingrid Bergman for $25,000.
Howard Koch was instructed to start the screenplay all over again, paying particular attention to Rick's background and the ending, while the Epsteins were struggling with their version. Writers Casey Robinson and Lenore J. Coffee were asked to critique the two versions and found much merit in both, though Robinson thought the romantic angle lacking and was subsequently tasked with ramping this up.
Joan Alison always envisioned Clark Gable as Rick, who "was my concept of a guy that I would like... I hated Humphrey Bogart. I thought he was a common drunk."
A $100,000 insurance policy was taken out on the films leading player, Humphrey Bogart, in case he died during the film's production.
After hearing the French message via the loudspeaker Rick predicts "Nothing can stop them now. Wednesday, Thursday at the latest they would be in Paris". In fact, the Germans entered Paris at the morning of June 14th, 1940 - Friday.
After shooting, Max Steiner spoke against using "As Time Goes By" as the song identifying Rick and Ilsa, saying he would rather compose an original song in order to qualify for royalties. However, Hal B. Wallis replied that since the filming had ended, Ingrid Bergman had cut her hair very short for For Whom the Bell Tolls which was shooting at a distant locale and she therefore could not re-shoot already-completed scenes that had used "As Time Goes By".
Although M.K. Jerome and Jack Scholl are listed in the opening credits for "Songs", they are in fact represented by only one song (Knock on Wood). The other song they wrote for Casablanca (Dat's What Noah Done) was cut from the picture.
Although this was an overtly anti-Nazi film, it wasn't the first one that Warner Bros. had made (it had come out several years earlier with Confessions of a Nazi Spy). Warners was the first Hollywood studio to be so open about its opposition to the Nazi regime, and the first to prohibit its films from being distributed in Nazi-occupied territories. Indeed, Harry M. Warner was making speeches denouncing Nazi activities in Germany as early as 1936.
Around nine minutes into the movie, Rick OKs a credit slip dated 2-Dec-1941.
At a salary of $25,000 for five weeks' work, Conrad Veidt was the highest-paid actor on the set and on loan from MGM. His main competition for the Maj. Strasser role was Otto Preminger, under contract to 20th Century-Fox, for whom Darryl F. Zanuck had demanded the outrageous sum of $7,000 per week.
At one point it looked like there was going to be trouble casting a foreign actor in the part of Victor Laszlo. Herbert Marshall, Dean Jagger and Joseph Cotten were considered until Paul Henreid became available.
Because the film was made during WWII they were not allowed to film at an airport after dark for security reasons. Instead they used a sound stage with a small cardboard cutout airplane and forced perspective. To give the illusion that the plane was full-sized, they used little people to portray the crew preparing the plane for take-off. Years later the same technique was used in the film Alien, with director Ridley Scott's son and some of his friends in scaled down spacesuits.
Captain Renault's line, "You like war. I like women," was changed from "You enjoy war. I enjoy women," in order to meet decency standards.
Carl's back story is hinted at once, when he is referred to as "Professor" by a waiter.
Casablanca, Morocco, was one of the key stops for refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe, which is why the original playwrights chose the city for the setting of their play (though initially they had opted for Lisbon).
Director Michael Curtiz' Hungarian accent often caused confusion on the set. He asked a prop man for a "poodle" to appear in one scene. The prop man searched high and low for a poodle while the entire crew waited. He found one and presented it to Curtiz, who screamed "A poodle! A poodle of water!" See also The Charge of the Light Brigade.
Early in the production, studio head Jack L. Warner offered the role of Rick Blaine to George Raft, but the actor turned it down. As the shooting script took shape, producer Hal B. Wallis began to envision actor Humphrey Bogart in the Rick Blaine role. As Bogart was under contract to Warner Bros. the role was assigned to him by Wallis. But after Bogart had been cast in the role, George Raft reconsidered his decision and contacted Warner to deliver the news that he had decided to accept the 'Casablanca' part after all. After consulting with Wallis - who had never envisioned anyone but Bogart in the role - Warner decided to support his producer: Warner explained to Raft that Humphrey Bogart had been cast in the role of Rick Blaine, and that the part was no longer available.
Given the extraordinary chemistry between the two leads, it's curious that Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman never appeared in another movie together, this being their one and only joint venture.
High school teacher Murray Burnett co-authored the play while on summer vacation.
In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #3 Greatest Movie of All Time.
In the 1980s, this film's script was sent to readers at a number of major studios and production companies under its original title, "Everybody Comes to Rick's". Some readers recognized the script but most did not. Many complained that the script was "not good enough" to make a decent movie. Others gave such complaints as "too dated", "too much dialog" and "not enough sex".
In the famous scene where the "Marseillaise" is sung over the German song "Watch on the Rhine", many of the extras had real tears in their eyes; a large number of them were actual refugees from Nazi persecution in Germany and elsewhere in Europe and were overcome by the emotions the scene brought out.
In the German version, the immortal line "Here's lookin' at you, kid", became, "Ich seh' Dir in die Augen, Kleines" which translates as "I look in your eyes, honey".
In the market scene, as one of the Resistance members is shot, the wall of the building behind him is painted with a picture of Marshal Pétain and a quote attributed to him. In English, the quote reads, "I keep my promises, even those of other people".
In the original script for Casablanca, then titled "Everyone Come to Rick's", Ilsa was not a 'virtuous' woman. She was living with an already married American business man. It was Rick who left her when he found out. And when she and Victor come to Casablanca, she is not married to him, either.
It is never revealed why Rick cannot return to America. Julius J. Epstein later said that "My brother and I tried very hard to come up with a reason why Rick couldn't return to America. But nothing seemed right. We finally decided not to give a reason at all."
It is unclear where the line, "Here's looking at you, kid," originated, but it definitely predated both Casablanca and earlier stage work by Bogart. On March 9, 1932 - 10 years before Casablanca - Eddie Cantor signed his name in cement at Grauman's Chinese Theater and wrote, "Here's looking at you, Sid" (referring to Sid Grauman, owner of the theater). Cantor certainly meant it as a take-off on "Here's looking at you, kid", which evidently was a line in circulation at the time.