The Willow Glen Resident Photograph courtesy of Cookie Curci-Wright Here's Looking at You: Casablanca celebrates its 56th anniversary in November. As time goes by, its mystique goes on By Cookie Curci-Wright The sound of gunfire cuts through the mist in a French-Moroccan airport. Nazi Major Heinrich Strasser falls mortally wounded. Overhead a passenger plane ascends the night skies, carrying resistance leader Victor Laszlo and his wife, Ilsa Lund, to freedom. Police Captain Louis Renault has just witnessed Rick Blaine, the reluctant idealist, commit the murder. Within seconds, the police arrive on the scene. Captain Renault announces, "Major Strasser has been shot." There's a pause as Renault looks at Rick, knowing he holds Rick's fate in his hands. A moment later, he commands his officers to "round up the usual suspects," sending them off on a wild goose chase. Rick breathes a sigh of relief, then walks off with Renault into a fog-covered night and utters this exit line: "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." Actually this was the end of a beautiful motion picture and the beginning of classic film history. Originally conceived as a play, which was written by Murray Burnett and Joan Allison, Casablanca was purchased by Warner Bros. Studios in 1941. In the days that followed, the story would undergo myriad changes in dialog, plot and title. The film was originally called Everybody Comes to Rick's. The world was at war in 1941, and its rage had touched every country. Casablanca, like so many obscure foreign cities, was brought to world attention by the war. Located on the sandy waste of North Africa's Sahara desert, Casablanca soon became a popular mecca for refugees searching for passage to Lisbon and political freedom. Casablanca was filmed during the early days of World War II, and no other film of its time more keenly reflected unfolding world events. People were in need of a movie that inspired patriotism, heroic commitment and loyalty. Casablanca had all that: Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), tough-guy owner of Cafe Americain, an expatriate in self-imposed exile whose lost love returns and rekindles his high ideals; Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman), Rick's old flame, who sacrifices personal happiness for her husband's noble cause; Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), Ilsa's husband and a resistance fighter, pursued by the Gestapo; and Louis Renault (Claude Rains), the police captain whose political allegiance is never quite clear until the crucial final moments of the film. Add a few Nazi villains, assorted riffraff and an exotic locale, pepper with patriotic motives and a liberal amount of fine acting and directing, and you have the ingredients of an extraordinary film. Bogart's distinctive and convincing performance in the leading role broke him out of the gangster mold and established him as a leading man. It also made him Hollywood's highest-paid actor. Audiences were hungry for screen heroes, and who better to fight off the nefarious Nazis than New York City-born Bogart? Born in 1899, "Bogie" was 43 when he starred in Casablanca, to Ingrid Bergman's 27. Some actors, if they're good enough, immortalize the roles they play. Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart have given immortality to Ilsa Lund and Rick Blaine, Casablanca's star-crossed lovers. Every movie fan has a favorite scene from this timeless film. For romantics, like myself, it will always be the climactic airport farewell between Rick and Ilsa: The audience is taken away to distant French Morocco, where we can almost feel the chill and breathe the dampness of a cool night fog. We see an airplane readying for take-off in the background and hear the pop of its propellers. In our mind's eye, we experience the rumble and vibration of its powerful twin engines as Ilsa boards the plane, leaving Rick's life forever. In reality, this poignant scene was shot on a Warner Bros. backlot stage, cleverly using a scaled-down cardboard airplane, with small people as airport attendants, to give the scene perspective. Old-fashioned dry ice created the fog. No elaborate Spielberg effects or computerized photography. Until he won his Oscar in 1951, Bogart was of the opinion that the academy wasn't able to judge an actor's worth. "No one," he said, "could judge the best performance of the year unless all the actors were to play the same role." The following year, Bogart won for his role as the gin-soaked river-trader in The African Queen. Bogart raced down the aisle of the Pantages Theater to breathlessly accept his award. Ingrid Bergman had to wait a little longer for her statuette. Some 14 years after making Casablanca, she received her long-overdue Oscar in 1956 for her role in Anastasia. According to film historian Rudy Behlmer in his work Behind the Scenes, Inside Warner Bros., actress Hedy Lamarr was an early choice to play the part of Ilsa Lund. But as the script changed, so did the choice of leading lady. Bergman's fresh European beauty best fit the role. The part of Rick was tailored for Bogart, but George Raft wanted it badly enough to campaign to Jack Warner, and almost got the role. Also, the part of Sam the piano man, so indelibly portrayed by Dooley Wilson--who in reality couldn't play a lick on the piano--was almost changed to a lady chanteuse. Somehow, "Play it again, Samantha," just doesn't cut it. The release date for Casablanca was originally scheduled for June 1943, but unexpected world events inspired Warner's to push up the date. In November of 1942, Allied forces landed in North Africa, in Casablanca. To take advantage of wartime headlines, the film was released on Thanksgiving Day 1942, in New York City, just weeks after the landings. Later, the film's general release came in January 1943. On that same date, a world conference was being held in Casablanca by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill. During the making of Casablanca, it was reported that the set was in total confusion. The script, worked on by numerous writers, was in a shambles; at times, dialogue was written minutes before shooting. No one, least of all the actors, knew where the plot was heading. But somehow, incredibly, director Michael Curtiz pulled it all together and came up with the best-loved, most-quoted Hollywood classic of all time, securing himself a place in motion picture history. Casablanca won three Oscars in 1943 for best picture, best screenplay and best director. I recently heard that a book sequel to Casablanca is in the planning. What next, a TV miniseries? I can only hope that it stops there and that some wiseacre doesn't get the diluted notion to remake Casablanca. It was tried once in 1983 in a thinly disguised film called Havana, which bombed big time at the box office. Casablanca, like its stars, Bergman and Bogart, can be imitated but not duplicated. Casablanca may be reprinted but never, ever, remade. [ Back to Contents Page | Willow Glen Resident Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Willow Glen Resident, November 25, 1998. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.