Casablanca - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[elmer]

Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet co-starred in many films, but here they have no scenes together.

[eli]

The Allies invaded Casablanca in real life on 8 November 1942. As the film was not due for release until spring, studio executives suggested it be changed to incorporate the invasion. Warner Bros. chief Jack L. Warner objected, as he thought that an invasion was a subject worth a whole film, not just an epilogue, and that the main story of this film demanded a pre-invasion setting. Eventually he gave in, though, and producer Hal B. Wallis prepared to shoot an epilogue where Humphrey Bogart and Claude Rains hear about the invasion. However, before Rains could travel to the studio for this, David O. Selznick (whose studio owned Bergman's contract) previewed the film and urged Warner to release it unaltered and as fast as possible. Warner agreed and the premiered in New York on November 26. It did not play in Los Angeles until its general release the following January, and hence competed against 1943 films for the Oscars.

[ivan]

Julius Epstein made two attempts to turn the film into a Broadway musical, in 1951 and 1967, but neither made it to the stage.

[carla]

Venerable character actor Clarence Muse, who lost the role of Sam to Dooley Wilson, played the role in Casablanca (1955). Ludwig Stössel was promoted from the minor role of Leuchtag to the S.Z. Sakall part (renamed Ludwig), Marcel Dalio was elevated from the minor role of Emil, the croupier, to the Claude Rains role (renamed Renaud), and Dan Seymour was promoted from the small part of Abdul to Ferrari, the Sydney Greenstreet role.

[melinda]

It is unclear where the line "Here's looking at you, kid" originated, but it definitely predated both this film and earlier stage work by Humphrey Bogart. On March 9, 1932--ten years previously--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.

[tamara]

The young Bulgarian wife desperate to leave Casablanca, played by Joy Page, described the situation in Bulgaria in 1942 as "hell" and probably described some kind of harassment of Bulgarian citizens. That is not actually true. Although an ally of Nazi Germany since March 1, 1941 (not by choice but by coercion), Bulgaria kept its independence. The Bulgarian government successfully defended its own citizens and even helped many Bulgarian Jews flee the country, for which it was thanked after the war by the Israeli government.

[bernard]

The French dialogue between Yvonne and the French officer translates as, French Officer: "Hey you, you're not French to go out with a German like that!" Yvonne: "What are you butting in for?" French Officer: "I am butting in . . . " Yvonne: "It's none of your business!"

[sandra]

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 (1939)). 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.

[lynn]

"La Marseillaise", which the good-guys sing in to drown out the Nazis in Rick's cafe, was written in 1792 by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in Strasbourg after the declaration of war by France against Austria, and was originally titled "Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du Rhin" ("War Song for the Rhine Army"). It has been quoted by numerous more famous composers, including Beethoven, Verdi, Wagner, Rossini, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Shostakovich, Edward Elgar, Robert Schumann, Jacques Offenbach, and the Beatles.