Casablanca - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Casablanca or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Casablanca

[maureen]

It is never revealed why Rick cannot return to America. Julius J. Epstein later said that "my brother (Philip G. Epstein) 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."

[russell]

Dan Seymour (Abdul the Doorman) would later play villains opposite Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not (1944) and Key Largo (1948).

[elmer]

The first scene that Michael Curtiz and company shot was one of the flashback scenes in Paris, which caused some problems for the stars--Humphrey Bogart because, in his own words, "I'm not up on this love stuff and don't know just what to do," and Ingrid Bergman because, as the script had not yet been finished, she didn't know whether her character was supposed to be in love with Rick or Victor Laszlo. Curtiz, who did not know himself, told her to "play it in between."

[melinda]

Just before he shot Maj. Strasser (Conrad Veidt), Humphrey Bogart ad-libbed the line, "All right, Major, you asked for it." But Hal B. Wallis pointed out that this made it look as though when Strasser drew his gun first it was self-defense. Veidt was recalled and the scene re-shot without the added line, but the original version was used in the trailer for the movie.

[jim]

"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 (1934). 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.

[nina]

In 1943 Jack Benny parodied the movie on his radio show, with himself as Ricky Bogart and Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson as Sam. At one point in the sketch Ricky asks: "Sam, Sam, play that song for me again, will you?" This is almost certainly the origin of the "Play it again, Sam" myth.

[riley]

The film's success led to plans for a sequel, which was to be called Brazzaville. Ingrid Bergman was not available, so Geraldine Fitzgerald was considered for Ilsa before the project was killed. It was not until the late 1990s and Michael Walsh's novel "As Time Goes By" that a true sequel ever came to pass.

[javier]

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.

[bernard]

Conrad Veidt, who played Maj. Strasser, was well known in the theatrical community in Germany for his hatred of the Nazis, and his friendship with Jews (including his Jewish wife), 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. Veidt had it in his contract that he only played villains because he was convinced that playing suave Nazi baddies would help the war effort.

[toni]

A $100,000 insurance policy was taken out on the film's leading player, Humphrey Bogart, in case he died during production.

[lena]

Claude Rains was a non-smoker. In most of his scenes he is smoking a cigarette. He never inhales, however, using the trick of drawing the smoke into his mouth, holding it for a moment, then puffing it out without ever drawing it into his lungs.

[jeffrey]

The film ran into some trouble with Joseph I. Breen of the Production Code Administration (the Hollywood self-censorship body), who opposed the suggestions that Capt. Renault extorted sexual favors from his supplicants, and that Rick and Ilsa had slept together in Paris. Extensive changes were made, with several lines of dialogue removed or altered. All direct references to sex were deleted; Renault's selling of visas for sex and Rick and Ilsa's previous sexual relationship were implied elliptically rather than referenced explicitly. Also, in the original script, when Sam plays "As Time Goes By", Rick remarks, "What the--are you playing?" This line implying a curse word was removed at the behest of the PCA.

[sylvia]

Back in the early-to-mid 2000s, Madonna wanted to remake "Casablanca (1942)" with her playing IIsa Lund and Ashton Kutcher in the role of Rick Blaine. Madonna pitched the idea to every studio but was unanimously rejected by every studio with one studio executive telling her "That film is deemed untouchable". The project has since been scrapped by Madonna.

[willard]

Warner Bros. wanted to remove the song "As Time Goes By", but Ingrid Bergman had already had her hair cut short for her next film, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), so director Michael Curtiz was unable to re-shoot the scene.

[gerald]

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. Fog was used to mask the model's somewhat unconvincing appearance. Nevertheless, Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park in Orlando, FL, purchased a Lockheed 12A for its Great Movie Ride attraction, and initially claimed that it was the actual plane used in the film.

[wesley]

Humphrey Bogart's character says in his Paris flashback to his lover that they could get a captain to marry them on a ship. This actually does happen to Bogart's character in The African Queen (1951).

[richard]

Early in the movie, Victor Laszlo acquires a large scar over his right eye. The reason for the scar's existence is never addressed in the movie. One possible explanation is the hint of Laszlo's torture by the Nazis.

[wallace]

The scene in which Victor Laszlo leads the band and patrons of Rick's in singing "La Marseillaise" was copied from Jean Renoir's 1937 film La Grande Illusion (1937), in which French soldiers in a German POW camp sing the song as a similar gesture of defiance. In that film the song was led by a prisoner who was in drag for a show the prisoners were putting on.

[clayton]

The film had six quotes on the American Film Institute's list of top movie quotes, more than any other movie on the list. The quotes with their ranks are: (5) Here's looking at you, kid. (20) Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. (28) Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.' (32) Round up the usual suspects. (43) We'll always have Paris; and (67) Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.Gone with the Wind (1939) and The Wizard of Oz (1939) came in tied for second place, with three quotes apiece (including the #1 quote for Gone with the Wind).