Devastating behind the scenes secrets of movie classic Casablanca | Films | Entertainment

Widely considered to be one of the best films of all time, the Humphrey Bogart-Ingrid Bergman starrer Casablanca released in theatres 83 years ago today, January 23.

The evergreen 1943 classic directed by Michael Curtiz is often dubbed as the ‘most quoted movie of all time’ and it comes as no surprise.

With a screenplay adapted from Murray Burnett and Joan Alison’s unproduced stage play Everybody Comes to Rick’s, the film is overflowing with quotable quotes.

The film, set against the backdrop of the Second World War, centres around Rick Blaine, the owner of a nightclub in Casablanca, who discovers that his old flame Ilsa is in town with her husband, Czechoslovak resistance leader Victor.

Starring Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Dooley Wilson alongside Bogart and Bergman, Casablanca is a film for the ages.

Over the decades, much has been written and revealed about this 102-minute long cinematic gem, but there are some behind the scenes secrets that most people are unaware of.

Interestingly, there was a high possibility Casablanca may not have even been named as such, because playwrights Burnett and Alison originally set their story in Lisbon, Portugal. However Warner Bros producer Hal Wallis preferred the sultry Moroccan city over its European coastal counterpart, and thus, Casablanca was born.

Devastatingly, several of the actors in Casablanca had themselves suffered at the hands of the Second World War, with many of them having faced first-hand experiences of Nazi brutality and the consequences of conflict.

SZ Sakall, who played the role of Carl the waiter in the film, was a Jewish-Hungarian who had fled Nazi Germany in 1939 and tragically lost three of his sisters to a concentration camp.

Portraying a pickpocket in Casablanca, Curt Bois, was a German-Jewish actor and refugee, while Helmut Dantine, who took on the role of the Bulgarian roulette player in the film, had himself spent time in a concentration camp and fled Europe after attaining freedom.

Conrad Veidt, portraying the role of Major Heinrich Strasser, was a German actor and refugee who had managed to flee from the Nazis, but he was frequently cast as a Nazi in American movies. Michael Curtiz, Casablanca’s director himself, was a Hungarian-Jewish immigrant who had arrived in the US in 1926, and a few of his family members were refugees from Nazi Europe.

While filmmaker Curtiz can take credit for helming most of the award-winning film, the movie’s opening montage was actually shot by another director, Don Siegel, who went on to helm blockbuster classics of his own such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and Dirty Harry (1971).

It’d be hard to find someone who has watched Casablanca and not adored the character of Sam, Rick’s best friend and in-house pianist of the club. Portrayed to perfection by actor Dooley Wilson, in reality, Dooley was a professional drummer and singer, and faked playing the piano in the film. Instead, pianist Elliot Carpenter was playing the instrument, hidden behind a curtain.

“Here’s looking at you, kid.” We’ve all heard it a million times, but surprisingly, this iconic Humphrey Bogart line wasn’t even a part of the film’s original script. In fact, it was fully improvised on the spot by Bogart, who had previously used a similar iteration of the dialogue in his 1934 film Midnight — and also allegedly said it to Bergman while they were hanging out on set and he was teaching her how to play poker.

It was no secret that Bogart was on the shorter side, coming in at a respectable five feet nine inches, whereas Bergman herself was slightly taller. Throughout the filming, Bogart reportedly stood on boxes and sat on pillows in order to appear taller than his co-star in their scenes together.

As if Casablanca’s complete big screen domination wasn’t enough, directors also took a stab at adapting it for television, with two short-lived Casablanca TV series having seen the light of day in 1955 and then again in 1983. The latter starred David Soul of Starsky and Hutch fame, and although five episodes of the show were filmed, the project got cancelled after merely two episodes.

Casablanca is available to stream for free on BBC iPlayer till 3.25pm on Tuesday, January 27 and can be rented on Prime Video.

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