Casablanca is a movie which we are still watching today. Do you know how many years it has been since it was broadcast? It has been 80 years since its premiere in 1942.Happy birthday!
In this special year, I summarized some trivia about Casablanca to gossip with you. If you are also a fan of Casablanca, you could follow me so that we can communicate together!
1. The script is adapted from Everyone Comes to Rick's. At the time, Hal B. Wallis, a producer of Warner Bros., bought the script for $20,000. That was an astonishingly high price.
2. Wallis invited his friend Michael Curtiz to be the director, who is a Hungarian Jew. Many Jewish are involved in the production crew and actors of the movie. Furthermore, many actors who perform Nazis are Germans who suffered from Nazis persecution.
3. Max Steiner composed music for the film，while "as time goes by" sung by Sam in the film is not his creation. The song comes from the original stage play. He had thought about replacing the song of the original play with the composed music. But it was not implemented, because the shooting was over, and Bergman couldn't retake the shots since she had cut her hair short for the next film.
4. There are hundreds of actors and actresses in the film, and there are 22 characters with dialogue. The actors and actresses of the movie are from different countries. Only three were born in the US: Humphrey Bogart (Rick), Dooley Wilson (Sam), Joy Page (Annina Brandel, a Bulgarian refugee). Page is the stepdaughter of Jack, the boss of Warner Bros.
5. Dooley Wilson is a drummer, not a piano player.
6. The airport scene in the film is taken from the Van Nuys Airport in Los Angeles. Then, all other scenes are shot in the studio. There is also a small amount of Paris expansion. The film was not shot in Casablanca.
7. Bergman is about 2 inches taller than Bogart. So, Bogart has to step on the mat to increase his height, when the two are in the scene together.
8. The film was scheduled to be released in 1943. However, the Allies captured Casablanca in November 1942. In response to the siege, the film was released at a small scale in the Hollywood Theater, where it gained a total box office of $255,000. And it was not released nationwide until 1943. So, the film participated in the selection of film awards in 1944.
9. When the film gained the Academy Award for Best Picture at the Oscars, Wallis was about to stand up to accept the award, only to find that Jack Warner was already on the podium. Because of this, Wallis was very angry. Then, he left Warner Bros.
10. Many iconic posters of the film have been auctioned for hundreds of thousands or even more than $200,000. And the piano in the film was successfully auctioned at a sky-high price of $3.4 million.
That's all the trivia I know. And you are welcomed to leave your comments if you also know about it. Let's relive the immortal work together.
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