Posted on 12/13/2023 3:08:10 PM PST by Rummyfan
IMDB trivia:
” Humphrey Bogart was an extremely avid and skilled chess player, and was known to have hustled games for money when he was younger and living in New York in the Depression (reportedly 25 cents a game). He also hustled chess games for money when he was not shooting his scenes in Casablanca and other movies. There is a picture of Claude Rains watching Bogart play Paul Henreid on the set of Casablanca, and Bogart and his wife Lauren Bacall appeared on the cover of Chess Review in 1945. The scene with Rick studying a chessboard was a position from one of Bogart’s correspondence games.”
“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. (His wife, Ilona “Lily” Prager,” was Jewish.) He was forced to flee his own country when he learned the SS had sent a death squad after him. Veidt only played film villains during WWII as he was convinced that playing suave Nazi baddies would help the war effort.”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034583/trivia/?ref_=tt_ql_3
And this startling tidbit......At the Academy Awards ceremony, when the award for Casablanca as Best Picture was announced, producer Hal B. Wallis got up to accept, but studio head Jack L. Warner rushed up to the stage “with a broad, flashing smile and a look of great self-satisfaction,” Wallis later recalled.
“I couldn’t believe it was happening. Casablanca had been my creation; Jack had absolutely nothing to do with it. As the audience gasped, I tried to get out of the row of seats and into the aisle, but the entire Warner family sat blocking me. I had no alternative but to sit down again, humiliated and furious ... Almost forty years later, I still haven’t recovered from the shock.”
This incident led Wallis to leave Warner Bros. in April.
The song, featured prominently in the film, has a conservative theme, reminding us that despite the stupendous technological achievements of the 1930s (and the 2020s), human nature remains unchanged.
No matter what the progress,
Or what may yet be proved,
The simple facts of life are such,
They cannot be removed.
*Ever see “The Cheap Detective”?
A good parody of Casablanca and Maltese Falcon.*
How about “Blackbird”? George Segal. The scene where the nude midget jumps into bed with the tall blonde. Unfortunately it’s not on dvd as I remember.
” You despise me, don’t you Rick”?
“If I gave you any thought, I probably would”.
Yet Rick is the only person Ugate would trust....
” You despise me, don’t you Rick”?
“If I gave you any thought, I probably would”.
Same here. North by Northwest has some of the greatest dialogue ever.
“Sahara” is my favorite.
Vaguely remember that one.
One of my all-time favorite movies.
Apparently many of the extras in the movie (like the scene in Rick’s cafe when Victor Lazlo gets them to sing “La Marseillaise”) were refugees from the Nazis.
Exactly. Rick was a commie. Ilsa was a putan. Capt Renault was a rapist extortionist. And when the studio wouldn’t give them any more money to shoot the airport scene at the end they had to use a 3/4 size model plane in the background and hire little people to load the baggage to make it look realistic. They also were afraid to use the Horst Wessel Song as the song the Germans sang because it might be a copyright infringement. They chose an older German song instead. It might also be my favorite movie.
The original song the Germans sang in the script was the Horst Wessel Lied, but Warner was worried about copyright so they substituted a patriotic song from the 1840s.
By the time the movie was out the 8th Air Force was pounding the Reich copyright office to dust. They could have kept the original.
👍
Very much agree.
One of the best ever.
I wholeheartedly agree!
I always was partial to “Go back to Bulgaria”
While I love Casablanca, The Big Sleep is a better Bogart movie.
L
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.