Casablanca (movie)

If she can stand it, I can! Play it!". This view tends to see Klaatu as a misinformed or naïve idealist, unfamiliar with the nuances of world conflict. Play As Time Goes By." Later, Rick requests an encore by saying, "You played it for her, you can play it for me.. Others find resonance in the themes of the ascribed "uselessness" of the United Nations and of the assembling of the world's scientists to hear a message of peace. At one point, Ilsa says to piano player Sam, "Play it, Sam. Some speculate that the film and others like it contributed to a popular philosophy that blossomed in the cultural revolution of the 1960s. The closest lines are as follows:. This interpretation holds that it is the fearful hostility of "the government," not the will of people, that was the sole obstacle to Klaatu's plan.

The (mis)quote "Play it again, Sam" originates with Casablanca. Many see value in the film's statement of universal moral standing, finding an association with Klaatu as a well-meaning upstart, whose time had not yet come. In 1989 the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry, while in 1998 it was ranked by the American Film Institute as the second greatest American film (after Citizen Kane). Filmed in black and white with minimal, but effective special effects, the movie is a model of brisk, economical storytelling and direction. It was also nominated for another five Oscars:. In spite of the undeniable cliches of the movie (a race of killer robots, a spaceman in a silver suit and a flying saucer, etc.), its message of peace and dark outlook regarding human society separates it from the fray of 1950s science fiction and has made it a classic. Casablanca won three Oscars:. The film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Central is the idea of sacrifice: "the myth of sacrifice runs through the whole film". The surprise ending of the short story "Farewell To The Master" by Harry Bates (where it is revealed that the robot – originally called Gnut rather than Gort – is the master and the alien man, Klaatu, the servant) was not used in the movie, where this remains an open question. However, he argues that it is this inconsistency which accounts for the film's popularity by allowing it to include a whole series of archetypes: unhappy love, flight, passage, waiting, desire, the triumph of purity, the faithful servant, the love triangle, beauty and the beast, the enigmatic woman, the ambiguous adventurer and the redeemed drunkard. Klaatu does explicitly refer to the "almighty spirit" when asked whether Gort has the power over life and death. He sees the changes the characters undergo as inconsistency rather than complexity: "It is a comic strip, a hotch-potch, low on psychological credibility, and with little continuity in its dramatic effects". Carpenter's initials are "J.C.", perhaps another allusion to Jesus Christ. Casablanca is a very mediocre film". Further, Mr.

A dissenting note comes from Umberto Eco, who wrote that "by any strict critical standards.. The Day the Earth Stood Still has been interpreted to contain religious symbolism, especially because of Klaatu's death and subsequent resurrection, and his chosen name "Carpenter". By the end of the film, however, "everybody is sacrificing". (This phrase was hilariously mangled by Ash of the Evil Dead series, whose mispronunciation leads to the awakening of the Army of Darkness.). Even Ilsa, the least active of the main characters, is "caught in the emotional struggle" over which man she really loves. Earth, he tells them, can either decide to abandon warfare and join other spacefaring nations – a peace ensured by a massive deterrent force, the robot race Gort belongs to – or be destroyed as a threat. not a bad guy": he does what is necessary to get along with the authorities and "sticks his neck out for nobody". After Klaatu is revived, he steps out of the saucer and speaks to the assembled scientists.

Rick, according to Behlmer, is "not a hero, .. After these words are spoken, the robot aborts his attack against Helen, carries her into the flying saucer, retrieves Klaatu's corpse, transports him to the saucer, and revives him from death. Renault begins the film as a collaborator with the Nazis, who extorts sexual favours from refugees and has Ugarte killed in custody. In a dramatic encounter, the huge robot nearly kills Helen before she gets the words out. The other characters, in Rudy Behlmer's words, are "not cut and dried": they come into their goodness in the course of the film. Concerned far less about his own death than about the lives of countless others, he urgently sends Helen Benson to deliver to the robot Gort the words that will cancel the attack: "Gort, Klaatu barada nikto". As the Resistance hero, Laszlo is ostensibly the most good, although Ebert comments that he is so stiff that he is hard to like. Klaatu has benevolently warned his earthling friends that Gort has been programmed to defend him and that he will wreak great destruction if anything untoward happens to him.

Ebert has also said that the film is popular because "the people in it are all so good". Klaatu is indeed shot before he and Helen can reach the scientists' meeting. Ebert says that he has never heard of a negative review of the film, even though individual elements can be criticised (he cites the unrealistic special effects and the stiff character/portrayal of Laszlo). Helen is repulsed by Tom's indifference, and rushes to help Klaatu. Behlmer also emphasises the variety in the picture: "it’s a blend of drama, melodrama, comedy [and] intrigue". "I'm not interested in the rest of the world," is Tom's reply, expressing the movie's theme of the unconcern most people have about the larger world around them. Roger Ebert has claimed that the film is "probably on more lists of the greatest films of all time than any other single title, including Citizen Kane", because of its wider appeal; while Citizen Kane is "greater", Casablanca is more loved. "You'll feel differently about me...." "I feel different right now." Helen asks Tom about the impact that betraying Klaatu will have on the rest of the world.

For more errors, see Casablanca's page at Moviemistakes.com (http://www.moviemistakes.com/film241). Tom is sure that by betraying Klaatu, he can become rich and famous. Other difficulties are the airport searchlight which is pointed at the cafe rather than into the sky; a continuity error at the station in Paris (Rick's wet coat becomes dry when he gets on the train); the supposedly Czech Laszlo's Hungarian name; and Renault's claim that "I was with [the Americans] when they blundered into Berlin in 1918." Curtiz's attitude to these issues was clear, however: "I make it go so fast, nobody notices". After the blackout is over, Tom confronts Helen with his knowledge that Klaatu is the space man. However "it makes no sense that he could walk around freely" in Casablanca, as Ebert points out: "he would be arrested on sight". Helen now understands Klaatu's real mission. In the film, as Laszlo says, the Nazis cannot arrest him as "we're on free French soil; any violation of neutrality would reflect on Captain Renault". Because of the standstill, which lasts thirty minutes, Klaatu is now perceived as a security threat by the Americans, who decide that he must be taken dead or alive.

Even within the film, Rick suggests to Renault that the letters would not be enough for Ilsa to escape, let alone Laszlo: "people have been held in Casablanca in spite of their legal rights". At the same time, Tom is at the jeweller's, who exclaims that such a diamond could not have come from Earth. A classic MacGuffin, the letters were invented by Joan Allison for the original play and never questioned. The blackout finds Klaatu trapped in an elevator with Helen, to whom he explains the whole situation. The film has several apparent logical flaws, foremost being the two "letters of transit" which enable anyone to leave for abroad. This is the situation referred to in the movie's title. Another famous myth is that Bergman asks Dooley Wilson, the piano player to "play it again, Sam," see Quotes. As a demonstration of the seriousness of his message, Klaatu decides to turn off all electric power, all over the world (including combustion engines) -- with some notable exceptions, such as hospitals and planes in flight.

To add to the confusion the official DVD English subtitles say "de Gaulle", but the official French subtitles say "Weygand". Carpenter's room, which he takes to a jeweller to have appraised. The latter makes more sense, as he collaborated with the Germans, and appears in early drafts of the script, but would be little known to contemporary American audiences. Their suspicions grow when Tom finds an obviously expensive diamond in Mr. The former would be most illogical, since he was the leader of the anti-Vichy Free French Forces. Helen refuses to believe that Bobby is relating anything other than a dream, but while Bobby is headed upstairs to bed, notices that his shoes are soaking wet. It is difficult to discern whether Ugarte tells Rick that the letters are signed by "General de Gaulle" or "General Weygand". When Tom and Helen return home from their evening out, Bobby tells them that Carpenter is the space man.

The letters of transit remain a subject of some confusion. Carpenter" enter the space ship. However, Aljean Harmetz' examination of the scripts has shown that many of the key scenes were shot after Bergman knew how the film would end: any confusion was, in Ebert's words, "emotional", not "factual". Bobby follows him and is amazed to see his friend, "Mr. The confusion was most likely caused by Bergman's later statement that she didn't know which man she was meant to be in love with. Klaatu returns to his space ship that night to file a radio report to his colleagues. It was certainly impossible that Ilsa would leave Laszlo for Rick, as the production code forbade showing a woman leaving her husband for another man. A convincing demonstration...but not destructive. At last, he has found a human being on his own wavelength.

During scriptwriting, the possibility was discussed of Laszlo being killed in Casablanca, allowing Rick and Ilsa to leave together, but as Behlmer points out, "there was only one dramatically viable real possibility: Ilsa and Laszlo take the plane". Barnhardt cautions Klaatu to think of a back-up plan in case his message is rejected...a "little demonstration." Klaatu, fascinated with the everyday objects on this alien planet, toys with a delicate tobacco pipe of the Professor's, and agrees. The original play (set entirely in the cafe) had ended with Rick sending Ilsa and Victor to the airport. Klaatu convinces Barnhardt to organize a meeting among world scientists, who in turn are to carry Klaatu's messages to their leaders. The other most famous myth is that the actors did not know until the last day of shooting how the film was to end. Barnhardt dismisses the military guards outside his study. This originates in a press release issued by the studio early on in the film's development, but by that time the studio already knew that he was due to go into the army, and he was never seriously considered. When government agents show up at the boarding house, and escort Klaatu back to Barnhardt's house, Klaatu reveals his identity to the scientist.

Several myths have grown up around the film, one being that Ronald Reagan was originally chosen to play Rick. Klaatu leaves her with the address of his boarding house and the admonition not to erase his solution to Barnhardt's problem. most of these people were singing out of their own experience as refugees from Nazi Germany". Barnhardt's housekeeper returns home, discovers Klaatu and Bobby in the study, and angrily demands that they leave. Finally, part of the emotional impact of the film has been attributed to the large proportion of European exiles and refugees among the extras and in the minor roles. Ebert quotes a witness to the filming of the "duel of the songs" sequence as saying, "half of the extras had real tears in their eyes.. Barnhardt isn't home, but Klaatu uses his abilities to open the door to Barnhardt's study and leaves a "calling card" in the form of a mathematical solution to the n-body problem scrawled on Barnhardt's blackboard. Notable uncredited actors were:. Klaatu-as-Carpenter proposes that he and Bobby visit Barnhardt.

Also credited were:. When he asks Bobby to name the greatest person in the world today (besides the space man, Bobby's immediate reply), Bobby replies that the smartest man in the world is a leading American scientist, Professor Barnhardt, who lives "right here in Washington, D.C.". The second-billed actors were:. Together, the two visit the Lincoln Memorial, where Klaatu is impressed by the inscription of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, and concludes that there may be great minds on Earth who would understand his message. The three top-billed actors were:. Bobby gives him a tour of Washington, D.C., including Arlington National Cemetery, where Klaatu absorbs with dismay the fact that "all these people [were] killed in wars.". The cast is notable for its internationalism: only three of the credited actors were born in the US. When Tom plans a day-trip getaway for himself and Helen, Klaatu offers to take care of Bobby for the day.

To date the only authorized sequel to Casablanca has been the novel, As Time Goes By, written by Michael Walsh. Helen has a boyfriend named Tom, played by Hugh Marlowe. In the 1980s and 1990s media reports occasionally arose about plans to either produce a sequel, or an outright remake of Casablanca, but as of 2005 no studio has seriously put such plans into action. When asked by one resident what he thinks about the desires of the "spaceman," Klaatu (who is the spaceman) replies, "I must admit, I'm a little confused.". Another series in 1983 starred David Soul as Rick and included Ray Liotta as Sacha and Scatman Crothers as a somewhat elderly Sam. Helen is a widow of World War II, whose husband (Bobby's father) was killed "at Anzio." He listens to the paranoid breakfast-table banter among the boarding house residents, who are convinced that the space ship is the work of the Soviets, or Democrats, or some other real or imagined enemy of the cold war. The first aired in 1955 (with Charles McGraw as Rick and Marcel Dalio, who played Emil the croupier in the movie, as Renault). Department of Commerce, Helen Benson (Neal) and her son Bobby (Gray).

There have been two short-lived television series based upon Casablanca, both of which are considered prequels to the movie. S. A sequel entitled Brazzaville (named after the capital city of the Republic of the Congo) was planned, but never produced. Two of the residents of the house are an employee of the U. Almost from the moment Casablanca became a hit, talk began of producing a sequel to the film. He tells them that his name is "Carpenter," taking the name from a laundry label on a suit he has presumably taken from Walter Reed Hospital. A radio adaptation of the film was broadcast on April 26, 1943, again starring Bogart, Bergman and Henreid, while a second version of January 24, 1944 featured Hedy Lamarr as Ilsa. He applies at a boarding house on Harvard Avenue, and meets the family and other guests there, who are riveted to a television news special on the escape of the space man.

The movie was also taken off by Warner Brothers themselves in the 1995 Bugs Bunny cartoon Carrotblanca. Klaatu escapes from the hospital and decides to meet a typical human family. The film was parodied in two later movies: the 1946 Marx Brothers film A Night in Casablanca and Woody Allen's 1972 pastiche, Play It Again, Sam (a line which first occurred in the Marx Brothers film). I wish it were otherwise.". It is also credited with helping the movie remain popular while other famous films of the 1940s have faded away. Harley. "I'm very sorry. This tradition continues to the present day, and it is emulated by many colleges across the United States. "My people haven't," says Mr.

During the 1950s, the Brattle Theater of Cambridge, Massachusetts began a long-running tradition of screening Casablanca during the week of final exams at Harvard University. My people have learned to live without it," Klaatu says to the Secretary, upon hearing of the world leaders' infighting. The film has maintained its popularity: Murray Burnett has called it "true yesterday, true today, true tomorrow". "I'm impatient when I encounter stupidity. However not everyone liked the film including some critics in the French New Wave. The United Nations is cited as a largely defunct and irrelevant organization. And it said it in a very entertaining way". Harley, played by Frank Conroy, Klaatu fails to convince the humans to organize a meeting among world leaders, where he wants to present to them an important message that "all humans" have to hear.

worth making sacrifices for. Visited in his hospital room by "Secretary to the President" Mr. there were values.. Klaatu is taken to Walter Reed Hospital, where he quickly recovers. As Koch later said, "it was a picture the audiences needed.. Subsequently the robot Gort is activated and makes all weapons evaporate. It was a substantial box-office hit, taking $3.7 million on its initial US release, and went on to win three Oscars, while As Time Goes By spent 21 weeks on the hit parade. When he offers a device as a gift to the humans, he is shot when the device opens with a snap and is mistaken for a weapon.

It premiered at the Hollywood Theater in New York City on November 26, 1942. As Klaatu exits the saucer, he is welcomed not by politicians but by soldiers. Reaction to the film at previews before release was described as "beyond belief". Klaatu (Rennie) arrives in a flying saucer in Washington, DC, wearing a silver spacesuit and accompanied by a large human-like robot called Gort (Martin). Other songs include "It Had to Be You" from 1924 with lyrics by Gus Kahn and music by Isham Jones, and "Knock on Wood" with music by M.K. Jerome and lyrics by Jack Scholl.
. Instead, Steiner based the entire score on it (and on the Marseillaise), transforming them to express the changing mood of the movie. Particularly notable is the "duel of the songs", in which the Marseillaise is played by a full orchestra rather than just the small band actually present in Rick's club, competing against the Germans singing "Die Wacht Am Rhein" at the piano. North from the story "Farewell to the Master" by Harry Bates, and directed by Robert Wise. The score was written by Bernard Herrmann and is notable for its use of a theremin.

The song As Time Goes By by Herman Hupfield had been part of the story from the original play; Steiner wanted to write his own song to replace it, but he had to abandon his plan because Bergman had already cut her hair short for her next role, and could not re-shoot the scenes which mentioned the song. The movie was adapted by Edmund H. The score was written by Max Steiner, who was best known for the musical score to Gone With the Wind. It stars Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe, Sam Jaffe, Billy Gray, Frances Bavier, and Lock Martin. Dark film noir and expressionist lighting is used in several scenes, particularly towards the end of the picture. The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 1951 science fiction film which tells the story of a humanoid spaceman who comes to Earth to convince its leaders to learn how to live in peace. Ebert also highlights the use of bars of shadow across the characters and in the background, variously implying imprisonment, the crucifix, the Free French symbol and emotional turmoil.

The whole effect is to make her face "ineffably sad and tender and nostalgic" (Ebert). Particular attention was paid to photographing Bergman: she was shot mainly from her preferred left side, often with a softening gauze filter and with catch lights to make her eyes sparkle. The cinematographer was Arthur Edeson, a veteran who had previously shot The Maltese Falcon and Frankenstein. The second unit montages, such as that showing the invasion of France, were directed by Don Siegel.

he saw it in pictures, and you supplied the stories". However, he had relatively little input into the development of the plot: Casey Robinson said that Curtiz "knew nothing whatever about story.. are memorable as shots", Curtiz being concerned to use images to tell the story rather than for their own sake. Roger Ebert has commented that in Casablanca "very few shots ..

The director, Michael Curtiz, was a Hungarian emigre; he had come to the US in the 1920s, but some of his family were refugees from Nazi Europe. Both, however, are strongly implied in the finished version. The film ran into some trouble from Joseph Breen of the Production Code Administration (the Hollywood self-censorship body), who opposed the suggestions that Captain Renault extorted sexual favours from his supplicants and that Rick and Ilsa had slept together in Paris. But when corn works, there's nothing better.".

Julius Epstein would later note that the screenplay contained "more corn than in the states of Kansas and Iowa combined. Koch later said that it was the tensions between his own approach and that of Curtiz which accounted for this: "surprisingly, these disparate approaches somehow meshed, and perhaps it was partly this tug of war between Curtiz and me that gave the film a certain balance". Critic Andrew Sarris called it "the most decisive exception to the auteur theory". Despite the many different writers, the film has what Ebert describes as a "wonderfully unified and consistent" script.

The final line of the film was written by the producer Hal Wallis after shooting had been completed, and film critic Roger Ebert calls Wallis the "key creative force" for his attention to the details of production (down to insisting on a real parrot in the Blue Parrot bar). One of the most famous lines— "here's looking at you"— is not in the draft screenplays, and has been attributed to the poker lessons Bogart was giving Bergman in between takes. Curtiz seems to have favoured the romantic element, insisting on retaining the flashback Paris scenes. Important scenes were also added by the uncredited Casey Robinson, who contributed the series of meetings between Rick and Ilsa in the cafe.

The other credited writer, Howard Koch, joined later but continued to work in parallel with the Epsteins, despite their differing emphases (Koch highlighting the political and melodramatic elements). The first main writers to work on the script for Warners were the Epstein twins (Julius and Philip), who removed Rick's background and added more elements of comedy. In the play, the Ilsa character was American, and did not meet Laszlo until after her relationship with Rick in Paris had ended; Rick was a lawyer. The original play was inspired by a 1938 trip to Europe by Murray Burnett, during which he visited Vienna and the French south coast, both of which had uneasily coexisting populations of Nazis and refugees.

Bogart was called in a month after shooting was finished to dub in the final line ("Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.") Later, there were plans for a further scene to be shot (featuring Renault, Rick and a detachment of Free French fighters on a ship), but these were abandoned. The film cost a total of $950,000, which was slightly over budget but an average cost for a film of the time. Bergman's height caused some problems: she was somewhat taller than Bogart, so in their scenes together he sometimes had to be put on boxes or cushions. The fog in the scene was there to mask the unconvincing appearance of the plane.

The final scene includes midget extras as aircraft personnel walking around a model cardboard plane, because of budgetary and wartime rationing constraints. The set for Rick's cafe was built in three unconnected parts, so the internal geography of the building is indeterminate, and in a number of scenes the camera looks through a wall from the cafe area into Rick's office. It remained on the Warners backlot until the 1960s. The street used for the exterior shots had recently been built for another film, The Desert Song, and was redecorated and used again in Casablanca for the Paris flashbacks.

The entire film was shot in the studio, except for the sequence showing the arrival of Major Strasser (filmed at Van Nuys Airport). Shooting began on May 25, 1942 and was completed on August 3, 1942. The project was renamed Casablanca, apparently in imitation of the 1938 hit Algiers. The story analyst at Warner Brothers who read the play called it (approvingly) "sophisticated hokum", and it was agreed to buy the rights for $20,000.

The film was based on Murray Burnett and Joan Alison's unproduced play Everybody Comes to Rick's. Just before making this suggestion, Renault throws a bottle of Vichy water in the bin. Captain Renault is complicit in their escape, and after the couple fly out of Casablanca and Rick has shot Major Strasser, he suggests they both also leave and join the Free French. His own moral code is shown as being strong enough to allow him to do the right thing, regardless of his own feelings for Ilsa, with whom he earlier reconciles.

Despite initially refusing to give the documents to Ilsa, even at gunpoint, Rick eventually chooses to help the couple leave Casablanca. The customers join in and drown out the Germans, who then order the club to be closed. Laszlo, incensed, tells the house band to play La Marseillaise. A group of German officers around the piano sing the Wacht am Rhein, a German patriotic song from the nineteenth century (the producers wanted to use the Nazi Horst Wessel Lied, but it was copyrighted by a German publisher).

Her husband, Victor Laszlo (Henreid), is an important Resistance leader from Czechoslovakia with a massive price on his head, and he needs the letters to escape. In walks the reason for Rick's bitterness, his ex-lover Ilsa Lund (Bergman), who arrives in the club after being told the papers are available for sale. Unbeknowst to Renault or the Nazi command, Ugarte had secretly left the letters with Rick for safe-keeping. However, he murdered their German carriers to get them, and is captured and killed by the local police, under the order of the Chief of Police, Captain Renault (Claude Rains), who is corrupt yet ambivalent about the Nazi presence in Casablanca.

These papers are almost priceless to any of the continual stream of refugees attempting to escape the unoccupied French possession, and Ugarte plans on making his fortune by selling them to the highest bidder, who was due to arrive at the club that night, then buying his way out of Casablanca. The papers are signed by a high-ranking Vichy official, and allow the bearer to travel at will around Nazi-controlled Europe, including to neutral Lisbon, Portugal, whereupon one may catch a clipper to the United States. The plot begins when a petty crook, Ugarte (Peter Lorre), arrives in Rick's club with "letters of transit". Rick is a bitter and cynical man, but he still displays a clear dislike for the fascist part of his clientele.

Humphrey Bogart plays Rick Blaine, the owner of an upscale cafe/bar/gambling den in the Morocco city of Casablanca which attracts a mixed clientele of Vichy French and Nazi officials, refugees and thieves. Critics have praised the charismatic performances of Bogart and Bergman, the chemistry between the two leads, the depth of characterisation, the taut direction, the witty screenplay and the emotional impact of the work as a whole. The film was an immediate hit, and it has remained consistently popular ever since. It focuses on Rick's conflict between, in the words of one character, love and virtue: he must choose between his love for Ilsa and his need to do the right thing by helping her husband, Resistance hero Victor Laszlo, escape from Casablanca and continue his fight against the Nazis.

The film was directed by Michael Curtiz, and stars Humphrey Bogart as Rick and Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa. Casablanca is a 1942 movie set during World War II in the Vichy-controlled Moroccan city of Casablanca. The German Hollywood Connection (http://www.germanhollywood.com/casabl.html). Vincent's Casablanca Homepage (http://www.vincasa.com/).

Casablanca (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034583/) at the Internet Movie Database. Humphrey Bogart Official Site (http://www.humphreybogart.com/). Ingrid Bergman Official Site (http://www.cmgww.com/stars/bergman/). ISBN 1562827618.

Warner Books Inc. Round Up the Usual Suspects: The Making of Casablanca. Harmetz, Aljean (1993). ISBN 0312259255.

Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers (Sonia Maasik and Jack Solomon, eds.) Bedford Books. Eco, Umberto (1994). Casablanca (Two-Disc Special Edition DVD) (1942) (with audio commentaries by Roger Ebert and Rudy Behlmer and documentary You Must Remember This). Abbreviated Casablanca Movie Script (http://www.geocities.com/classicmoviescripts/script/casablanca.pdf).

Academy Award for Original Music Score — Max Steiner. Academy Award for Film Editing — Owen Marks. Academy Award for Best Cinematography, black-and-white — Arthur Edeson. Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor — Claude Rains.

Academy Award for Best Actor — Humphrey Bogart. Epstein and Howard Koch. Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay — Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Academy Award for Directing — Michael Curtiz.

Wallis, producer. Academy Award for Best Picture — Hal B. Helmut Dantine (Jan Brandel), another Austrian, had spent time in a concentration camp after the Anschluss. He also was a key performer in another film with Bogart, To Have and Have Not.

He had been a star in French cinema, appearing in Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion and La Regle de Jeu, but after he fled the Nazi invasion of France he was reduced to bit-parts in Hollywood. Marcel Dalio (Emil, the croupier). Leonid Kinskey (Sascha) was born in Russia. He appeared in many of John Ford's movies.

John Qualen (Berger) was born in Canada, but grew up in America. He could claim the longest film career of any actor, making his first appearance in 1907 and his last in 1987. Curt Bois (the pickpocket) was a German Jewish actor and another refugee. K.) "Cuddles" Sakall (Carl, the waiter) was a Hungarian actor who fled from Germany in 1939.

(or S. S.Z. Madeleine LeBeau (Yvonne), a French actress, was Marcel Dalio's wife until their divorce in 1942. Joy Page (Annina Brandel, the Bulgarian refugee), the other credited American, was studio head Jack Warner's step-daughter.

Hal Wallis considered also replacing his voice on the songs, but changed his mind. A drummer, he could not play the piano. He was one of the few American members of the cast. Dooley Wilson as Sam.

Caligari (1920) before fleeing from the Nazis and ending his career playing Nazis in US films. He was a German actor who had appeared in The Cabinet of Dr. Conrad Veidt as Major Strasser of the SS. Lorre was an Austro-Hungarian actor who left Germany in 1933.