This year is the 60th anniversary of the release of Casablanca. Poor old Humphrey Bogart didn’t make it into even the top 20 of Channel 4’s boringly bizarre list of the 100 greatest movie stars. Al Pacino number one? Eh, what? But then what else could one expect, I suppose, from a lot of pundits and voters who couldn’t even speak proper English.
But Casablanca has more lines than even the dumb can sort of remember than any other film ever made, even if they sort of remember them incorrectly and claim that Bogart said, ‘Play it again, Sam.’ So ingrained are certain scenes in so many consciousnesses that when people travel to the city – though not that many do – they have been known to ask directions to Rick’s Café. Only Rick’s Café never existed.
Warner Brothers, who produced the film, hired photographers and consultants who travelled to Morocco to provide realistic details for the Hollywood sets, which is why the film portrays Casablanca’s Old Medina and port so successfully. But the café itself was an invention of a scriptwriter’s imagination and existed only on a backlot.
This has always been a great disappointment to me. I never fancied myself playing the Ingrid Bergman role – most of my friends would doubtless suggest I would make a better Sydney Greenstreet – but I wouldn’t mind a go at Claude Rains’s corrupt police chief who hedges his bets, like most journalists, till the end of the story. Well, now I’m getting my chance. I mean to listen to ‘As Time Goes By’ performed in Rick’s Café in Casablanca.
For the first time in 60 years, Rick’s Café is finally opening. How come? A former US commercial councillor to Morocco, Ms Kathy Kriger, has decided to stay in Casablanca and establish the most fabled gin joint in all the world.
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