What is the name of Humphrey Bogart’s character in the film ‘Casablanca’?
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Humphrey Bogart Casablanca (film)
Humphrey DeForest Bogart (;  December 25, 1899 - January 14, 1957)   was an American screen actor whose performances in 1940s films noir such as The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, and The Big Sleep earned him status as a cultural icon.   

Bogart began acting in 1921 after a hitch in the U.S. Navy in World War I and little success in various jobs in finance and the production side of the theater. Gradually he became a regular in Broadway shows in the 1920s and 1930s. When the stock market crash of 1929 reduced the demand for plays, Bogart turned to film. His first great success was as Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936), and this led to a period of typecasting as a gangster with films such as Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) and B-movies like The Return of Doctor X (1939).

Bogart's breakthrough as a leading man came in 1941 with High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon. The next year, his performance in Casablanca (1943; Oscar nomination) raised him to the peak of his profession and, at the same time, cemented his trademark film persona, that of the hard-boiled cynic who ultimately shows his noble side. Other successes followed, including To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), and Key Largo (1948), all four with his wife Lauren Bacall; The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948); In a Lonely Place (1950); The African Queen (1951; Oscar winner); Sabrina (1954); and The Caine Mutiny (1954; Oscar nomination). His last film was The Harder They Fall (1956).

During a film career of almost 30 years, Bogart appeared in more than 75 feature films. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star of Classic American cinema. Over his career, he received three Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, winning one (for The African Queen).

Early life

Bogart was born on December 25, 1899, in New York City, the eldest child of Dr. Belmont DeForest Bogart (July 1867, Watkins Glen, New York – September 8, 1934, New York City) and Maud Humphrey (1868–1940). Belmont was the only child of the unhappy marriage of Adam Watkins Bogart, a Canandaigua, New York innkeeper, and his wife, Julia, a wealthy heiress. The name "Bogart" comes from the Dutch surname "Bogaert". Belmont and Maud married in June 1898, he was Presbyterian of English and Dutch descent, she an Episcopalian of English heritage. Young Humphrey was raised in the Episcopal faith, but was non-practicing for most of his adult life. 

The precise date of Bogart's birth was long a matter of dispute, but has been cleared up. Warner Bros listed his birthdate as Christmas Day, 1899, throughout his career; but film historian Clifford McCarty later maintained that the Warner publicity department had altered it from January 23, 1900 "...to foster the view that a man born on Christmas Day couldn't really be as villainous as he appeared to be on screen".  The "corrected" January birthdate subsequently appeared—and in some cases, remains—in many otherwise authoritative sources.    Biographers A.M. Sperber and Eric Lax documented, however, that Bogart always celebrated his birthday on December 25, and consistently listed it as such on official records, such as his marriage license. 

Lauren Bacall confirmed in her autobiography that his birthday was always celebrated on Christmas Day, adding that he joked that he was cheated out of a present every year because of it.   Sperber and Lax also noted that a birth announcement, printed in the Ontario County Times on January 10, 1900, effectively rules out the possibility of a January 23 birthdate; and state and federal census records from 1900 report a Christmas 1899 birthdate as well. 

Bogart's father, Belmont, was a cardiopulmonary surgeon. His mother, Maud, was a commercial illustrator who received her art training in New York and France, including study with James McNeill Whistler. Later she became art director of the fashion magazine The Delineator and a militant suffragette. She used a drawing of baby Humphrey in a well-known advertising campaign for Mellins Baby Food. In her prime, she made over $50,000 a year, then a vast sum and far more than her husband's $20,000. The Bogarts lived in a fashionable Upper West Side apartment, and had an elegant cottage on a 55-acre estate on Canandaigua Lake in upstate New York. As a youngster, Humphrey's gang of friends at the lake would put on theatricals.

Humphrey had two younger sisters, Frances ("Pat") and Catherine Elizabeth ("Kay"). His parents were busy in their careers and frequently fought. Very formal, they showed little emotion towards their children. Maud told her offspring to call her "Maud" not "Mother", and showed little if any physical affection for them. When pleased she "[c]lapped you on the shoulder, almost the way a man does", Bogart recalled.  "I was brought up very unsentimentally but very straightforwardly. A kiss, in our family, was an event. Our mother and father didn't glug over my two sisters and me."

As a boy, Bogart was teased for his curls, tidiness, the "cute" pictures his mother had him pose for, the Little Lord Fauntleroy clothes she dressed him in, and even for the name "Humphrey".  From his father, Bogart inherited a tendency to needle, fondness for fishing, lifelong love of boating, and an attraction to strong-willed women. 

Bogart attended the private Delancey School until fifth grade, then the prestigious Trinity School.  He was an indifferent, sullen student who showed no interest in after-school activities. Later he went to the equally elite boarding school Phillips Academy, where he was admitted based on family connections. His parents hoped he would go on to Yale, but in 1918 Bogart was expelled.  Several reasons have been given: one claims that it was for throwing the headmaster (or a groundskeeper) into Rabbit Pond on campus.

Another cites smoking, drinking, poor academic performance, and possibly some inappropriate comments made to the staff. A third has him withdrawn by his father for failing to improve his grades. Whatever caused his premature departure, his parents were deeply dismayed and rued their failed plans for his future. 

Navy

With no viable career options, Bogart followed his passion for the sea and enlisted in the United States Navy in the spring of 1918. He recalled later, "At eighteen, war was great stuff. Paris! Sexy French girls! Hot damn!" Bogart is recorded as a model sailor who spent most of his sea time after the Armistice ferrying troops back from Europe. 

It was during his naval stint that Bogart may have received his trademark scar and developed his characteristic lisp, though the actual circumstances are unclear. In one account his lip was cut by shrapnel when his ship, the ', was shelled, although some claim Bogart did not make it to sea until after the Armistice had been signed. Another version, which Bogart's long-time friend, author Nathaniel Benchley, holds to, is that Bogart was injured while taking a prisoner to Portsmouth Naval Prison in Kittery, Maine.

Changing trains in Boston the handcuffed prisoner allegedly asked Bogart for a cigarette, then while Bogart looked for a match, the prisoner smashed him across the mouth with the cuffs, cutting Bogart's lip and fleeing. Recaptured, the prisoner was taken to jail. An alternate version has Bogart struck in the mouth by a handcuff loosened while freeing his charge, the other still around the prisoner's wrist. 

By the time Bogart was treated by a doctor, a scar had already formed. David Niven said that when he first asked Bogart about his scar, he said it was caused by a childhood accident. "Goddamn doctor", Bogart later told Niven, "instead of stitching it up, he screwed it up." Niven claims the stories that Bogart got the scar during wartime were made up by the studios to inject glamour.

His post-service physical makes no mention of the lip scar, even though it mentions many smaller scars. When actress Louise Brooks met Bogart in 1924, he had some scar-tissue on his upper lip, which Brooks said that Bogart may have had partially repaired before entering films in 1930. She believed his scar had nothing to do with his distinctive speech pattern, and said his "lip wound gave him no speech impediment, either before or after it was mended. Over the years, Bogart practiced all kinds of lip gymnastics, accompanied by nasal tones, snarls, lisps and slurs. His painful wince, his leer, his fiendish grin were the most accomplished ever seen on film." 

Early career

Bogart returned home to find his father suffering from poor health, his medical practice faltering, and  much of the family's wealth lost on bad investments in timber.  During his naval days, Bogart's character and values developed independently of family influence, and he began to rebel somewhat against their values. He came to be a liberal who hated pretensions, phonies, and snobs, and at times defied conventional behavior and authority, traits he displayed in both life and the movies. He did not, however, forsake good manners, articulateness, punctuality, modesty, and a dislike of being touched. After his naval service, he worked as a shipper and then bond salesman. He joined the Naval Reserve.

Bogart resumed his friendship with boyhood pal Bill Brady, Jr., whose father had show business connections. Eventually Bogart got an office job working for William A. Brady Sr.'s new company, World Films.  Bogart was able to try his hand at screenwriting, directing, and production, but excelled at none. For a while he was stage manager for Brady's daughter Alice's play A Ruined Lady. A few months later he made his stage debut as a Japanese butler in Alice's 1921 play Drifting, nervously speaking one line of dialog. Several appearances followed in her subsequent plays. 

While Bogart had been raised to believe that acting was beneath a gentleman, he liked the late hours actors kept and enjoyed the attention gotten on stage. He stated, "I was born to be indolent and this was the softest of rackets." He spent a lot of his free time in speakeasies and became a heavy drinker. A barroom brawl during this time joins the list of purported causes of Bogart's lip damage, and coincides better with the Brooks account. 

Preferring to learn as he went, Bogart never took acting lessons. He was persistent and worked steadily at his craft, appearing in at least seventeen Broadway productions between 1922 and 1935.  He played juveniles or romantic second-leads in drawing room comedies, and is said to have been the first actor to ask "Tennis, anyone?" on stage.  Critic Alexander Woollcott wrote of Bogart's early work that he "is what is usually and mercifully described as inadequate."  Some reviews were kinder.

Heywood Broun, reviewing Nerves wrote, "Humphrey Bogart gives the most effective performance ... both dry and fresh, if that be possible".  He played juvenile lead, reporter Gregory Brown, in the comedy Meet the Wife, written by Lynn Starling, which had a successful run of 232 performances at the Klaw Theatre from November 1923 through July 1924. Bogart loathed these trivial, effeminate parts he had to play early in his career, calling them "White Pants Willie" roles.

Early in his career, while playing double roles in the play Drifting at the Playhouse Theatre in 1922, Bogart met actress Helen Menken. They were married on May 20, 1926, at the Gramercy Park Hotel in New York City. Divorced on November 18, 1927, they remained friends.  On April 3, 1928, he married Mary Philips, whom he'd met when they appeared in the play Nerves during its very brief run at the Comedy Theatre in September 1924, at her mother's apartment in Hartford, Connecticut. She, like Menken, had a fiery temper, and, like every other Bogart spouse, was an actress.

After the stock market crash of 1929, stage production dropped off sharply, and many of the more photogenic actors headed for Hollywood. Bogart's film debut was with Helen Hayes in the 1928 two-reeler The Dancing Town, of which a complete copy has never been found. He also appeared with Joan Blondell and Ruth Etting in a Vitaphone short, Broadway's Like That (1930) which was re-discovered in 1963. 

Bogart then signed a contract with Fox Film Corporation for $750 a week. There he met Spencer Tracy, a serious Broadway actor whom Bogart liked and admired, and they became close friends and drinking companions. It was Tracy, in 1930, who first called him "Bogie".  Tracy made his film debut in the only film in which he and Bogart appeared together, John Ford's early sound film Up the River (1930). Both had major roles as inmates. Tracy received top billing and Bogart's face was featured on the film's posters instead of Tracy's.

Bogart then had a minor supporting role in Bad Sister with Bette Davis in 1931.  Decades later, Tracy and Bogart planned to make The Desperate Hours together, but both sought top billing, so Tracy dropped out and was replaced by Fredric March.

Bogart shuttled back and forth between Hollywood and the New York stage from 1930 to 1935, suffering long periods without work. His parents had separated, his father dying in 1934 in debt, which Bogart eventually paid off. Bogart inherited his father's gold ring which he always wore, even in many of his films. At his father's deathbed, Bogart finally told him how much he loved him.  His second marriage was on the rocks, and he was less than happy with his acting career. He became depressed, irritable, and drank heavily. 

The Petrified Forest

Bogart starred in the Broadway play Invitation to a Murder at the Theatre Masque, now the John Golden Theatre, in 1934. The producer Arthur Hopkins heard the play from off-stage and sent for Bogart to play escaped murderer Duke Mantee in Robert E. Sherwood's new play, The Petrified Forest. Hopkins recalled:

The play had 197 performances at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York in 1935.  Leslie Howard, though, was the star. New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson said of the play, "a peach ... a roaring Western melodrama ... Humphrey Bogart does the best work of his career as an actor."  Bogart said the play "marked my deliverance from the ranks of the sleek, sybaritic, stiff-shirted, swallow-tailed 'smoothies' to which I seemed condemned to life." However, he was still feeling insecure.

Warner Bros. bought the screen rights to The Petrified Forest. The play seemed perfect for the studio, which was famous for its socially realistic, urban, low-budget action pictures, especially for a public entranced by real-life criminals like John Dillinger (whom Bogart resembled) and Dutch Schultz.  Bette Davis and Leslie Howard were cast. Howard, who held production rights, made it clear he wanted Bogart to star with him.

The studio tested several Hollywood veterans for the Duke Mantee role, and chose Edward G. Robinson, who had first-rank star appeal and was due to make a film to fulfill his expensive contract. Bogart cabled news of this to Howard in Scotland, who replied: "Att: Jack Warner Insist Bogart Play Mantee No Bogart No Deal L.H.". When Warner Bros. saw Howard would not budge, they gave in and cast Bogart.  Jack Warner, famous for butting heads with his stars, tried to get Bogart to adopt a stage name, but Bogart stubbornly refused. 

The film was highly successful, earning $500,000 at the box office,  and making Bogart a star.   He never forgot Howard's favor, and in 1952 named his only daughter "Leslie Howard Bogart" after Howard, who had died in World War II under mysterious circumstances.  Robert E. Sherwood remained a close friend of Bogart's.

Early film career

The film version of The Petrified Forest was released in 1936. Bogart's performance was called "brilliant", "compelling", and "superb." Despite his success in an "A movie," Bogart received a tepid twenty-six week contract at $550 per week and was typecast as a gangster in a series of "B movie" crime dramas.  Bogart was proud of his success, but the fact that it came from playing a gangster weighed on him. He once said: "I can't get in a mild discussion without turning it into an argument. There must be something in my tone of voice, or this arrogant face—something that antagonizes everybody. Nobody likes me on sight. I suppose that's why I'm cast as the heavy."

Bogart's roles were not only repetitive, but physically demanding and draining (studios were not yet air-conditioned), and his regimented, tightly scheduled job at Warners was anything but the indolent and "peachy" actor's life he hoped for.  However, he was always professional and generally respected by other actors. He used these "B movie" years to start developing his enduring film persona—the wounded, stoical, cynical, charming, vulnerable, self-mocking loner with a code of honor.

In spite of his success, Warner Bros. had no interest in making Bogart a top star. Shooting on a new movie might begin days or only hours after the previous one wrapped. The studio system, then at its most entrenched, restricted actors to their home lot, with only occasional loan-outs. Any actor who refused a role could be suspended without pay. Bogart disliked the roles chosen for him, but he worked steadily. Between 1936 and 1940 he averaged a movie every two months, at times working on two simultaneously.

Amenities at Warners were few compared to the prestigious Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Bogart thought that the Warners wardrobe department was cheap, and often wore his own suits in his movies. In High Sierra, Bogart used his own pet dog Zero to play his character's dog, Pard. Bogart's disputes with Warner Bros. over roles and money were similar to those the studio waged with other high-spirited, less-than-obedient stars such as Bette Davis, James Cagney, Errol Flynn, and Olivia de Havilland. 

The leading men ahead of Bogart at Warner Bros. included not only such marquee names as James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson, but also journeymen leads such as Victor McLaglen, George Raft, and Paul Muni. Most of the studio's better movie scripts went to them, leaving Bogart with what was left. He made films like Racket Busters, San Quentin, and You Can't Get Away with Murder. The only substantial leading role he got during this period was in Dead End (1937), while loaned to Samuel Goldwyn, where he portrayed a gangster modeled after Baby Face Nelson.

Bogart played violent roles so often that in Nevil Shute's 1939 novel What Happened to the Corbetts the protagonist, when asked whether he knows how to operate an automatic weapon, jokes "I've seen Humphrey Bogart with one often enough ...".  He did play a variety of interesting supporting roles, such as in Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) (in which his character got shot by James Cagney's). Bogart was gunned down on film repeatedly by Cagney and Edward G. Robinson, among others. In Black Legion (1937), for a change, he played a good man caught up and destroyed by a racist organization, a movie Graham Greene described as "intelligent and exciting, if rather earnest".

In 1938, Warner Bros. put Bogart in a "hillbilly musical" called Swing Your Lady as a wrestling promoter; he later apparently considered this his worst film performance.  In 1939, Bogart played a mad scientist in The Return of Doctor X. He cracked, "If it'd been Jack Warner's blood ... I wouldn't have minded so much. The trouble was they were drinking mine and I was making this stinking movie." During this time his wife Mary had a stage hit in A Touch of Brimstone (1935), and refused to give up her Broadway career to go to Hollywood. After the play closed she relented, but insisted on continuing her career and the couple divorced in 1937. 

On August 21, 1938, Bogart entered into a disastrous third marriage, with actress Mayo Methot, a lively, friendly woman when sober but paranoid and physical when drunk. She became convinced Bogart was cheating on her. The more the two drifted apart, the more she drank, in her fury throwing plants, crockery, anything close at hand, at him. She set their house on fire, stabbed him with a knife, and slashed her wrists on several occasions. Bogart for his part needled her mercilessly and seemed to enjoy confrontation. Sometimes he turned violent. The press accurately dubbed them "the Battling Bogarts."

"The Bogart-Methot marriage was the sequel to the Civil War," said their friend Julius Epstein. A wag observed that there was "madness in his Methot." During this time, Bogart bought a motor launch, which he named Sluggy, his nickname for hot-tempered Methot. Despite his proclamations that, "I like a jealous wife," "We get on so well together (because) we don't have illusions about each other," and, "I wouldn't give you two cents for a dame without a temper," it was a highly destructive relationship. 

Bogart had a lifelong disgust for the pretentious, fake or phoney.  Sensitive yet caustic, he was once again disgusted by the inferior movies he was performing in. He rarely saw his own films and avoided premieres. He even issued phony press releases about his private life to satisfy the curiosity of  newspapers and the public. When he thought an actor, director, or a movie studio had done something shoddy, he spoke up about it and was willing to be quoted. He advised Robert Mitchum that the only way to stay alive in Hollywood was to be an "againster." As a result, he was not the most popular of actors, and some in the Hollywood community shunned him privately to avoid trouble with the studios.  But the Hollywood press, unaccustomed to candor, was delighted. Bogart once said: 

Rise to stardom

High Sierra

High Sierra, a 1941 film directed by Raoul Walsh, had a screenplay written by Bogart's friend and drinking partner, John Huston, adapted from the novel by W. R. Burnett (Little Caesar, etc.).  Both Paul Muni and George Raft turned down the lead role, giving Bogart the opportunity to play a character of some depth, although legendary director Walsh initially fought the casting of supporting player Bogart as a leading man, much preferring Raft for the part. The film was Bogart's last major film playing a gangster (only a supporting role in 1942's The Big Shot followed). Bogart worked well with Ida Lupino, and her relationship with him was close, provoking jealousy from Bogart's wife, Mayo. 

The film cemented a strong personal and professional connection between Bogart and Huston. Bogart admired and somewhat envied Huston for his skill as a writer. Though a poor student, Bogart was a lifelong reader. He could quote Plato, Pope, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and over a thousand lines of Shakespeare. He subscribed to the Harvard Law Review. He admired writers, and some of his best friends were screenwriters, including Louis Bromfield, Nathaniel Benchley, and Nunnally Johnson. Bogart enjoyed intense, provocative conversation and stiff drinks, as did Huston. Both were rebellious and liked to play childish pranks. Huston was reported to be easily bored during production, and admired Bogart (also bored easily off camera) not just for his acting talent but for his intense concentration on the set.

The Maltese Falcon

Now regarded as a classic film noir, the The Maltese Falcon (1941) was John Huston's directorial debut. Originally a novel written by Dashiell Hammett, it was first published in the pulp magazine Black Mask in 1929, and had also served as the basis of two other movie versions including Satan Met a Lady (1936) starring Bette Davis. Producer Hal Wallis initially offered the leading man role to George Raft, a more established box office name than Bogart whose contract stipulated he did not have to appear in remakes. Fearing it would be no more than a cleaned-up version of the pre-Production Code The Maltese Falcon (1931), Raft turned it down in order to make Manpower with director Raoul Walsh and cast members Edward G. Robinson and Marlene Dietrich. Eagerly, Huston accepted Bogart as his Sam Spade.

Complementing Bogart were co-stars Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Elisha Cook, Jr., and Mary Astor as the treacherous female foil. Bogart's sharp timing and facial expressions were praised by the cast and director as vital to the quick action and rapid-fire dialogue.  The film was a huge hit in theaters and a major triumph for Huston. Bogart was unusually happy with it, remarking, "it is practically a masterpiece. I don't have many things I'm proud of ... but that's one".

Casablanca

Bogart gained his first real romantic lead in 1942's Casablanca, playing Rick Blaine, a hard-pressed expatriate nightclub owner hiding from a shady past while negotiating a fine line among Nazis, the French underground, the Vichy prefect and unresolved feelings for his ex-girlfriend. The film was directed by Michael Curtiz and produced by Hal Wallis, and featured Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Paul Henreid, Conrad Veidt, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson. An avid chess player, Bogart reportedly had the idea that Rick Blaine be portrayed as one, a metaphor for the sparring relationship he maintained with friends, enemies, and tenuous allies. In real life Bogart played tournament level chess one division below master, often enjoying games with crew members and cast, but finding his better in the superior Paul Henreid. 

The on-screen magic of Bogart and Bergman was the result of two actors working at their best, not any real-life sparks, though Bogart's perennially jealous wife assumed otherwise. Off the set, the co-stars hardly spoke. Bergman, who had a reputation for affairs with her leading men,  later said of Bogart, "I kissed him but I never knew him."   Because Bergman was taller, Bogart had 3 in blocks attached to his shoes in certain scenes.

Casablanca won the 1943 Academy Award for Best Picture. Bogart was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role, but lost to Paul Lukas for his performance in Watch on the Rhine. The film vaulted Bogart from fourth place to first in the studio's roster, finally overtaking James Cagney. By 1946 he'd more than double his annual salary to over $460,000, making him the highest-paid actor in the world.

World War II

During part of 1943 and 1944, Bogart went on USO and War Bond tours accompanied by Methot, enduring arduous travels to Italy and North Africa, including Casablanca.

Bogart and Bacall

To Have and Have Not

Bogart met Lauren Bacall while filming To Have and Have Not (1944), a loose adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway novel. The movie has many similarities with Casablanca—the same enemies, the same kind of hero, even a piano player sidekick (played by Hoagy Carmichael). When they met, Bacall was 19 and Bogart 44. He nicknamed her "Baby." She had been a model since 16 and had acted in two failed plays. Bogart was drawn to Bacall's high cheekbones, green eyes, tawny blond hair, and lean body, as well as her poise and earthy, outspoken honesty.  Reportedly he said, "I just saw your test. We'll have a lot of fun together". Their physical and emotional rapport was very strong from the start, their age difference and disparity in acting experience allowing the dynamic of a mentor-student relationship to emerge. Quite contrary to Hollywood norm, their affair was Bogart's first with a leading lady.  He was still married and his early meetings with Bacall were discreet and brief, their separations bridged by ardent love letters.  The relationship made it much easier for the newcomer to make her first film, and Bogart did his best to put her at ease with jokes and quiet coaching.  He let her steal scenes and even encouraged it. Howard Hawks, for his part, also did his best to boost her performance and highlight her role, and found Bogart easy to direct.

Hawks at some point began to disapprove of the pair. He considered himself Bacall's protector and mentor, and Bogart was usurping that role. Married, and not usually drawn to his starlets, he too fell for Bacall, telling her she meant nothing to Bogart and even threatening to send her to Monogram, the worst studio in Hollywood. Bogart calmed her down and then went after Hawks. Jack Warner settled the dispute and filming resumed.   Hawks said of Bacall: "Bogie fell in love with the character she played, so she had to keep playing it the rest of her life."

The Big Sleep

Just months after wrapping the film, Bogart and Bacall were reunited for an encore, the film noir The Big Sleep, based on the novel by Raymond Chandler, again with script help from William Faulkner. Chandler thoroughly admired Bogart's performance: "Bogart can be tough without a gun. Also, he has a sense of humor that contains that grating undertone of contempt."  The film was completed and slated for release in 1945, then withdrawn and substantially re-edited to add new, juiced-up scenes exploiting both the box office chemistry that shone between Bogart and Bacall in To Have and Have Not, and the notoriety of their personal relationship.

At director Howard Hawks' urging production partner Charles K. Feldman agreed to Bacall's scenes being re-written to heighten the 'insolent' quality that had intrigued critics and audiences in that film. By chance, a 35-mm nitrate composite master positive (fine grain) of the 1945 version survived. The UCLA Film Archive, in association with Turner Entertainment and with funding provided by Hugh Hefner, restored and released it in 1996. 

Throughout filming Bogart was still torn between his new love and his sense of duty to his marriage. The mood on the set was tense, the actors both emotionally exhausted as Bogart tried to find a way out of his dilemma. The dialogue, especially in the newly shot scenes, was full of sexual innuendo supplied by Hawks, and Bogart proves convincing and enduring as private detective Philip Marlowe. In the end, the film was successful, though some critics found the plot confusing and overcomplicated.  Reportedly a bemused Chandler himself could not answer baffled screenwriters' question over who killed the limousine driver early in the story.

Marriage

Bogart filed for divorce from Methot in February 1945. He and Bacall married in a small ceremony at the country home of Bogart's close friend, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louis Bromfield, at Malabar Farm near Lucas, Ohio, on May 21, 1945.

Bogart and Bacall moved into a $160,000 ($ today) white brick mansion in an exclusive neighborhood in Los Angeles's Holmby Hills. The marriage proved a happy one, though there were tensions due to their differences. Bogart's drinking sometimes inflamed tensions. He was a homebody and she liked nightlife; he loved the sea, which made her seasick. They adored each other for the rest of their lives.

In California in 1945, Bogart bought a 55 ft sailing yacht, the Santana, from actor Dick Powell. The sea was his sanctuary,  spending about thirty weekends a year on the water, with a particular fondness for sailing around Catalina Island. He once said, "An actor needs something to stabilize his personality, something to nail down what he really is, not what he is currently pretending to be."  He also joined the Coast Guard Temporary Reserve offering the use of his own yacht, Santana, for Coast Guard use.   It was rumored Bogart attempted to enlist but was turned down because of his age. 

Dark Passage and Key Largo

The suspenseful Dark Passage (1947) was Bogart and Bacall's next pairing.
Its first third is shot from the Bogart's character's point of view, with the camera seeing what he sees. After his plastic surgery, the rest of the movie is shot normally, with Bogart intent on finding the real murderer in a crime he was blamed for and sentenced to prison.

The couple next starred in the future classic, Key Largo. Directed by John Huston, the film highlighted Edward G. Robinson as gangster "Johnny Rocco," a seething older synthesis of many of his vicious early bad guy roles. The characters are trapped during a spectacular hurricane in a hotel owned by Bacall's screen father-in-law, played by Lionel Barrymore. Claire Trevor won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her heart-wrenching performance as Rocco's physically abused alcoholic girlfriend. Though Robinson had always had top billing over Bogart in their previous films together, this time Robinson's name appears to the right of Bogart's, but placed a little higher on the posters and in the film's opening credits, to signify Robinson's near-equal status. Robinson's image was also markedly larger and centered on the original poster, with Bogart relegated to the background.

In the film's trailer, Bogart is repeatedly mentioned first, but Robinson's name is listed above Bogart's in a cast list at the trailer's end. Robinson's role is evocative of Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936), a Bogart leading man breakthrough the studio had originally earmarked for Robinson.

Children

Bogart became a first-time father at age 49 when Bacall gave birth to Stephen Humphrey Bogart on January 6, 1949, during the filming of Tokyo Joe. The name was drawn from Bogart's character's nickname in To Have and Have Not, "Steve".  Stephen would go on to become an author and biographer, later hosting a television special about his father on Turner Classic Movies. Three years later the couple's daughter, Leslie Howard Bogart, would draw her name from Bogart's friend and The Petrified Forest co-star, British actor Leslie Howard.

Later career

The enormous success of Casablanca redefined Bogart's career. For the first time, Bogart could be cast successfully as both a tough, strong man and vulnerable love interest. Despite his elevated standing, he did not yet have a contractual right of script refusal. When he got weak scripts he simply dug in his heels and locked horns again with the front office, as he did on the film Conflict (1945).  Though he submitted to Jack Warner on it, he successfully turned down God is My Co-Pilot (1945).

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Riding high in 1947 with a new contract which provided limited script refusal and the right to form his own production company, Bogart reunited with John Huston for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, a stark tale of greed played out by three gold prospectors in Mexico. Without either a love interest or happy ending it was deemed a risky project.  Bogart later said of co-star (and John Huston's father) Walter Huston, "He's probably the only performer in Hollywood to whom I'd gladly lost a scene". 

The film was shot in the heat of summer for greater realism and atmosphere, proving grueling to make. James Agee wrote, "Bogart does a wonderful job with this character ... miles ahead of the very good work he has done before". John Huston won the Academy Award for direction and screenplay and his father won Best Supporting Actor, but the film had mediocre box office results. Bogart complained, "An intelligent script, beautifully directed—something different—and the public turned a cold shoulder on it".

House Un-American Activities Committee

Bogart, a liberal Democrat,  organized a delegation to Washington, D.C., called the Committee for the First Amendment, against what he perceived to be the House Un-American Activities Committee's harassment of Hollywood screenwriters and actors. He subsequently wrote an article "I'm No Communist" in the March 1948 edition of Photoplay magazine in which he distanced himself from The Hollywood Ten to counter the negative publicity resulting from his appearance. Bogart wrote: "The ten men cited for contempt by the House Un-American Activities Committee were not defended by us." 

Santana Productions

In addition to being offered better, more diverse roles, Bogart started his own production company in 1948, Santana Productions, named after his sailing yacht (which also loaned her name to the cabin cruiser featured in the climax of that year's smash, Key Largo).  Earning the right to create his own production company had left Warner Bros. head Jack Warner furious, and afraid other stars would do the same and further erode the major studios' power. In addition to the pressure they were bearing from freelancing actors like Bogart, James Stewart, Henry Fonda and others, they were beginning to buckle from the eroding impact of television and enforcement of anti-trust laws breaking up theater chains.  Bogart performed in his final films for Warners, Chain Lightning, released early in 1950, and The Enforcer, early in 1951.

Bogart's Santana Productions released its films through Columbia Pictures. Without letting up, Bogart starred in Knock on Any Door (1949), Tokyo Joe (1949), In a Lonely Place (1950), Sirocco (1951) and Beat the Devil (1954). Santana made two other films without him: And Baby Makes Three (1949) and The Family Secret (1951).

While the majority lost money at the box office, ultimately forcing Santana's sale, at least two are well remembered today: In a Lonely Place is considered by many a high point in film noir. Bogart plays embittered writer Dixon Steele, whose history of violence lands him as top suspect in a murder case. At the same time he falls in love with an alluring but failed actress played by Gloria Grahame. It is considered among his best performances,  and many Bogart biographers and actress/writer Louise Brooks feel the role is the closest to the real Bogart of any he played. She wrote that the film "gave him a role that he could play with complexity, because the film character's pride in his art, his selfishness, drunkenness, lack of energy stabbed with lightning strokes of violence were shared by the real Bogart". The character even mimics some of Bogart's personal habits, including twice ordering Bogart's favorite meal of ham and eggs.

Something of a parody of The Maltese Falcon, Beat the Devil (1953), was Bogart's last film with his close friend and favorite director John Huston. Co-written by Truman Capote, the eccentrically filmed tale follows an amoral group of rogues chasing an unattainable treasure. 

Bogart sold his interest in Santana to Columbia for over $1 million in 1955.

The African Queen

Working outside of his own Santana Productions, Bogart starred with Katharine Hepburn in the John Huston directed The African Queen in 1951. The C.S. Forester novel on which it was based was overlooked and left undeveloped for fifteen years until producer Sam Spiegel and Huston bought the rights. Spiegel sent Katharine Hepburn the book and she suggested Bogart for the male lead, firmly believing that "he was the only man who could have played that part".  Huston's love of adventure, deep, longstanding friendship–and success–with Bogart, and a chance to work with Hepburn, convinced the actor to leave the comfortable confines of Hollywood for a difficult shoot on location in the Belgian Congo in Africa. Bogart was to get 30 percent of the profits and Hepburn 10 percent, plus a relatively small salary for both. The stars met up in London and announced the happy prospect of working together.

Bacall came for the four-month-plus duration, leaving their young child to be cared for in L.A. The Bogarts started the trip with a junket through Europe, including a visit with Pope Pius XII.  Later, the glamor would be gone and Bacall would make herself useful as a cook, nurse and clothes washer, earning her husband's praise: "I don't know what we'd have done without her. She Luxed my undies in darkest Africa".  Just about everyone in the cast came down with dysentery except Bogart and Huston, who subsisted on canned food and alcohol. Bogart explained: "All I ate was baked beans, canned asparagus and Scotch whisky. Whenever a fly bit Huston or me, it dropped dead."  Hepburn, a teetotaler in and out of character, fared worse in the difficult conditions, losing weight and at one point falling very ill. Bogart resisted Huston's insistence on using real leeches in a key scene where Charlie has to drag his tramp steamer through an infested marsh, until reasonable fakes were employed.  In the end, the crew overcame illness, soldier ant invasions, leaking boats, poor food, attacking hippos, poor water filters, fierce heat, isolation, and a boat fire to complete a memorable film.  Despite the discomfort of jumping from the boat into swamps, rivers and marshes the film apparently rekindled Bogart's early love of boats. On his return to California he bought a classic mahogany Hacker-Craft runabout, which he kept until his death.

The role of cantankerous skipper Charlie Allnutt won Bogart his only Academy Award in three nominations, for Best Actor in a Leading Role in 1951. Bogart considered his performance to be the best of his film career.  He had vowed to friends that if he won, his speech would break the convention of thanking everyone in sight. He advised Claire Trevor, when she had been nominated for Key Largo, to "just say you did it all yourself and don't thank anyone". But when Bogart won the Academy Award, which he truly coveted despite his well-advertised disdain for Hollywood, he said "It's a long way from the Belgian Congo to the stage of this theatre. It's nicer to be here. Thank you very much ... No one does it alone. As in tennis, you need a good opponent or partner to bring out the best in you. John and Katie helped me to be where I am now". Despite the thrilling win and the recognition, Bogart later commented, "The way to survive an Oscar is never to try to win another one ... too many stars ... win it and then figure they have to top themselves ... they become afraid to take chances. The result: A lot of dull performances in dull pictures".

The African Queen was the first Technicolor film in which Bogart appeared. He appeared in relatively few color films of any kind during the rest of his career, which continued for another five years.

Final roles

Just three years after his Best Actor triumph in African Queen, Bogart dropped his asking price to get the role of Captain Queeg in Edward Dmytryk's 1954 drama The Caine Mutiny. Though he griped with some of his old bitterness about having to do so,  he delivered a strong performance in the lead, earning him his final Oscar nomination as well as being the subject of the cover story in the June 7, 1954 issue of TIME.   Yet for all his success, Bogart was still his melancholy old self, grumbling and feuding with the studio, while his health was beginning to deteriorate. The character of Queeg mirrored in some ways those Bogart had played in The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca and The Big Sleep–the wary loner who trusts no one—but without either the warmth or humor of those roles. Like his portrayal of Fred C. Dobbs in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Bogart played a paranoid, self-pitying character whose small-mindedness eventually destroyed him. Three months before the film's release, Bogart appeared as Queeg on the cover of TIME magazine, while on Broadway Henry Fonda was starring in the stage version (in a different role), both of which generated strong publicity for the film.

In Sabrina, Billy Wilder wished to cast Cary Grant as the older male lead. Unable, he chose Bogart to play the elder, conservative brother who competes with his younger playboy sibling (William Holden) for the affection of the Cinderella-like Sabrina (Audrey Hepburn). Bogart was lukewarm about the part, but agreed to it on a handshake with Wilder, sans finished script but with the director's assurances he would take good care of Bogart during the filming. Nevertheless, Bogart got on poorly with his director and co-stars. He complained about the script and its last-minute drafting and delivery, and accused Wilder of favoring Hepburn and Holden on and off the set. At the root was Wilder being the opposite of Bogart's ideal director, John Huston, in both style and personality. Bogart groused to the press that Wilder was "overbearing" and "is the kind of Prussian German with a riding crop. He is the type of director I don't like to work with ... the picture is a crock of crap. I got sick and tired of who gets Sabrina."  Wilder later claimed, "We parted as enemies but finally made up." Despite the acrimony, the film was successful. The New York Times crowed that Bogart was "incredibly adroit ... the skill with which this old rock-ribbed actor blends the gags and such duplicities with a manly manner of melting is one of the incalculable joys of the show." 

The Barefoot Contessa, directed by Joseph Mankiewicz, was filmed in Rome, and released in 1954. In this Hollywood back-story Bogart is again a broken-down man, the cynical director-narrator who saves his career by making a star of a flamenco dancer modeled on real life movie sex goddess Rita Hayworth. Bogart was uneasy with Ava Gardner in the female lead, as she had just split from close "Rat Pack" buddy Frank Sinatra and was carrying on an affair with bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín. Bogart told her, "Half the world's female population would throw themselves at Frank's feet and here you are flouncing around with guys who wear capes and little ballerina slippers." He was also annoyed by her inexperienced performance. Later, Gardner credited Bogart with helping her both on and offscreen. Bogart's performance was generally praised as the strongest part of the film. During the filming, while Bacall was home, Bogart resumed his discreet affair with Verita Peterson, his long-time studio assistant, whom he took sailing and enjoyed drinking with. When his wife suddenly arrived on the scene discovering them together, she took it quite well, extracting an expensive shopping spree from her husband, the three traveling together after the shooting.

Bogart could be generous with actors, particularly those who were blacklisted, down on their luck, or having personal problems. During the filming of the Edward Dmytryk directed The Left Hand of God (1955), he noticed his co-star Gene Tierney having a hard time remembering her lines and behaving oddly. He coached Tierney, feeding her lines. He was familiar with mental illness from his sister's bouts of depression, and encouraged Tierney to seek treatment.   He also stood behind Joan Bennett and insisted on her as his co-star in Michael Curtiz's We're No Angels when an ugly public scandal made her persona non grata with Jack Warner. 

Bogart rounded out 1955 with The Desperate Hours, directed by William Wyler. Mark Robson's The Harder They Fall (1956) was his last film.

Television and radio

While Bogart rarely performed on television, he and Bacall appeared on Edward R. Murrow's Person to Person in which they disagreed in answering every question. Bogart was also featured on The Jack Benny Show. The surviving kinescope of the live telecast captures him in his only TV sketch comedy outing.

Bogart and Bacall also worked together on an early color telecast in 1955, an NBC adaptation of The Petrified Forest for Producers' Showcase, with Bogart receiving top billing and Henry Fonda playing Leslie Howard's role; a black and white kinescope of the live telecast has also survived.

Bogart performed radio adaptations of some of his best known films, such as Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon. He also recorded a radio series called Bold Venture with Lauren Bacall.

In 1995 newly developed digital technology allowed Bogart's image to be inserted in the Tales from the Crypt television episode "You, Murderer" as one of its many Casablanca references. The "Ingrid Bergman" character was played by her daughter Isabella Rossellini.

Personal life

The Rat Pack

Bogart was a founding member and original leader of the so-called Hollywood Rat Pack. In the spring of 1955, after a long party in Las Vegas attended by Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, her husband Sid Luft, Mike Romanoff and wife Gloria, David Niven, Angie Dickinson and others, Lauren Bacall surveyed the wreckage and declared, "You look like a goddamn rat pack." 

The name stuck and was made official at Romanoff's in Beverly Hills. Sinatra was tabbed Pack Leader, Bacall Den Mother, Bogie  Director of Public Relations, and Sid Luft Acting Cage Manager.  When asked by columnist Earl Wilson what the group's purpose was, Bacall stated: "To drink a lot of bourbon and stay up late."

Death

Once, after signing a long-term deal with Warner Bros., Bogart had predicted with glee that his teeth and hair would fall out before the contract ended. By the mid-1950s, well established as an independent producer, the sometime actor's health was failing. In the wake of Santana Productions he had formed a new company and had anxious plans for a film Melville Goodwin, U.S.A., in which he would play a general and Bacall a press magnate. However, his persistent cough and difficulty eating became too serious to ignore and he dropped the project. 

Bogart, a heavy smoker and drinker, had developed cancer of the esophagus. He almost never spoke of his failing health and refused to see a doctor until January 1956. A diagnosis was made several weeks later, but by then removal of his esophagus, two lymph nodes, and a rib on March 1, 1956, was too late to halt the disease, even with chemotherapy.  He underwent corrective surgery in November 1956 after the cancer had spread. With time, he grew too weak to walk up and down stairs, valiantly fighting the pain yet still able to joke: "Put me in the dumbwaiter and I'll ride down to the first floor in style."  It was then altered to accommodate his wheelchair.   Frank Sinatra was a frequent visitor, as were Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. In an interview, Hepburn described the last time she and Tracy saw their dear friend, on January 13, 1957:

Bogart fell into a coma and died in his bed the next day. He had just turned 57 twenty days prior and weighed only 80 pounds (36 kg). His simple funeral was held at All Saints Episcopal Church, with musical selections from favorite composers Johann Sebastian Bach and Claude Debussy. The ceremony was attended by some of Hollywood's biggest stars, including Hepburn, Tracy, Judy Garland, David Niven, Ronald Reagan, James Mason, Bette Davis, Danny Kaye, Joan Fontaine, Marlene Dietrich, James Cagney, Errol Flynn, Gregory Peck and Gary Cooper, as well as Billy Wilder and Jack Warner. Bacall had asked Tracy to give the eulogy, but he was too upset, so John Huston spoke instead. He reminded the gathered mourners that while Bogart's life had ended far too soon, it had been a rich one:

Bogart's cremated remains were interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendale, California in the Garden of Memory, Columbarium of Eternal Light, Garden Niche 647.   He was buried with a small, gold whistle once part of a charm bracelet he had given to Lauren Bacall before they married. On it was inscribed an allusion to a line from their first movie together, in 1944, To Have and Have Not, where Bacall had said to him shortly after their first meeting: "You know how to whistle don't you Steve? You just put your lips together and blow". The inscription read: "If you want anything, just whistle."

The probate value of Bogart's estate was $910,146 gross and $737,668 net ($ million and $ million today). 

Legacy and tributes

After his death, a "Bogie Cult" formed at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts,  as well as Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York, and in France, which contributed to his spike in popularity in the late 1950s and 1960s. In 1997, Entertainment Weekly magazine named Bogart the number one movie legend of all time. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him the Greatest Male Star of Classic Hollywood.

Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (1960) was the first film to pay tribute to Bogart. Later, in Woody Allen's comic paean to Bogart, Play It Again, Sam (1972), Bogart's ghost comes to the aid of Allen's bumbling character, a movie critic with women troubles whose "sex life has turned into the 'Petrified Forest'".

Awards and honors

On August 21, 1946, Bogart was honored in a ceremony at Grauman's Chinese Theater to record his hand and footprints in cement. On February 8, 1960, he was posthumously given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6322 Hollywood Boulevard. During his career, Bogart was nominated for several awards including the BAFTA award for best foreign actor in 1952 for The African Queen and three Academy Awards.

In 1997, the United States Postal Service honored Bogart with a stamp bearing his image in its "Legends of Hollywood" series as the third figure to be recognized.  At a formal ceremony attended by Lauren Bacall, and the Bogart children, Stephen and Leslie, Tirso del Junco, the chairman of the governing board of the USPS, provided an eloquent tribute:

"Today, we mark another chapter in the Bogart legacy. With an image that is small and yet as powerful as the ones he left in celluloid, we will begin today to bring his artistry, his power, his unique star quality, to the messages that travel the world." 

On June 24, 2006, a section of 103rd Street, between Broadway and West End Avenue, in New York City was renamed "Humphrey Bogart Place." Lauren Bacall and her son Stephen Bogart were present at the commemorative event. "Bogie would never have believed it," Lauren Bacall expressed to the assembled group of city officials and onlookers in attendance. 

In popular culture

Humphrey Bogart's life has inspired writers and others:
* Two Bugs Bunny cartoons featured Bogart:
** In Slick Hare (1947), Bogart orders fried rabbit in a Hollywood restaurant. Told that they do not have any, he becomes insistent, leading waiter Elmer Fudd to try to serve Bugs as the meal. Bogart finally gives up, saying: "Baby will just have to have a ham sandwich instead." Bugs, upon hearing the name, then presents himself to Bacall. 
** In 8 Ball Bunny (1950), Bugs decides to take a baby penguin back to the South Pole. At intervals, "Fred C. Dobbs" (Bogart's character in Treasure of the Sierra Madre) appears and asks Bugs to "help out a fellow American who's down on his luck"—a line Bogart says a number of times in the film to John Huston, playing an American gringo. 
* Bogart is featured in one of Woody Allen's comic movies, Play It Again, Sam (1972), which relates the story of a young man obsessed by his persona. 
* 2HB is a song written by Bryan Ferry and first recorded by Roxy Music for their 1972 debut album, Roxy Music. Ferry also recorded a version for his 1976 solo album, Let's Stick Together. The title is a pun, not about the European nomenclature of pencil leads, but a dedication to Bogart ("2HB" = "to Humphrey Bogart"). In particular, the song references Casablanca, including the line "Here's looking at you kid, hard to forget".
* In the murder mystery spoof Murder by Death (Columbia, 1976) Peter Falk imitates Bogart with his portrayal of detective Sam Diamond, named after Sam Spade in the The Maltese Falcon. Falk reprises the character in The Cheap Detective (1978), although this time the detective was named Lou Peckinpaugh. Scenes from Bogart's movies Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, and To Have and Have Not were spoofed in this film.
* Issue No.70 of the US The Phantom (1977) comic book is known as the "Bogart" issue, as the story stars Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Claude Rains and is a mixture of Casablanca, The African Queen, The Maltese Falcon, and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. 
* The Man with Bogart's Face (1981) was an homage to Bogart which starred Bogart lookalike Robert Sacchi. 
* Umperio Bogarto, the associate of Fethry Duck in a down at heel detective agency, created in 1982 by the Italian Disney cartoonists Carlo Chendi and Giorgio Cavazzano, is, as his name clearly shows, a parody of the tough private eyes played by Bogart.
* The slang term "bogarting" refers to taking an unfairly long time with a shared marijuana joint. Allegedly, it derives from Bogart's style of cigarette smoking, leaving his cigarette dangling from his mouth between puffs.  
The 1968 song Don't Bogart Me (also known as Don't Bogart That Joint) by U.S. band Fraternity of Man became popular in counterculture through its inclusion in the soundtrack of the 1969 film Easy Rider. The lyric's refrain: "Don't bogart that joint, my friend; Pass it over to me."
* "Bogart" can refer to coercion or bullying in African American slang 
* Bogart outtakes (mostly from The Big Sleep) play a critical role in Carl Reiner's 1982 parody of mystery films, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid.
* The 1981 song "Key Largo" by Bertie Higgins references both Key Largo and Casablanca in the lyrics and directly mentions Bogart and his wife Lauren Bacall in the song's chorus. ("Just like Bogie and Bacall", and "Here's looking at you kid")

Quotations

Bogart is credited with five of the American Film Institute's top 100 quotations in American cinema, the most by any actor:
* 5th: "Here's looking at you, kid"—Casablanca
* 14th: "The stuff that dreams are made of."—The Maltese Falcon
* 20th: "Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."—Casablanca
* 43rd: "We'll always have Paris."—Casablanca
* 67th: "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."—Casablanca

Bogart is also credited with one of the top movie misquotations, "Play it again, Sam". In Casablanca, neither his Rick Blaine character nor anyone else says the line, although it is widely credited to him and is the verbatim title of a Woody Allen tribute movie.

When Blaine's former love, Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), first enters his Café Americain, she spots Sam, the piano player (Dooley Wilson), and asks him to "Play it once, Sam, for old times' sake." When he feigns ignorance, she persists, "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.'" Later that night, alone with Sam, Rick demands, "You played it for her - you can play it for me." Sam once again resists, prompting Blaine to shout: "If she can stand it, I can! Play it!" 

Filmography

Radio appearances Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz and based on Murray Burnett and Joan Alison's unproduced stage play Everybody Comes to Rick's. The film stars Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid; it also features Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Dooley Wilson. Set during World War II, it focuses on an American expatriate who must choose between his love for a woman and helping her Czech Resistance leader husband escape the Vichy-controlled city of Casablanca to continue his fight against the Nazis.

Story editor Irene Diamond convinced producer Hal B. Wallis to purchase the film rights to the play in January 1942. Brothers Julius and Philip G. Epstein were initially assigned to write the script. However, despite studio resistance, they left to work on Frank Capra's Why We Fight series early in 1942. Howard E. Koch was assigned to the screenplay until the Epsteins returned a month later. Casey Robinson assisted with three weeks of rewrites, but his work would later go uncredited. Wallis chose Curtiz to direct the film after his first choice, William Wyler, became unavailable. Principal photography began on May 25, 1942, ending on August 3; the film was shot entirely at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, with the exception of one sequence at Van Nuys Airport in Van Nuys, Los Angeles.

Although Casablanca was an A-list film with established stars and first-rate writers, no one involved with its production expected it to be anything out of the ordinary.  It was just one of hundreds of pictures produced by Hollywood every year. Casablanca was rushed into release to take advantage of the publicity from the Allied invasion of North Africa a few weeks earlier.  It had its world premiere on November 26, 1942, in New York City and was released nationally in the United States on January 23, 1943. The film was a solid if unspectacular success in its initial run.

Casablanca did account for three Academy Awards – Best Picture, Director (Curtiz) and Adapted Screenplay (the Epsteins and Koch) – and gradually its reputation grew. Its lead characters,   memorable lines,    and pervasive theme song  have all become iconic and the film consistently ranks near the top of lists of the greatest films in history.

Plot

In December 1941, American expatriate Rick Blaine is the proprietor of an upscale nightclub and gambling den in Casablanca. "Rick's Café Américain" attracts a varied clientele: Vichy French  and German officials; refugees desperate to reach the still neutral United States; and those who prey on them. Although Rick professes to be neutral in all matters, it is later revealed he ran guns to Ethiopia during its war with Italy and fought on the Loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War.

Petty crook Ugarte shows up and boasts to Rick of "letters of transit" obtained by murdering two German couriers. The papers allow the bearers to travel freely around German-controlled Europe and to neutral Portugal, and are thus almost priceless to the refugees stranded in Casablanca. Ugarte plans to sell them at the club that night, and asks Rick to hold them. Before he can meet his contact, he is arrested by the local police under the command of Captain Louis Renault, an unabashedly corrupt Vichy official. Ugarte dies in custody without revealing that he entrusted the letters to Rick.

At this point, the reason for Rick's bitterness—former lover Ilsa Lund—walks into his establishment. Upon spotting Rick's friend and house pianist, Sam, Ilsa asks him to play "As Time Goes By." Rick storms over, furious that Sam has disobeyed his order never to perform that song, and is stunned to see Ilsa. She is accompanied by her husband, Victor Laszlo, a renowned fugitive Czech Resistance leader. They need the letters to escape to America to continue his work. German Major Strasser has come to Casablanca to see that Laszlo does not succeed.

When Laszlo makes inquiries, Ferrari, a major underworld figure and Rick's friendly business rival, divulges his suspicion that Rick has the letters. In private, Rick refuses to sell at any price, telling Laszlo to ask his wife the reason. They are interrupted when Strasser leads a group of officers in singing "Die Wacht am Rhein." Laszlo orders the house band to play "La Marseillaise." When the band looks to Rick, he nods his head. Laszlo starts singing, alone at first, then patriotic fervor grips the crowd and everyone joins in, drowning out the Germans. In retaliation, Strasser has Renault close the club.

That night, Ilsa confronts Rick in the deserted café. When he refuses to give her the letters, she threatens him with a gun, but then confesses that she still loves him. She explains that when they met and fell in love in Paris in 1940, she believed her husband had been killed attempting to escape from a concentration camp. Later, while preparing to flee with Rick from the imminent fall of the city to the German army, she learned that Laszlo was alive and in hiding. She left Rick without explanation to nurse her sick husband.

Rick's bitterness dissolves. He agrees to help, letting her believe that she will stay with him when Laszlo leaves. When Laszlo unexpectedly shows up, having narrowly escaped a police raid on a Resistance meeting, Rick has waiter Carl spirit Ilsa away. Laszlo, aware of Rick's love for Ilsa, tries to persuade him to use the letters to take her to safety. When the police arrest Laszlo on a minor, trumped-up charge, Rick convinces Renault to release him by promising to set him up for a much more serious crime: possession of the letters. To allay Renault's suspicions, Rick explains that he and Ilsa will be leaving for America. When Renault tries to arrest Laszlo as arranged, Rick forces him at gunpoint to assist in their escape. At the last moment, Rick makes Ilsa board the plane to Lisbon with her husband, telling her that she would regret it if she stayed—"Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life."

Strasser, tipped off by Renault, drives up alone. Rick kills him when he tries to intervene. When policemen arrive, Renault pauses, then orders them to "round up the usual suspects." Renault suggests to Rick that they join the Free French in Brazzaville. As they walk away into the fog, Rick says, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Cast

The play's cast consisted of 16 speaking parts and several extras; the film script enlarged it to 22 speaking parts and hundreds of extras.  The cast is notably international: only three of the credited actors were born in the United States (Bogart, Dooley Wilson, and Joy Page). The top-billed actors are:
* Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine. Rick was his first truly romantic role.
* Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund. Bergman's official website calls Ilsa her "most famous and enduring role".  The Swedish actress's Hollywood debut in Intermezzo had been well received, but her subsequent films were not major successes until Casablanca. Film critic Roger Ebert called her "luminous", and commented on the chemistry between her and Bogart: "she paints his face with her eyes". Other actresses considered for the role of Ilsa included Ann Sheridan, Hedy Lamarr, Luise Rainer and Michèle Morgan. Producer Hal Wallis obtained the services of Bergman, who was contracted to David O. Selznick, by lending Olivia de Havilland in exchange. 
* Paul Henreid as Victor Laszlo. Henreid, an Austrian actor who had emigrated in 1935 to flee Nazi persecution, was reluctant to take the role (it "set [him] as a stiff forever", according to Pauline Kael ), until he was promised top billing along with Bogart and Bergman. Henreid did not get on well with his fellow actors; he considered Bogart "a mediocre actor." Bergman called Henreid a "prima donna". 

The second-billed actors are:
* Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault. Rains was an English actor born in London. He had previously worked with Michael Curtiz on The Adventures of Robin Hood. He later played the villain in Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious, reteaming with Ingrid Bergman.
* Conrad Veidt as Major Heinrich Strasser. He was a refugee German actor who had appeared in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. He fled the Nazis, but was frequently cast as a Nazi in American films.
* Sydney Greenstreet as Signor Ferrari. Another Englishman, Greenstreet had previously starred with Lorre and Bogart in his film debut in The Maltese Falcon.
* Peter Lorre as Signor Ugarte. Born in Austria-Hungary, Lorre fled Nazi Germany in 1933 after starring in Fritz Lang's first sound movie, M (1931). Greenstreet and Lorre appeared in several films together over the next few years, although they did not share a scene in Casablanca.

Also credited are:
* Curt Bois as the pickpocket. Bois was a German-Jewish actor and refugee. He had one of the longest careers in film, making his first appearance in 1907 and his last in 1987.
* Leonid Kinskey as Sascha, the Russian bartender infatuated with Yvonne. He was born into a Jewish family in Russia and had immigrated to the United States. He told Aljean Harmetz, author of Round Up the Usual Suspects: The Making of Casablanca, that he was cast because he was Bogart's drinking buddy. He was not the first choice for the role; he replaced Leo Mostovoy, who was deemed not funny enough.
* Madeleine LeBeau as Yvonne, Rick's soon-discarded girlfriend. The French actress was married to fellow Casablanca performer Marcel Dalio until their divorce in 1942. She was the last surviving cast member until her death on May 1, 2016. 
* Joy Page as Annina Brandel, the young Bulgarian refugee. The third credited American, she was the stepdaughter of Jack L. Warner, the studio head.
* John Qualen as Berger, Laszlo's Resistance contact. He was born in Canada, but grew up in the United States. He appeared in many of John Ford's films.
* S. Z. Sakall (credited as S. K. Sakall) as Carl, the waiter. The Jewish-Hungarian actor fled Germany in 1939. His three sisters later died in a concentration camp.
* Dooley Wilson as Sam. He was one of the few American members of the cast. A drummer, he had to fake playing the piano. Even after shooting had been completed, producer Wallis considered dubbing over Wilson's voice for the songs.   He had originally considered changing the character to a woman and casting singers Hazel Scott, Lena Horne, or Ella Fitzgerald.

Notable uncredited actors are:
* Leon Belasco as a dealer in Rick's Cafe. A Russian-American character actor, he appeared in 13 films the year Casablanca was released. 
* Marcel Dalio as Emil the croupier. He had been a star in French cinema, appearing in Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion and La Règle du Jeu. After he fled the fall of France and went to America, he was reduced to bit parts in Hollywood. He had a key role in another of Bogart's films, To Have and Have Not.
* Helmut Dantine as Jan Brandel, the Bulgarian roulette player married to Annina Brandel. Another Austrian, he had spent time in a concentration camp after the Anschluss, but left Europe after being freed.
* William Edmunds as a contact man at Rick's. He usually played characters with heavy accents, such as Martini in It's a Wonderful Life (1946).
* Gregory Gaye as the German banker who is refused entry to the casino by Rick. Gaye was a Russian-born actor who went to the United States in 1917 after the Russian Revolution.
* Torben Meyer as the Dutch banker who runs "the second largest banking house in Amsterdam". Meyer was a Danish actor.
* George London, one of those who sing "La Marseillaise".  London was a Montreal-born bass-baritone opera singer.
* Georges Renavent as a conspirator.
* Corinna Mura as the guitar player who sings "Tango Delle Rose" while Laszlo is consulting with Berger, and later accompanies the crowd on "La Marseillaise".
* Dan Seymour as Abdul the doorman. He was an American actor who often played villains, including the principal one in To Have and Have Not, and one of the secondary ones in Key Largo, both opposite Bogart.
* Gerald Oliver Smith as the Englishman whose wallet is stolen. Smith was an English actor.
* Norma Varden as the Englishwoman whose husband has his wallet stolen. She was a famous English character actress.
* Jean Del Val as the French police radio announcer who (following the opening montage sequence) reports the news of the murder of the two German couriers.
* Leo White as the waiter Emile (not to be confused with the croupier Emil), from whom Renault orders a drink when he sits down with the Laszlos. White was a familiar face in many Charlie Chaplin two-reelers in the 1910s, usually playing an upper-class antagonist.
* Frank Puglia as a Moroccan rug merchant

Much of the emotional impact of the film has been attributed to the large proportion of European exiles and refugees who were extras or played minor roles (in addition to leading actors Paul Henried, Conrad Veidt and Peter Lorre): such as Louis V. Arco, Trude Berliner, Ilka Grünig, Lotte Palfi, Richard Ryen, Ludwig Stössel, Hans Twardowski, and Wolfgang Zilzer. A witness to the filming of the "duel of the anthems" sequence said he saw many of the actors crying and "realized that they were all real refugees".  Harmetz argues that they "brought to a dozen small roles in Casablanca an understanding and a desperation that could never have come from Central Casting".  They were frequently cast as Nazis in war films, even though many were Jewish.

The comedian Jack Benny may have had an unbilled cameo role, as was claimed by a contemporary newspaper advertisement  and reportedly in the Casablanca press book. When asked in his column "Movie Answer Man", critic Roger Ebert first replied, "It looks something like him. That's all I can say."RogerEbert.com He wrote in a later column, "I think you're right." 

Production

The film was based on Murray Burnett and Joan Alison's then-unproduced play Everybody Comes to Rick's.  The Warner Bros. story analyst who read the play, Stephen Karnot, called it (approvingly) "sophisticated hokum",  and story editor Irene Diamond, who had discovered the unproduced play on a trip to New York in 1941, convinced producer Hal Wallis to buy the rights in January 1942 for $20,000,  the most anyone in Hollywood had ever paid for an unproduced play.  The project was renamed Casablanca, apparently in imitation of the 1938 hit Algiers.  Although an initial filming date was selected for April 10, 1942, delays led to a start of production on May 25.  Filming was completed on August 3, and the production cost $1,039,000 ($75,000 over budget),  above average for the time.  Unusually, the film was shot in sequence, mainly because only the first half of the script was ready when filming began. 

The entire picture was shot in the studio, except for the sequence showing Major Strasser's arrival, which was filmed at Van Nuys Airport, and a few short clips of stock footage views of Paris.  The street used for the exterior shots had recently been built for another film, The Desert Song,  and redressed for the Paris flashbacks. It remained on the Warners backlot until the 1960s. The set for Rick's was built in three unconnected parts, so the internal layout of the building is indeterminate. In a number of scenes, the camera looks through a wall from the cafe area into Rick's office.

The background of the final scene, which shows a Lockheed Model 12 Electra Junior airplane with personnel walking around it, was staged using little person extras and a proportionate cardboard plane.  Fog was used to mask the model's unconvincing appearance.  Nevertheless, the Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park in Orlando, Florida purchased a Lockheed 12A for its Great Movie Ride attraction, and initially claimed that it was the actual plane used in the film. 

Film critic Roger Ebert called Hal 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). 

The difference between Bergman's and Bogart's height caused some problems. She was some two inches (5 cm) taller than Bogart, and claimed Curtiz had Bogart stand on blocks or sit on cushions in their scenes together. 

Later, there were plans for a further scene, showing Rick, Renault and a detachment of Free French soldiers on a ship, to incorporate the Allies' 1942 invasion of North Africa. It proved too difficult to get Claude Rains for the shoot, and the scene was finally abandoned after David O. Selznick judged "it would be a terrible mistake to change the ending." 

Writing

The original play was inspired by a trip to Europe made by Murray Burnett and his wife in 1938, during which they visited Vienna shortly after the Anschluss and were affected by the anti-Semitism they saw. In the south of France, they went to a nightclub that had a multinational clientele, among them many exiles and refugees, and the prototype of Sam.  

The first writers assigned to the script were twins Julius and Philip Epstein, who, against the wishes of Warner Brothers, left at Frank Capra's request early in 1942 to work on the Why We Fight series in Washington, D.C.   While they were gone, the other credited writer, Howard Koch, was assigned; he produced some thirty to forty pages. When the Epstein brothers returned after about a month, they were reassigned to Casablanca and—contrary to what Koch claimed in two published books—his work was not used. In the final Warner Bros. budget for the film, the Epsteins were paid $30,416, while Koch earned $4,200. 

In the play, the Ilsa character is an American named Lois Meredith; she does not meet Laszlo until after her relationship with Rick in Paris has ended. Rick is a lawyer. To make Rick's motivation more believable, Wallis, Curtiz, and the screenwriters decided to set the film before the attack on Pearl Harbor. 

The uncredited Casey Robinson assisted with three weeks of rewrites, including contributing the series of meetings between Rick and Ilsa in the cafe.   Koch highlighted the political and melodramatic elements,   while Curtiz seems to have favored the romantic parts, insisting on retaining the Paris flashbacks.  Wallis wrote the final line, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship," after shooting had been completed. Bogart had to be called in a month after the end of filming to dub it.

Despite the many writers, the film has what Ebert describes as a "wonderfully unified and consistent" script. Koch later claimed it was the tension between his own approach and Curtiz's 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."  Julius Epstein would later note the screenplay contained "more corn than in the states of Kansas and Iowa combined. But when corn works, there's nothing better." 

The film ran into some trouble with Joseph Breen of the Production Code Administration (the Hollywood self-censorship body), who opposed the suggestions that Captain Renault extorted sexual favors from his supplicants, and that Rick and Ilsa had slept together in Paris.  Extensive changes were made, with several lines of dialogue removed or altered. All direct references to sex were deleted; Renault's selling of visas for sex, and Rick and Ilsa's previous sexual relationship were implied elliptically rather than referenced explicitly.  Also, in the original script, when Sam plays "As Time Goes By", Rick remarks, "What the —— are you playing?"  This line implying a curse word was removed at the behest of the Hays Office.

Direction

Wallis' first choice for director was William Wyler, but he was unavailable, so Wallis turned to his close friend Michael Curtiz.  Curtiz was a Hungarian Jewish émigré; he had come to the U.S. in the 1920s, but some of his family were refugees from Nazi Europe.

Roger Ebert has commented that in Casablanca "very few shots... are memorable as shots," as Curtiz wanted images to express the story rather than to stand alone. He contributed relatively little to development of the plot. Casey Robinson said Curtiz "knew nothing whatever about story ... he saw it in pictures, and you supplied the stories." 

Critic Andrew Sarris called the film "the most decisive exception to the auteur theory",  of which Sarris was the most prominent proponent in the United States. Aljean Harmetz has responded, "nearly every Warner Bros. picture was an exception to the auteur theory". Other critics give more credit to Curtiz. Sidney Rosenzweig, in his study of the director's work, sees the film as a typical example of Curtiz's highlighting of moral dilemmas. 

The second unit montages, such as the opening sequence of the refugee trail and the invasion of France, were directed by Don Siegel. 

Cinematography

The cinematographer was Arthur Edeson, a veteran who had previously shot The Maltese Falcon and Frankenstein. 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 whole effect was designed to make her face seem "ineffably sad and tender and nostalgic". Bars of shadow across the characters and in the background variously imply imprisonment, the crucifix, the symbol of the Free French Forces and emotional turmoil. Dark film noir and expressionist lighting was used in several scenes, particularly towards the end of the picture. Rosenzweig argues these shadow and lighting effects are classic elements of the Curtiz style, along with the fluid camera work and the use of the environment as a framing device. 

Music

The music was written by Max Steiner, who was best known for the score for Gone with the Wind. The song "As Time Goes By" by Herman Hupfeld had been part of the story from the original play; Steiner wanted to write his own composition to replace it, but Bergman had already cut her hair short for her next role (María in For Whom the Bell Tolls) and could not re-shoot the scenes which incorporated the song,  so Steiner based the entire score on it and "La Marseillaise", the French national anthem, transforming them to reflect changing moods. 

Particularly notable is the "duel of the songs" between Strasser and Laszlo at Rick's cafe. In the soundtrack, "La Marseillaise" is played by a full orchestra. Originally, the opposing piece for this iconic sequence was to be the "Horst Wessel Lied", a Nazi anthem, but this was still under international copyright in non-Allied countries. Instead "Die Wacht am Rhein" was used. The opening bars of the "Deutschlandlied", the national anthem of Germany, are featured throughout the score as a motif to represent the Germans, much as "La Marseillaise" is used to represent the Allies.

Other songs include:
* "It Had to Be You", music by Isham Jones, lyrics by Gus Kahn
* "Shine", music by Ford Dabney, lyrics by Cecil Mack and Lew Brown
* "Avalon", music and lyrics by Al Jolson, Buddy DeSylva and Vincent Rose
* "Perfidia", by Alberto Dominguez
* "The Very Thought of You", by Ray Noble, and
* "Knock on Wood", music by M. K. Jerome, lyrics by Jack Scholl, the only original song.

The piano featured in the Paris flashback sequences was sold in New York City on December 14, 2012, at Sotheby's for more than $600,000 to an anonymous bidder.  The piano Sam "plays" in Rick's Café Américain, put up for auction with other film memorabilia by Turner Classic Movies and Bonhams in New York in November 2014, sold for $3.4 million.  

Timing of release

Although an initial release date was anticipated for spring 1943,  the film premiered at the Hollywood Theater in New York City on November 26, 1942, to coincide with the Allied invasion of North Africa and the capture of Casablanca.  In the 1,500-seat theater, the film grossed $255,000 over ten weeks.  It went into general release on January 23, 1943, to take advantage of the Casablanca Conference, a high-level meeting in the city between British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and American President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was a substantial but not spectacular box-office success, taking $3.7 million on its initial U.S. release, making it the seventh highest-grossing film of 1943.  The Office of War Information prevented screening of the film to troops in North Africa, believing it would cause resentment among Vichy supporters in the region. 

Reception

Initial response

Casablanca received "consistently good reviews".  Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote, "The Warners... have a picture which makes the spine tingle and the heart take a leap." The newspaper applauded the combination of "sentiment, humor and pathos with taut melodrama and bristling intrigue". While Crowther noted its "devious convolutions of the plot", he praised the screenplay quality as "of the best" and the cast's performances as "all of the first order". 

The trade paper Variety commended the film's "combination of fine performances, engrossing story and neat direction" and the "variety of moods, action, suspense, comedy and drama that makes Casablanca an A-1 entry at the b.o." "Film is splendid anti-Axis propaganda, particularly inasmuch as the propaganda is strictly a by-product of the principal action and contributes to it instead of getting in the way." The review also applauded the performances of Bergman and Henreid and note that "Bogart, as might be expected, is more at ease as the bitter and cynical operator of a joint than as a lover, but handles both assignments with superb finesse."

Some other reviews were less enthusiastic. The New Yorker rated it only "pretty tolerable". 

Lasting influence

The film has grown in popularity. Murray Burnett called it "true yesterday, true today, true tomorrow".  By 1955, the film had brought in $6.8 million, making it the third most successful of Warners' wartime movies (behind Shine On, Harvest Moon and This Is the Army).  On April 21, 1957, the Brattle Theater of Cambridge, Massachusetts, showed the film as part of a season of old movies. It was so popular that it began a tradition of screening Casablanca during the week of final exams at Harvard University, which continues to the present day. Other colleges have adopted the tradition. Todd Gitlin, a professor of sociology who had attended one of these screenings, has said that the experience was "the acting out of my own personal rite of passage".  The tradition helped the movie remain popular while other famous films of the 1940s have faded away. By 1977, Casablanca was the most frequently broadcast film on American television. 

On the film's 50th anniversary, the Los Angeles Times called Casablancas great strength "the purity of its Golden Age Hollywoodness [and] the enduring craftsmanship of its resonantly hokey dialogue". Bob Strauss wrote in the newspaper that the film achieved a "near-perfect entertainment balance" of comedy, romance, and suspense. 

According to Roger Ebert, Casablanca 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. Ebert opined that Citizen Kane is generally considered to be a "greater" film, but Casablanca is more loved. In his opinion, the film is popular because "the people in it are all so good", and it is "a wonderful gem". Ebert said that he has never heard of a negative review of the film, even though individual elements can be criticized, citing unrealistic special effects and the stiff character/portrayal of Laszlo.  Critic Leonard Maltin considers Casablanca to be "the best Hollywood movie of all time." 

Rick, according to Rudy Behlmer, is "not a hero ... not a bad guy": he does what is necessary to get along with the authorities and "sticks his neck out for nobody". The other characters, in Behlmer's words, are "not cut and dried" and come into their goodness over the course of the film. Renault begins as a collaborator with the Nazis who extorts sexual favors from refugees and has Ugarte killed. Even Ilsa, the least active of the main characters, is "caught in the emotional struggle" over which man she really loves. By the end, however, "everybody is sacrificing." Behlmer also emphasized the variety in the picture: "it's a blend of drama, melodrama, comedy [and] intrigue".

A few reviewers have had reservations. To Pauline Kael, "It's far from a great film, but it has a special appealingly schlocky romanticism..."  Umberto Eco wrote that "by any strict critical standards... Casablanca is a very mediocre film." He viewed the changes the characters undergo as inconsistent rather than complex: "It is a comic strip, a hotch-potch, low on psychological credibility, and with little continuity in its dramatic effects." However, he added that due to the presence of multiple archetypes which allow "the power of Narrative in its natural state without Art intervening to discipline it", it is a movie reaching "Homeric depths" as a "phenomenon worthy of awe." 

In the November/December 1982 issue of American Film, Chuck Ross claimed that he retyped the screenplay to Casablanca, changing the title back to Everybody Comes to Rick's and the name of the piano player to Dooley Wilson, and submitted it to 217 agencies. Eighty-five of them read it; of those, thirty-eight rejected it outright, thirty-three generally recognized it (but only eight specifically as Casablanca), three declared it commercially viable, and one suggested turning it into a novel. 

Influence on later works

Many subsequent films have drawn on elements of Casablanca. Passage to Marseille reunited Bogart, Rains, Curtiz, Greenstreet and Lorre in 1944. There are similarities between Casablanca and two later Bogart films, To Have and Have Not (1944) and Sirocco (1951).

Parodies have included the Marx Brothers' A Night in Casablanca (1946), Neil Simon's The Cheap Detective (1978), and Out Cold (2001). Indirectly, it provided the title for the 1995 neo-noir film The Usual Suspects. Woody Allen's Play It Again, Sam (1972) appropriated Bogart's Casablanca persona as the fantasy mentor for Allen's nebbishy character, featuring actor Jerry Lacy in the role of Bogart.

The film Casablanca was a plot device in the science-fiction television movie Overdrawn at the Memory Bank (1983), based on John Varley's story. It was referred to in Terry Gilliam's dystopian Brazil (1985). Warner Bros. produced its own parody in the homage Carrotblanca, a 1995 Bugs Bunny cartoon.  In Casablanca, a novella by Argentine writer Edgar Brau, the protagonist somehow wanders into Rick's Café Américain and listens to a strange tale related by Sam. 

Interpretation

Casablanca has been subjected to many different readings. Semioticians account for the film's popularity by claiming that its inclusion of a whole series of stereotypes paradoxically strengthens the film.     Umberto Eco explained:

Eco also singled out sacrifice as one of the film's key themes: "the myth of sacrifice runs through the whole film."  It was this theme which resonated with a wartime audience that was reassured by the idea that painful sacrifice and going off to war could be romantic gestures done for the greater good. 

Koch also considered the film a political allegory. Rick is compared to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who gambled "on the odds of going to war until circumstance and his own submerged nobility force him to close his casino (partisan politics) and commit himself—first by financing the Side of Right and then by fighting for it."  The connection is reinforced by the film's title, which means "white house".

Harvey Greenberg presents a Freudian reading in his The Movies on Your Mind, in which the transgressions which prevent Rick from returning to the United States constitute an Oedipus complex, which is resolved only when Rick begins to identify with the father figure of Laszlo and the cause which he represents.  Sidney Rosenzweig argues that such readings are reductive, and that the most important aspect of the film is its ambiguity, above all in the central character of Rick; he cites the different names which each character gives Rick (Richard, Ricky, Mr. Rick, Herr Rick, boss, and so on) as evidence of the different meanings which he has for each person. 

Awards and honors

Because of its November 1942 release, the New York Film Critics decided to include the film in its 1942 award season for best picture. Casablanca lost to In Which We Serve. However, the Academy stated that since the film went into national release in the beginning of 1943, it would be included in that year's nominations.  Casablanca was nominated for eight Academy Awards, and won three. As Bogart stepped out of his car at the Academy Awards ceremony, "the crowd surged forward, almost engulfing him and his wife, Mayo Methot. It took 12 police officers to rescue the two, and a red-faced, startled, yet smiling Bogart heard a chorus of cries of 'good luck' and 'here’s looking at you, kid' as he was rushed into the theater." 

When the award for 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 would lead Wallis to leave Warner Bros. in April. 

In 1989, the film was one of the first 25 films selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2005, it was named one of the 100 greatest films of the last 80 years by Time magazine (the selected films were not ranked). Screenwriting teacher Robert McKee maintains that the script is "the greatest screenplay of all time". In 2006, the Writers Guild of America, West agreed, voting it the best ever in its list of the 101 greatest screenplays.  The film has been selected by the American Film Institute for many of their lists.

Home media releases

Casablanca was initially released on Betamax and VHS by Magnetic Video and later by CBS/Fox Video (as United Artists owned the rights at the time). It was next released on laserdisc in 1991, and on VHS in 1992—both from MGM/UA Home Entertainment (distributing for Turner Entertainment Co.), which at the time was distributed by Warner Home Video. It was first released on DVD in 1997 by MGM, containing the trailer and a making-of featurette (Warner Home Video reissued the DVD in 2000). A subsequent two-disc special edition, containing audio commentaries, documentaries, and a newly remastered visual and audio presentation, was released in 2003. 

An HD DVD was released on November 14, 2006, containing the same special features as the 2003 DVD.  Reviewers were impressed with the new high-definition transfer of the film. 

A Blu-ray release with new special features came out on December 2, 2008; it is also available on DVD.  The Blu-ray was initially only released as an expensive gift set with a booklet, a luggage tag and other assorted gift-type items. It was eventually released as a stand-alone Blu-ray in September 2009. On March 27, 2012, Warner released a new 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition Blu-ray/DVD combo set. It includes a brand-new 4K restoration and new bonus material.  

Sequels and other versions

Almost from the moment Casablanca became a hit, talk began of producing a sequel. One titled Brazzaville (in the final scene, Renault recommends fleeing to that Free French-held city) was planned, but never produced.  Since then, no studio has seriously considered filming a sequel or outright remake. François Truffaut refused an invitation to remake the film in 1974, citing its cult status among American students as his reason.  Attempts to recapture the magic of Casablanca in other settings, such as Caboblanco (1980), "a South American-set retooling of Casablanca",  and Havana (1990)  have been poorly received.

Stories of a Casablanca remake or sequel nonetheless persist.  In 2008, the Daily Mail reported that Madonna was pursuing a remake set in modern-day Iraq.   In 2012, both The Daily Telegraph and Entertainment Weekly reported on efforts by Cass Warner, granddaughter of Harry Warner and friend of the late Howard Koch, to produce a sequel featuring the search by Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lund's illegitimate son for the whereabouts of his biological father.  

The novel As Time Goes By, written by Michael Walsh and published in 1998, was authorized by Warner.   The novel picks up where the film leaves off, and also tells of Rick's mysterious past in America. The book met with little success.  David Thomson provided an unofficial sequel in his 1985 novel Suspects.

There have been two short-lived television series based upon Casablanca, both considered prequels. The first aired from 1955 to 1956, with Charles McGraw as Rick and Marcel Dalio, who played Emil the croupier in the movie, as Renault; it aired on ABC as part of the wheel series Warner Bros. Presents.  There were ten hour-long episodes. Another, briefly broadcast on NBC in 1983, starred David Soul as Rick, Ray Liotta as Sacha, and Scatman Crothers as a somewhat elderly Sam.  Five hour-long episodes were produced.

There were several radio adaptations of the film. The two best-known were a thirty-minute adaptation on The Screen Guild Theater on April 26, 1943, starring Bogart, Bergman, and Henreid, and an hour-long version on the Lux Radio Theater on January 24, 1944, featuring Alan Ladd as Rick, Hedy Lamarr as Ilsa, and John Loder as Victor Laszlo. Two other thirty-minute adaptations were aired: on Philip Morris Playhouse on September 3, 1943, and on Theater of Romance on December 19, 1944, in which Dooley Wilson reprised his role as Sam.

Julius Epstein made two attempts to turn the film into a Broadway musical, in 1951 and 1967, but neither made it to the stage.  The original play, Everybody Comes to Rick's, was produced in Newport, Rhode Island, in August 1946, and again in London in April 1991, but met with no success.  The film was adapted into a musical by the Takarazuka Revue, an all-female Japanese musical theater company, and ran from November 2009 through February 2010. 

Colorization

Casablanca was part of the film colorization controversy of the 1980s,  when a colorized version aired on the television network WTBS. In 1984, MGM/UA hired Color Systems Technology to colorize the film for $180,000.  When Ted Turner of Turner Broadcasting System purchased MGM/UA's film library two years later, he canceled the request, before contracting American Film Technologies (AFT) in 1988. AFT completed the colorization in two months at a cost of $450,000. Turner later reacted to the criticism of the colorization, saying, "[Casablanca] is one of a handful of films that really doesn't have to be colorized. I did it because I wanted to. All I'm trying to do is protect my investment."

The Library of Congress deemed that the color change differed so much from the original film that it gave a new copyright to Turner Entertainment. When the colorized film debuted on WTBS, it was watched by three million viewers, not making the top-ten viewed cable shows for the week. Although Jack Matthews of the Los Angeles Times called the finished product "state of the art", it was mostly met with negative critical reception. It was briefly available on home video. Gary Edgerton, writing for the Journal of Popular Film & Television criticized the colorization, "... Casablanca in color ended up being much blander in appearance and, overall, much less visually interesting than its 1942 predecessor." Bogart's son Stephen said, "if you're going to colorize Casablanca, why not put arms on the Venus de Milo?"

Rumors

Several rumors and misconceptions have grown up around the film, one being that Ronald Reagan was originally chosen to play Rick. 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 going into the Army, and he was never seriously considered.  George Raft claimed that he had turned down the lead role. Studio records make clear, however, that Wallis was committed to Bogart from the start. 

Another well-known story is that the actors did not know until the last day of shooting how the film was to end. The original play (set entirely in the cafe) ended with Rick sending Ilsa and Laszlo to the airport. During scriptwriting, the possibility was discussed of Laszlo being killed in Casablanca, allowing Rick and Ilsa to leave together, but as Casey Robinson wrote to Hal Wallis before filming began, the ending of the film "set up for a swell twist when Rick sends her away on the plane with Laszlo. For now, in doing so, he is not just solving a love triangle. He is forcing the girl to live up to the idealism of her nature, forcing her to carry on with the work that in these days is far more important than the love of two little people."  It was certainly impossible for Ilsa to leave Laszlo for Rick, as the production code forbade showing a woman leaving her husband for another man. The concern was not whether Ilsa would leave with Laszlo, but how this result could be engineered.  The problem was solved when the Epstein brothers, Julius and Philip, were driving down Sunset Boulevard and stopped for the light at Beverly Glen. At that instant the identical twins turned to each other and simultaneously cried out, "Round up the usual suspects!"  By the time they had driven past Fairfax and the Cahuenga Pass and through the Warner Brothers studio's portals at Burbank, in the words of Julius Epstein, "the idea for the farewell scene between a tearful Bergman and a suddenly noble Bogart" had been formed and all the problems of the ending had been solved. 

The confusion was probably caused by Bergman's later statement that she did not know which man she was meant to be in love with. While rewrites did occur during the filming, Aljean Harmetz's 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 critic Roger Ebert's words, "emotional", not "factual".

Errors and inaccuracies

The film has several logical flaws, the foremost being the two "letters of transit" which enable their bearers to leave Vichy French territory. According to the , Ugarte says the letters had been signed by (depending on the listener) either Free French General Charles de Gaulle or Vichy General Maxime Weygand. The English subtitles on the official DVD read de Gaulle, while the French ones specify Weygand. Weygand had been the Vichy Delegate-General for the North African colonies until November 1941, a month before the film is set. De Gaulle was the head of the Free French government in exile, so a letter signed by him would have provided no benefit. A classic MacGuffin, the letters were invented by Joan Alison for the original play and never questioned.  Rick suggests to Renault that the letters would not have allowed Ilsa to escape, let alone Laszlo: "People have been held in Casablanca in spite of their legal rights."

In the same vein, though Laszlo asserts that the Nazis cannot arrest him, saying, "This is still unoccupied France; any violation of neutrality would reflect on Captain Renault," Ebert points out, "It makes no sense that he could walk around freely. ... He would be arrested on sight." Harmetz, however, suggests that Strasser intentionally allows Laszlo to move about, hoping that he will tell them the names of Resistance leaders in occupied Europe in exchange for Ilsa being allowed to leave for Lisbon.

In addition, no uniformed German troops were stationed in Casablanca during World War II, and neither American nor French troops occupied Berlin in 1918.

According to Harmetz, few of the refugees portrayed would have gone to Casablanca at the time portrayed.  The usual route out of Germany was via Vienna, Prague, Paris, and London. Others tried to go from Paris through the Pyrenees to Spain. The film's technical advisor, Robert Aisner, traced the path to Morocco shown in Casablanca's opening scene.

Quotations

One of the lines most closely associated with the film—"Play it again, Sam"—is a misquotation.   When Ilsa first enters the Café Americain, she spots Sam and asks him to "Play it once, Sam, for old times' sake." After he feigns ignorance, she responds, "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By'." Later that night, alone with Sam, Rick says, "You played it for her, you can play it for me," and "If she can stand it, I can! Play it!"

Rick's toast to Ilsa, "Here's looking at you, kid", used four times, is not in the draft screenplays, but has been attributed to something Bogart said to Bergman as he taught her poker between takes.  It was voted the fifth most memorable line in cinema in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes by the American Film Institute. 

Six lines from Casablanca appeared in the AFI list, the most of any film (Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz tied for second with three apiece). The other five are:
*  "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."—20th
*  "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By'."—28th
*  "Round up the usual suspects."—32nd
*  "We'll always have Paris."—43rd
*  "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."—67th

Additionally, the line "Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world" was nominated for the list, but was not selected.
Rick Blaine Here's Looking at You Rick's Café Américain Ilsa Lund Casablanca (feature film) Casablanca (film) Play it once, Sam Play it Sam Casablanca film Round up the usual suspects Richard Blaine Victor Laszlo CASABLANCA (1942) Here's looking at you, kid. Here's looking at you, kid Casablanca (movie) Play it, Sam Here's looking at you
play it sam casablanca 1942 casablanca feature film ilsa lund casablanca film here s looking at you rick blaine rick s café américain casablanca movie play it once sam here s looking at you kid victor laszlo round up usual suspects richard blaine
rick blaine
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Rick Blaine
 What is the name of Humphre Bergs character in the film Casablanca? 

 The film Dr Dr Dr Dr is the the rum rum is a film lifted by trust.