"Everybody comes to Rick's"

Outdoor screening of Casablanca. Kingston, New York. Tonight, around 8:30. Saturday. July 13, 2013.

Comments

[Cathie from Canada]

Best movie ever made.
From what I have read, apparently nobody knew how it was going to end while they were making it -- I think this inadvertently created a quality of uncertainty, risk and danger throughout the performances which elevated the quality of everything in the movie. That, and the finest cast ever assembled.

[Katherine]

I saw Casablanca one time outside in the streets of Athens, Greece ! it was a thrill

Katherine

[Lance Mannion]

Katherine, good to hear from you! Been thinking about you and wondering how you're doing.

Cathie, six degrees from Humphrey Bogart here. Casablanca was written by Howard Koch and the twin brothers Philip and Julius Epstein. Philip's son Leslie, the novelist, was one of my writing teachers at Boston University. (He got me into Iowa.) And Leslie told us it was all true, the script was being written and rewritten on the fly, with the Epstein brothers doing most of the day to day rewriting and they didn't know how they were going to end it. The movie was being shot in sequence and on the night before they were going to shoot the scene at the airport, the brothers, completely stumped, decided to quit working and go out to dinner together and not talk about the movie at all while they were out. Which is how it went. They ate, they drank, they were merry, and they didn't talk about the movie. But then, when they were done, as they climbed into a cab, they turned to each other and said at the same time, "Round up the usual suspects."