CASABLANCA Vs. EVERYBODY COMES TO RICK’S
Worth checking out:
Martin N. Kriegl’s brief 2004 essay on the differences (in html) between Murray Burnett and Joan Alison’s "Everybody Comes to Rick’s," the unproduced play that was the basis for Casablanca, and the film’s screenplay credited to Philip G. Epstein, Julius J. Epstein, and Howard Koch.
Here are a couple of snippets from Kriegl’s text:
"Upon first reading both stage play and screenplay, one is tempted to jump to the conclusion that Casablanca is one of the rare occasions where a story, through adaptation from one medium to another, is elevated from a mediocre (if promising) source material to a gem of rare beauty. …
"The character Rick, a former rebel with apparently inviolable values and principles, who has lost faith in the world and humanity, but is reborn through a past that catches up with him and forces him to rediscover the hibernating fighter within himself, feels much truer and embedded with a much profounder message in the screenplay. Whereas in the stage play he seems, up to the third act, whiny and weak, always complaining how ‘burnt out’ he is, that he has ‘no cause to believe in’ and ‘nothing to fight for’, the screenplay conveys a man that, even though his principles seem to have been reduced to sticking out his neck for nobody, has a strong and powerful heart pounding in his chest. Moreover, his vernacular in the play places him on a lower social scale than his speech in Casablanca does, as he often casts direct insults at both Ilsa and Laszlo, literally calling them ‘bitch’ and ‘high class pimp’ respectively."
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Tags: Casablanca, Classic Movies, Everybody Comes to Rick's, Howard Koch, Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Joan Alison, Julius J. Epstein, Murray Burnett, Philip G. Epstein
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I hope that in the play the Paul Henreid and Humphrey Bogart characters end up with one another. They certainly DESERVED one another. Ingrid Bergman should have paired up with Peter Lorre.