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Everybody Comes to Rick's
A play featuring Rick, an American bar owner of the Cafe Americain in Casablanca, Morocco, who serves a mixed clientel of European exiles and refugees. When a Czech resistance leader and his wife enter the cafe, Rick is confronted with new challenges and choices.
Warner Brother's purchased the play, which became a loose basis for the 1942 movie Casablanca.
Warner Brother's purchased the play, which became a loose basis for the 1942 movie Casablanca.
107 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 1940
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 20, 2018
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3038046.html
The similarities, especially near the beginning, jump out at any reader who knows Casablanca - some of Burnett and Alison's lines survived unchanged to filming, which makes it a bit rough that they did not share in the Oscar for the screenplay. "As Time Goes By" was theirs. So were "Play it, Sam"; "We'll always have Paris" and "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world..." At the same time, the film is a considerable improvement on the original. The battle of the anthems is there, but on stage the Germans are allowed to finish singing rather than be interrupted.
The character of Sam is crucially upgraded in the film as well. It's odd, because of all characters his lines are possibly least changed (well, him and Ugarte); but the fact that he is just called "the Rabbit" in the theatre script and speaks in dialect is pretty demeaning. Dooley Wilson invests the part with considerable dignity, but so do the other actors.
Even more crucially, the female lead of the play is not a twenty-something Scandinavian but a thirty-something American, Lois Meredith, who got to know Rick in Paris in 1937 when both were cheating on their respective spouses; she has now ended up with Laszlo, and explicitly sleeps with Rick to try and get the letters (whereas we are left wondering a bit about Ilsa in Casablanca). Laszlo too is less heroic, his dispute with the Germans being about money as much as politics. Luis Rinaldo (rather than Louis Renault) and Rick himself are also much less attractive characters; it's difficult to care as much about what happens to them as to their film counterparts. Also - complete spoiler - at the end, though Lois and Laszlo make their getaway, Strasser is not shot but instead arrests Rick for helping them escape, which makes one wonder what the point was.
It's a bit cruel to say (as one critic did) that Everybody Comes to Rick's is the worst play ever written, but it certainly isn't up to the mark of its descendant.
The similarities, especially near the beginning, jump out at any reader who knows Casablanca - some of Burnett and Alison's lines survived unchanged to filming, which makes it a bit rough that they did not share in the Oscar for the screenplay. "As Time Goes By" was theirs. So were "Play it, Sam"; "We'll always have Paris" and "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world..." At the same time, the film is a considerable improvement on the original. The battle of the anthems is there, but on stage the Germans are allowed to finish singing rather than be interrupted.
The character of Sam is crucially upgraded in the film as well. It's odd, because of all characters his lines are possibly least changed (well, him and Ugarte); but the fact that he is just called "the Rabbit" in the theatre script and speaks in dialect is pretty demeaning. Dooley Wilson invests the part with considerable dignity, but so do the other actors.
Even more crucially, the female lead of the play is not a twenty-something Scandinavian but a thirty-something American, Lois Meredith, who got to know Rick in Paris in 1937 when both were cheating on their respective spouses; she has now ended up with Laszlo, and explicitly sleeps with Rick to try and get the letters (whereas we are left wondering a bit about Ilsa in Casablanca). Laszlo too is less heroic, his dispute with the Germans being about money as much as politics. Luis Rinaldo (rather than Louis Renault) and Rick himself are also much less attractive characters; it's difficult to care as much about what happens to them as to their film counterparts. Also - complete spoiler - at the end, though Lois and Laszlo make their getaway, Strasser is not shot but instead arrests Rick for helping them escape, which makes one wonder what the point was.
It's a bit cruel to say (as one critic did) that Everybody Comes to Rick's is the worst play ever written, but it certainly isn't up to the mark of its descendant.
July 4, 2022
The unproduced play "Everybody Comes to Rick's" was the basis for the 1942 film "Casablanca" Starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid. The film was released about the same time as the Allied Invasion of North Africa.
The play is not exactly the same as the movie screenplay but very close with the same characters, except Bergman's character Ilsa was named Lois in the play.
Also, the ending changed slightly but had the same effect . The famous lines "Here's Looking at you Kid","Round up the usual suspects", and "This could be the start of a beautiful relationship" are not present in the play.
The play is not exactly the same as the movie screenplay but very close with the same characters, except Bergman's character Ilsa was named Lois in the play.
Also, the ending changed slightly but had the same effect . The famous lines "Here's Looking at you Kid","Round up the usual suspects", and "This could be the start of a beautiful relationship" are not present in the play.
January 5, 2021
Movies often do terrible things to great books, but in this case the changes are almost all for the better and a good play with a sadly racist stereotype has been turned into a truly great film.
This is a very interesting read just to see the changes that have been made and why. Almost all the characters are depicted in a better light in the film and their heroic dimensions are a better basis for the ideals that inspired the play in the first place as the authors were intending to write an anti Nazi play and instead inspired a better ani Nazi film.
This is a very interesting read just to see the changes that have been made and why. Almost all the characters are depicted in a better light in the film and their heroic dimensions are a better basis for the ideals that inspired the play in the first place as the authors were intending to write an anti Nazi play and instead inspired a better ani Nazi film.
October 15, 2020
Was kind of interesting reading this, but I can see why it was changed. Rick's a dick in this (and his character arc isn't convincing), the depiction of Sam is a bit racist, and the dialogue is incredibly cliched. I'd only read it if you're a fan of the movie Casablanca (like I am).
February 28, 2023
A rare example of a play that isn’t anywhere near as good as the subsequent movie ("Casablanca"). The boys at Warner Bros. REALLY knew how to polish material.
July 3, 2023
📙This play was published in 1940.
🖊 Script review: Well, there you go – this script was made in the 1942 movie, "Casablanca." The play script is easier to follow than the movie.
🔵 The e-book version can be found on Internet Archive.
🎥 1942 movie version with Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet, and Claude Rains.
🖊 Movie review: While the story in play format is good, the film is meh because the girl in the picture seems out of place, the plot seems disjointed, and as much as the song, "As Time Goes By," is a good one, it was played to the point of distraction and illogicalness in the movie. Stop, already! I kept thinking. Also, the quotes from the movie is overplayed, so that they are meaningless now.
📽 ●▬● 🎥 ●▬● 📽
🖊 Script review: Well, there you go – this script was made in the 1942 movie, "Casablanca." The play script is easier to follow than the movie.
🔵 The e-book version can be found on Internet Archive.
🎥 1942 movie version with Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet, and Claude Rains.
🖊 Movie review: While the story in play format is good, the film is meh because the girl in the picture seems out of place, the plot seems disjointed, and as much as the song, "As Time Goes By," is a good one, it was played to the point of distraction and illogicalness in the movie. Stop, already! I kept thinking. Also, the quotes from the movie is overplayed, so that they are meaningless now.
📽 ●▬● 🎥 ●▬● 📽
August 28, 2023
"There's no fear in the world any more, no tears, no war, no heartache, no night... just you and I."
adapted film:
casablanca (1942) dir. Michael Curtiz.
adapted film:
casablanca (1942) dir. Michael Curtiz.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews