Released in 1942, at the height of World War II, Michael Curtiz's Casablanca is a timeless romance, a classic of antifascist art, and a lesson in filmmaking, all rolled into one. The beautiful, heartbreaking story of a man and his former lover once again separated by oppression and war remains up to this day one of the greatest love stories of all time...perhaps precisely because it isn't all about love. Set in a Moroccan capital filled with refugees looking for a way out of a continent ridden with battlefields and concentration camps, Casablanca is a movie about picking your battles and standing up for causes that are worth fighting for. By the end of the film, its cynical protagonist, bar owner Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), comes to the conclusion that there's no staying neutral when it comes to Nazis. And, especially considering the time period in which the movie came out, was there really any other option?
The plot of Casablanca is so intertwined with the world on the other side of the screen that viewers often have a hard time telling fact from fiction. Is the story of Rick Blaine and his beloved Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) based on actual events? Was Rick's Café Americaine real? Was the city of Casablanca really a safe haven for those persecuted by the Nazis, from Jewish people to political oppositionists of various inclinations? Answering these questions is not an easy task. Our first instinct is to say that no, the story of Casablanca isn't a real one. Curtiz's movie is based on the stageplay Everybody Comes to Rick's, by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison. However, this doesn't mean that the film (or the play, for that matter) wasn't inspired by very real and dark events. And, from its choice of the protagonist to the members of its cast, many of its elements point to these ties to reality.
What Happens in 'Casablanca'?
The main character of Casablanca isn't so much a person as it is a place: Rick's Café Americaine, a bar that encapsulates all the conflict from the early 1940s through its diverse cast of characters. At Rick's, American tourists, European refugees, French colonial authorities, and German officers drink and gamble side by side, in an atmosphere of not-so-peaceful coexistence. The bar is a hot spot for every foreigner in the Moroccan capital, and all the main action of the film takes place inside it. It is easier to imagine Casablanca without any of its most memorable characters than it is to picture it without Rick's.
Still, if we were to point out the protagonist of Casablanca, that would have to be Bogart's Rick Blaine, a misanthropic American ex-pat who claims to have no side on the war currently going on just one continent over. But Rick's cynicism hides a past of political activism and fights for social justice. Not that long ago, Mr. Blaine helped Ethiopia in its fight against Italy and participated in the Spanish Civil War as an enemy of Franco's fascist forces.
Rick's disguise begins to crumble when a German officer by the name of Strasser (Conrad Veidt) comes into town looking for the man responsible for killing two of his subordinates and stealing their letters of transit. The papers would allow anyone safe passage from Casablanca to Lisbon, from where ships to America are leaving every day filled with refugees. The culprit is a smuggler called Ugarte (Peter Lorre), a Rick's habitué who is quickly taken in by the French colonial forces of Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), who are working side by side with Strasser's men. Before being arrested and subsequently murdered, however, Ugarte leaves the letters of transit in the care of Rick.
Shortly after Ugarte's capture, a couple comes into Rick's looking for the letters of transit. They are none other than one of Europe's most important underground leaders, Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), and his wife, Ilsa. Their arrival throws Rick into a spiral of nostalgia and pain as he remembers the affair he once had with Ilsa when the two met and fell in love in Paris, just a brief while before the Germans arrived.
Casablanca is a story about grudge, jealousy, the limits of love, and, most importantly, what it means to fight for a cause. Rick wrestles with his past as well as with his present as he tries to decide whether or not to give the letters of transit to Laszlo. In the end, he acquiesces and, realizing that Ilsa doesn't belong by his side, lets his old love go. Having sold all of his assets in Casablanca to his main business rival, sure that he was that he would be put away or even killed for helping Laszlo, Rick shoots Strasser to stop him from turning back Victor and Ilsa's flight. The movie ends with one of its most quoted lines, "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship," as Rick and his newfound ally, Captain Renault, walk towards the horizon.
'Casablanca' Might Not Be True, But It's Inspired by a Dark Reality
Rick Blaine, Louis Renault, Ilsa Lund, and Victor Laszlo are all fictional characters. As far as we know, there was never a love story like Rick and Ilsa's in the real world, nor was there a resistance leader with the same name as Laszlo. Rick's Café Américain is also a completetly fiction place. However, it was based on a real refugee hot spot that playwright Murray Burnett visited on the early days of Germany's march on Europe. In 1938, when Germany annexed Austria, Burnett was in Vienna and actually helped a lot of friends and acquaintances escape from the Nazis. On his way back home from this traumatizing trip, he saw a Black pianist at French café packed with refugees. This inspired him to create the character of Sam (Dooley Wilson) and the universe that surrounds him.
It is, thus, not surprising that there is a lot of truth to Casablanca. In 1942, part of France was heavily occupied by German forces, but the Southern portion of the country was still considered an independent state. Though its government collaborated considerably with the Nazis, Vichy France was, for all intents and purposes, a free country that retained power over France's overseas territories and colonies, such as the portion of Morocco in which Casablanca is located. This state of affairs would remain unchanged up until the end of 1942, when the entirety of France was occupied by Germany, and Casablanca taken by General Patton in Operation TORCH.
During its time as a Vichy France colony, Casablanca indeed served as a safe haven for Jews and oppositionists of the Nazi regime. With the largest port in North Africa, the city became a waypoint for refugees looking to escape to North and South America, as well as the Caribbean. In order to enter and leave the Moroccan capital, though, those running away from Hitler had to secure numerous visas and other documents issued by many different governments, historian Meredith Hindley told the Times of Israel. The researcher also pointed out that these refugees did not lead an easy life, being subjected to both the segregationist laws Vichy's France imposed on Jewish citizens and to the Draconian laws that governed foreign citizens in French Morocco. Still, from the local Jewish community to the Moroccan sultan Sidi Mohammed, they also had many allies in their quest for escape.
Among the refugees that passed through Casablanca, Hindley mentions Sigmund Freud's son, Martin, and his wife, Esti, as well as author Arthur Koestler. As far as we know, none of the actors involved in Casablanca left Europe via the real Casablanca. However, many of the movie's performers were Europeans who made it to Hollywood while fleeing the Nazis. Conrad Veidt, for instance, was a German actor of Jewish origin. Peter Lorre also had his start in the stages of Berlin and Vienna. S.Z. Sakall, who plays the waiter Carl, was a Hungarian actor that lost many family members in concentration camps, while Marcel Dalio, who plays the croupier Emil, left France alongside his wife just a few years before the German invasion. Helmut Dantine, who portrays a refugee helped by Rick Blaine, was one of the main leaders of the anti-Nazi movement in Austria.
Though many of the film's actors, as well as the majority of the refugees that went through Casablanca, were Jewish, their ethnic background is never mentioned in the film. This, according to NPR, has to do with the war propaganda aspect of the movie. Leslie Epstein, son and nephew of screenwriters Julius and Phillip Epstein, told the radio that studio execs didn't want to impress on the audiences that World War II was solely a Jewish war. According to media scholar Noah Isenberg, Casablanca had a central role in convincing American audiences that this was a war worth fighting. Thus, it is no wonder that the film's main character is an American who initially tries to stay neutral, but slowly learns the importance of standing up for what's right. It is also no wonder that the movie ends with him establishing an alliance with a French man right after a bottle of Vichy Water is thrown in the trash.
So, no, strictly speaking, Casablanca is not based on a true story. You won't find descendants of Rick Blaine or Ilsa Lund around, waiting to tell what really happened to their ancestors. What is real about Casablanca is the setting in which the story takes place and the allegory of two previously neutral nations joining forces to finally take a stand.