Though it had been an A-listed film, with established stars and first-rate writers-Julius J. Epstein, Howard Koch and Philip G. Epstein received credit for the screenplay-no one involved with its production estimated Casablanca to be everything out of the ordinary; it had been just one of a large number of pictures made by Hollywood every year.
The movie was a solid, if simple, success in the first run, hurried into release to make the most of the publicity from the Allied invasion of North Africa a few weeks earlier. Despite a changing collection of screenwriters anxiously adapted an upstaged performance and barely keeping in front of production, also Bogart attempted his first romantic leading character, and Casablanca won 3 Academy Awards, with Best Picture. Its characters, dialogue, and music have grow to be iconic, and Casablanca has grown in popularity to the point it now consistently ranks itself in the lists of the greatest films of all time.
With smoky and rich atmosphere, anti-Nazi propaganda, Max Steiner's superb musical score, suspense, memorable characters (allegedly 34 nationalities are contained in its cast) and memorable lines of dialogue, it really is one of one of the most popular, supernatural (and flawless) movies of all time - centered on the themes of missing love, honor and duty, self-sacrifice and romance within a chaotic world.
Directed by the Hungarian-accented talented Michael Curtiz, it was shot virtually entirely on studio sets, the film moves swiftly by means of a surprisingly firmly constructed plot, despite the fact that the script was written from day to day because the filming progressed. And 3 weeks after shooting finished, producer Hal Wallis contribute the film's renowned final line - delivered on the fog-shrouded runway.
