Everything about A Night In Casablanca totally explained
A Night in Casablanca (
1946) was the twelfth
Marx Brothers'
movie. The film stars
Groucho Marx,
Chico Marx, and
Harpo Marx. It was directed by
Archie Mayo and written by
Joseph Fields and
Roland Kibbee. It is generally considered one of the better of the Marx Brothers's later works.
Plot
The story takes place in
Casablanca after
World War II. Two managers of a hotel have been murdered, Ronald Kornblow (Groucho) is hired to replace them. The villain of the movie is Count Pfefferman, also known as Heinrich Stubel (a
Nazi) played by
Sig Ruman, (from
A Night at the Opera). When a number of priceless objects stolen by the Nazis are hidden there by Nazis, they quickly take full control of the hotel.
The film contains the song "
Who's Sorry Now?" with music by
Ted Snyder and lyrics by
Bert Kalmar and
Harry Ruby. It is sung in French by
Lisette Verea playing the part of Beatrice Rheiner, and then later sung in English (see image).
Liszt's
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 is played twice, once by Chico on
piano as an intro to the
Beer Barrel Polka, and again by Harpo on the
harp.
Miss Rheiner, as an accomplice of Stubel, is supposed to seduce Groucho. In several scenes the two of them parody
Humphrey Bogart and
Lauren Bacall in
To Have and Have Not, including a scene in which he says "You don't have to sing for me--just whistle." He watches her as she swivels away; then he turns to the camera and says, "That reminds me--I must get my
watch fixed."
As in
A Day at the Races, Harpo uses
charades to tell Chico about the plot to undermine (or kill in this case) Groucho's character.
Before Stubel can make an escape to the airfield with the loot, Kornblow, his friends, and Miss Rheiner invade his hotel room and sneak from suitcase to closet and back again to unpack his bags, and drive him thoroughly nuts. And at the end, Harpo, having knocked out Stubel's
pilot in the plane, actually gets the plane off the ground--before plowing it into the police station, where the brothers expose Stubel as an escaped Nazi and chase Miss Rheiner into the distance!
Cast
Controversy
A popular myth (spread in part by Groucho himself) surrounding the movie is that the Marx Brothers were threatened with a lawsuit by
Warner Bros. for the use of the word "Casablanca" in the title, it being an infringement on the company's rights to the 1942 film
Casablanca. Groucho responded with a letter asserting that he and his siblings had use of the word "brothers" prior to the establishment of Warner Brothers (and many others had before that), and often the story is told that Groucho threatened a counter-suit based on this assertion. He also mentioned that he'd consider further legal action by pointing out to Warners that the title of their current hit film
Night and Day infringed on the titles of two Marx Brothers films;
A Night at the Opera and
A Day at the Races.
The true story is that the original storyline for the film was intended to be a direct parody of
Casablanca, with characters having similar sounding names to the characters and actors in the 1942 film. Groucho Marx has said that an early draft named his character "Humphrey Bogus", a reference to the leading actor in
Casablanca,
Humphrey Bogart.
In the end, the matter died without legal action, and the storyline of the film was changed to be a send-up on the genre rather than
Casablanca specifically. Somewhat
ironically, Warner Bros. now owns the distribution rights to this film via
Castle Hill Productions.
Further Information
Get more info on 'A Night In Casablanca'.
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