The real Casablanca

I arrived in Casablanca the other day on a two-week odyssey of Morocco. Yes, I know it’s the touristy thing to do. But I succumbed (wouldn’t you?). And besides, I can say I’m doing it for research for my film blog. That is, that I checked out the current day facsimile to Rick's Café Américain in the 1942 movie directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. I'm speaking of Casablanca, of course, in my book one of the top three movies of all time. The current facsimilie is called Rick’s Café and it's run by a former American diplomat. Trouble was it was closed (open for lunch, dinner and Sunday night jazz). But there’s a dress code – “business casual” – and

clothing including more casual attire not allowed. So I have to console myself with just seeing the outside of the place. It’s very well kept, as per photo below, and does indeed resemble the real thing in the film, even if the movie was filed on a Hollywood backlot. As the Lonely Planet travel guide states, the film “wonderfully evoked” the city……Walking around Casablanca (pop. 3.3 million) there is evidence of the city’s once glory days of cinemas. Near the medina where I’m staying, in the heart of

downtown, is the Cinema Rif, a 1950s era one-screen classic. Fandango listed M3GAN (Gerard Johnstone) screening there. But when I walked in and asked I was told there are no ‘Anglais’ films, including this creepy one, showing. The lobby has a wonderful installation of vintage projectors. But these vintage cinemas – I came across one other, Cinema Rialto, and what appeared to be signs only for a few other cinemas - Cinema Ritz, Cinema Empire and Cinema ABC. According to Lonely Planet the country's “cinephiles have begun to fear for Morocco’s movie palaces.” Thirty

years ago there were 250 cinemas, in 2010, 30. Only five per cent of the population goes to theatres. Cinema Rif reopened in 2006 screening independent films and documentaries. Regardless, Casablanca and Morocco have long served as settings for a myriad films, from David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962) to Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Sheltering Sky (1990) to Mideast war stand-ins such as Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down (2001) and Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper (2015). But, with apologies to Bogart’s line to Bergman in the ultimate classic, “we’ll always have Casablanca.”