Film Studies: When war and Warners joined hands

At the start of November 1942, British forces defeated Rommel at El Alamein in Egypt. Days later, under Dwight Eisenhower, sea-borne American and Allied troops landed on the north-west coast of Africa in and around Casablanca. That Moroccan city fell and the Allied forces faced the dilemma of whether to recognise the authorities of a liberated Vichy, or the Free French. It was a matter of distinguishing Captain Renault (Claude Rains) from Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid).

The studio that had just made Casablanca, re-building the city on its back-lot in Burbank, could scarcely credit its good fortune. Many people had doubted the viability of a project originally known as Everybody Comes to Rick's. There had been problems with the scripts; leading actors showed no interest in the offered parts. And people worried: was it a war story or a love story? How should it end? One way or another, those matters were resolved, in time for providence to strike. Just as some at Warners worried whether anyone knew where Casablanca was, so the front pages came to their rescue.

In the run-up to release, there was debate at Warners about whether to add a new last scene which showed the rout of German troops at American hands.

Jack Warner trusted his instinct: "It's impossible to change this picture and make sense with story we told originally," he said in a memo. "Entire industry envies us with picture having title Casablanca – ready to release, and feel we should take advantage of this great scoop." Things got better still: Casablanca premiered in New York on Thanksgiving Day (late November 1942), and it was released nationally on 23 January, 1943, to coincide with the news that a secret conference had just been held, involving Winston Churchill, President Roosevelt and Free French leader, Charles de Gaulle, in... Casablanca. The fact of the conference was admitted only once the leaders had left the city, but no one now is innocent enough to believe there had been no collusion between Warner Brothers and the leaders of the free world. It was a marriage made in PR heaven, the fulsome union of a just war, and a rousing movie.

You can't hate Casablanca for being lucky, or even for telling lies.

There was a naivety that accompanied the just war in 1942-3. It could put a make-up scar on Henreid's handsome, if rather complacent, face, and say, "Look. Victor Laszlo has been in a concentration camp." I'm not blaming Henreid, who was only an actor. At least he had been born in Trieste, the son of a wealthy Viennese – so he had an authentic accent.

But authentic is such a pretty word when you think of Rains' Captain Renault, more likely to be heard at a London gentlemen's club than at The Blue Parrot or Rick's Cafe. In 1942 and '43, there was a legitimate aura still attached to war that allowed for character actors from all over the world, for music as uplifting as "As Time Goes By", and the feeling of touch-and-go adventure. In hindsight, you thank God that military service helped get Ronald Reagan out of the picture, and Henreid in. Reagan as Victor Laszlo is stretching things. And while Bogey's acting is stronger than Henreid's, still both men are functioning in that cool, heroic self-regard best practised 6,000 miles from the action. Bogey's attitude and stance suggest that a certain kind of tough, manly, laconic American takes it for granted that he'll be lucky, OK and on the winning side.

Ronald Reagan did put on a uniform, and he went away to Fort Mason (in San Francisco), a cushy posting, where he helped make documentaries about courage and commitment in the American serviceman. Years later, when retirement from acting had carried him into jobs where acting never stops, he would recite some of these "anecdotes". Sometimes he just ran them as if they were the truth. Sometimes he told them, wide-eyed, as if they had actually happened to him. Who knows where his "forgetfulness" started and fantasy took over?

So I'm not rejecting Casablanca – Best Picture at the Oscars. But it's time we saw how far its astonishing marriage of publicity and history has affected the way people think and act – not least Ronald Reagan's surest admirer, a ghost called Dubya. The movie is shot through with ironies – like the way Conrad Veidt (and a string of Gestapo guys in Hollywood films) had quit his homeland in 1933 because his wife was Jewish. If you look closely, Major Strasser's is the most pained face in the picture.

d.thomson@independent.co.uk