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The truth behind the location of one of Hollywood’s greatest films

By Anthony Dennis

Hassan II Mosque’s minaret rises an astonishing 200 metres.

Hassan II Mosque’s minaret rises an astonishing 200 metres.Credit: Getty Images

A towering minaret soars over the thronged metropolis, like a brick, stone and tile sentinel immediately above the city’s frenetic souk heaving with wartime humanity.

Below that sacred skyscraper seemingly every nationality is represented either behind or before goods-laden market stalls, nudging and weaving their way through what passes for its central passageway or loitering over coffee at al fresco Parisian-style corner cafes.

Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, Paul Henreid and Ingrid Bergman at Rick’s Cafe in a scene from Casablanca.

Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, Paul Henreid and Ingrid Bergman at Rick’s Cafe in a scene from Casablanca.Credit: Alamy

This is the stirring opening scene of Casablanca, the classic 1942 film which some consider, along with Citizen Kane, the greatest film made.

But, as astonishingly accomplished as the opening black-and-white shot is, the viewer, as time goes by, must remember this: a kiss may well be just a kiss and a sigh may just be a sigh, yet when it comes to Tinsel Town the fundamental myths almost always apply.

Casablanca, the Moroccan city, not the movie, has since the release of Casablanca, the film not the city, struggled to meet the impossible expectations of visitors.

As you may be aware, not a single scene of Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, was shot on location in what is now Morocco’s largest and most important city.

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Frankly, Bergman and Bogie’s masterpiece is a bit bogus, since Casablanca was filmed entirely on a Warner Bros Burbank California backlot, with the unforgettable final airport scene shot at a Los Angeles aerodrome.

It’s in the real Casablanca that I find myself ashore from my cruise ship, Viking Saturn, on a day’s visit as part of Viking Cruises’ 16-day Malta, Morocco & the Mediterranean, en route from stops at the equally exotic North African ports of Tunis and Algiers.

While it is often dismissed by its critics as Morocco’s least compelling and least romantic city, struggling in comparison to Marrakesh, Fes and Tangier, I’m more than willing to give “Casa”, as its citizens affectionately refer to it, the benefit of my doubt.

In my wanderings, I wonder, perhaps sacrilegiously, what if George Clooney and Cate Blanchett were cast in those celebrated leading roles in a remake filmed not on that Burbank backlot but entirely in Casablanca itself?

Location one: The Old Medina

Casablanca’s compact old medina.

Casablanca’s compact old medina.Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

To be fair to Hollywood, which is no easy task, it would have been an impossibility to shoot on location, even before the US entry into World War II, as French Morocco was controlled at the time by the French Vichy government, a notorious puppet regime of the Nazis.

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After the fall of France to Germany in 1940, Casablanca, the largest Atlantic port in Africa, became a shadowy transit point for refugees escaping a war-torn Europe to the still-neutral Americas.

It was this tense and then-topical intrigue that directly informed the celebrated screenplay of Casablanca.

I can detect no tension or intrigue when at 8.30am on the day of my visit to Casablanca I enter the city’s Old Medina, or city, via its northern entrance, composed of the remnants of the city’s 18th-century fortifications.

Narrow, haphazard laneways of the Old Medina.

Narrow, haphazard laneways of the Old Medina.Credit: Getty Images

As far as I can tell, I’m the sole Western tourist here (take that, Marrakesh) within the narrow, haphazard laneways, the walls of buildings daubed sparingly but fetchingly with bold primary colours.

One of the major landmarks of the Old Medina, which dates to the 7th- century Berber era, is the two-star blue and white-painted Hotel Central.

A working remnant of Morocco’s French colonial era and as faded as any Hollywood fade-out, you can envisage a scene in which Cate, in the Ilsa Lund role, emerges down the twisting, crescent-shaped stairway to greet a waiting George as Rick Blaine.

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Further along, it is not only tourists who are conspicuously absent from the souk but most of its night-owl market traders, clearly in no hurry to open to the public.

It’s a far cry from that frantic opening scene of Casablanca, but even with a visit to the souk, overshadowed by the high-rise office blocks of Morocco’s contemporary commercial capital, you get the picture.

Location two: The modernist core

Modern residential buildings among numerous styles of architecture in Casablanca.

Modern residential buildings among numerous styles of architecture in Casablanca.Credit: Getty Images

No sooner have I taken a seat at an al fresco table at Cafe de France, one of Casablanca’s most famous coffee shops, than I’m receiving an involuntary shoeshine from a lurking middle-aged man scratching for a dirham, to which I oblige.

The cafe is right in front of the Place des Nations Unies (United Nations Square), nowadays traversed by Casablanca’s gleamingly modern trams, and around the corner from what is known locally as the magnificent “street of seven architectural styles”.

Row after row of whitewashed office and apartment buildings stretch along either side of Boulevard Mohammed V, a staggering showcase of early 20th- century architectural schools from art nouveau to art deco and neo-Moorish to streamline moderne.

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Here in this elegant – though these days slightly shabby – precinct you can readily imagine Bogart’s imaginary Rick would have had an apartment behind one of the filigreed facades.

Tucked away off this monumental main drag is the 1929 art deco Cinema Rialto, its name proudly emblazoned in scarlet-coloured sign writing against an off-white curved facade.

Location three: Rick’s Cafe

Rick’s Cafe in  Casablanca.

Rick’s Cafe in Casablanca. Credit: Alamy

In an effort to inject some Casablanca-like romance to Casablanca, someone, rather cleverly, dreamt up the idea of recreating the famed Rick’s Cafe Americain from the film never shot there.

Like the film itself, Rick’s has been a major hit, but since its menu doesn’t feature a single Moroccan dish, I’ve elected to respectfully give it the flick in favour of lunch at the exclusive La Grande Table Marocaine on the 23rd floor of the newly opened Royal Mansour Casablanca luxury hotel.

The hotel is a reimagining of old Casablanca, too, the 1952 Hotel El Mansour having once occupied the site.

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Casablanca’s Hassan II Mosque, the largest in Morocco.

Casablanca’s Hassan II Mosque, the largest in Morocco.Credit: iStock

While the replica of Rick’s Cafe would suffice as the key location for any remake, the five-star Royal Mansour is precisely the sort of place you can imagine George and Cate gravitating to during filming and probably staying in.

Over an unforgettable Moroccan luncheon featuring stuffed sea bream, Tangier-style and a selection of Moroccan salads, there are superb, if not staggering, views from my window-side table of the crowded city of nearly four million.

From this sublime vantage point, by far the dominant edifice is the imposing 60-storey minaret of the Hassan II Mosque, set right on the Atlantic seafront and which opened its saltwater-resistant titanium doors 50 years after Casablanca’s release.

Location four: The New Medina

Barrels piled with olives at the famous Great Habous Olive Market.

Barrels piled with olives at the famous Great Habous Olive Market.Credit: Getty Images

Not content with merely an Old Medina, Casablanca’s French colonial custodians decided early last century to construct a separate, more orderly and planned New Medina.

The result was Quartier Habous, in the centre-south of Casablanca, adjacent to the Royal Palace that was built at the same time in the 1920s and 1930s.

Today it still hosts countless bric-a-brac traders, carpet and rug purveyors as well as a sizable olive market selling every type and hue of the fruit grown under the hot Moroccan sun.

It’s not difficult to visualise George and Cate wandering through the medina’s passageways, perhaps pausing at the legendary Patisserie Bennis Habous to buy one of its famous almond biscuits or some fresh flatbread direct from the shop’s ancient ovens.

The wonder of the New Medina is that it doesn’t feel overtly artificial, since the objective of its visionary French architect, Henri Prost, was to create a medina that respected the vernacular Moroccan style.

Indeed, beyond the hubbub of the marketplace, the medina recedes into a quiet stone-walled residential area with a warren of arched laneways.

I’d love to linger in this part of town, but I have a rendezvous with my waiting cruise ship. It’s been an engrossing and enlightening day that has proved that while a confident Casablanca may not be Marrakesh, Fes or Tangier, in truth it doesn’t need or really want to be.

Let’s play it again sometime, Casa.

The details

The cruise aboard Viking Saturn takes in  Malta, Morocco and the Mediterranean.

The cruise aboard Viking Saturn takes in Malta, Morocco and the Mediterranean.Credit: Alamy Stock Photo

Cruise
Viking’s 16-day “Malta, Morocco & the Mediterranean” cruise, beginning and ending in Barcelona from $13,495 a person with departures on November 13, 23 and 28 and December 8 this year, is still available at the time of writing. Companion flies free on voyages between 2025 and 2027 up to $2400 plus $500 shipboard credit if booked before March 31 this year.

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Tour
Viking Cruises offers a selection of shore excursions for passengers (book early), including to Casablanca. Intrepid Tours’ Urban Adventures runs four-hour Casablanca: The Medina and Beyond Tours in the company of an English-speaking guide and private transport. See urbanadventures.com

Fly
Etihad Airways flies from Sydney and Melbourne to Barcelona, the starting point of the voyage, via Abu Dhabi. See etihad.com

The writer was a guest of Viking Cruises, Intrepid and travelled with the assistance of Etihad Airways.

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Original URL: https://www.smh.com.au/traveller/inspiration/the-truth-behind-the-location-of-one-of-hollywood-s-greatest-films-20250317-p5lk7d.html