Recognition
The film's opening credits say 'Screen Play by...From a Play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison". After the success of Casablanca, Warner Brothers and the credited screenwriters downplayed the significance of the play in relation to the movie. Koch and the Epsteins received an Academy Award for best screenplay in 1943, but little recognition was given to Burnett and Alison.
The leading actors were not particularly aware of the film's basis. For instance, in 1974, Ingrid Bergman said in an interview: "Casablanca based on a play? No, I don't think so ... for we didn't know how the movie would end."
In 1973 the screenwriter Howard Koch wrote in New York magazine that Everybody Comes to Rick's "provided an exotic locale and a character named Rick who ran a cafe but little in the way of a story adaptable to the screen." Burnett unsuccessfully sued for $6.5 million in damages, contending his play had provided the heart of the film.
In 1991, Howard Koch, who was then 89 years old, said in a letter to the Los Angeles Times that, after rereading the play, he thought it had provided "the spine" of the movie.
When the television series based on Casablanca aired in 1983, Burnett and Alison sued Warner Brothers for royalties. Burnett also said that he wanted to control his characters and intended to complete a sequel to the play. In 1986 the New York State Court of Appeals determined that the pair had signed away all rights to their work under the terms of their agreement when they sold the play. With the copyright due to revert to Burnett and Alison in 1997, they threatened not to renew their agreement with Warner Brothers. The company paid them each $100,000 and gave them the right to produce the original play.
Read more about this topic: Everybody Comes To Rick's
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