A Night in Casablanca (1946) is the twelfth Marx Brothers' movie.

The film stars the three brothers: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, and Harpo Marx. It is directed by Archie Mayo and written by Joseph Fields and Roland Kibbee . The story takes place in Casablanca after World War II. Two managers of the hotel have been murdered and they hire Ronald Kornblow (Groucho) as the new manager. The villain of the movie is Count Pfferman, a.k.a. Heinrich Stubel played by "Sig Ruman," (the same actor as Siegfried Rumann from A Night at the Opera). The reason the Germans want control of the hotel is because they have hidden there a treasure of priceless objects stolen by the Nazis.

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)

One of the cleverest bits in the film is when Harpo uses charades to tell Chico about the plot to kill Groucho.

A popular myth surrounding the movie is that the Marx Brothers were threatened with a lawsuit by Warner Brothers for the use of the word "Casablanca" in the title, it being an infrigement 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. 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. Warners Brothers did not actually sue, or even threaten to, but did issue a formal inquiry to the Marx Brothers concerning the plot and script of the film. The Marx Brothers expolited the situation for publicity, making it appear to the public that a frivolous lawsuit was in the works, and Groucho sent several open letters to Warner Brothers to get newspaper coverage. 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.

Trivia

The famous line "Play it again, Sam", often attributed to the character of Rick in Casablanca, was originally said in this film.

External links

• the Warner Brothers story at snopes.com