Casablanca (1942): 15 INSANE Facts You Never Knew!

Casablanca looked like a timeless wartime romance about love, sacrifice, and two people forced to say goodbye. But behind Rick and Ilsa’s famous farewell was a production built from an unfinished script, reluctant stars, refugee actors, last-minute decisions, and a story whose ending nobody knew when cameras started rolling. Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman reportedly bonded over how much they both wanted out of the movie. Bergman was told to play her romance “in between” because the filmmakers hadn’t decided which man Ilsa would choose. “As Time Goes By” survived only because Bergman had already cut her hair for another film. And many of the refugees crying during the famous “La Marseillaise” scene had actually fled Nazi-occupied Europe themselves. These are 15 weird facts about Casablanca — the kind that make one of the greatest films ever made feel even more extraordinary once you know what was happening behind the scenes.