Casablanca SequelEvery now and then the idea of a sequel to Casablanca rears its ugly head. Like every other seemingly sacred cow in Hollywood, it is susceptible to bottom-line thinking, regardless of how treasured a product it might be. It is still a product and products are there to be re-packaged, re-sold, exploited and so forth.

I remember when Titanic came out, there was so much speculation as to how a sequel might be spun out despite the film being (unusually) crafted so as to make such a thing all but unworkable. What about Rose starting a new life in the US but being haunted by Jack’s ghost? In the end, Hollywood just ate itself in the usual way, taking the “love triangle plays out against epic historical backdrop” idea and giving us *shudder* Pearl Harbo(u)r.

So what of Casablanca? Is it untouchable? There was a TV series in the 1950’s that picked up on Rick after he had facilitated Ilsa and Laszlo’s escape, still grafting away in the eponymous city, so it isn’t that the original material hasn’t been plundered before. The Wizard of Oz, similarly treasured, is getting an admittedly interesting looking prequel next year, but Oz is much more familiar to contemporary audiences, playing out endlessly on TV and having benefitted from a hole raft of special edition re-releases in recent years. Casablanca is a better film than Oz (if you feel otherwise, feel free to comment below. But you will still be wrong), but a sequel feels much more artificial. Oz seems like a world that is expansive enough to be able to accommodate new stories, especially given the wealth of additional material created by original author L. Frank Baum.

So am I right? Is a sequel to Casablanca wrong? Am I just throwing my toys out of the pram because it is my favourite film, or is there objective merit to my argument? The performances in general, but specifically those of Humphrey Bogart as Rick and Claude Rains as Captain Renault are utterly iconic and it is impossible to see how they could be recast, which would be necessary for the most obvious launching off point for a sequel – Rick and Renault’s ongoing adventures having facilitated the escape of Laszlo and conspired to cover up the murder of Strasser. Any sequel that puts too much clear water between itself and the period/setting/characters of the original might save itself an unenviable casting exercise, but it then shows its hand too clearly – playing off the name without any elements that really require a sequel.

They might as well make a fresh film, with fresh characters and a new story. Interestingly, one idea doing the rounds is that Rick and Ilsa had a son who is now grown up and goes in search of his father, who has become a legend in the light of his actions in Casablanca during the war. Frankly, that sounds terrible, even if it is based on a treatment worked up by the original writer of Casablanca. It sounds like a none-more-meta blend of Citizen Kane-style mythology unpacking and gratuitous plunder-a-classic for an unnecessary sequel. No thank you.

I can hear the decriers already – what makes your favourite film so special? We’ve suffered an utterly redundant shot-for-shot remake of Psycho, It’s a Wonderful Life was altogether unwonderfulified by being colourised recently, Lucas keeps on ruining everyone’s fondest memories of Star Wars, why should Casablanca escape the coming wrath? A fair enough point, except even on the terms that “justify” those works, the argument collapses. The Psycho remake was simply a technical exercise, colourising It’s a Wonderful Life was a waste of time because everyone remains devoted to the B&W version and Lucas keeps expanding and diluting his franchise because there is gold in them thar hills. Casablanca is a beloved and revered property, but I suspect there is precious little commercial mileage in a sequel. Similarly, no-one is suggesting a remake, or a reworking of Curtiz’s classic.

No-one is threatening to remake or sequelise Citizen Kane, Vertigo, Metropolis, Schindlers List, Taxi Driver or One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and for my money, Casablanca belongs in that sort of exalted company. Having said that, we’ve had a sequel to Gone With The Wind, a remake of The Big Sleep and they’ve even brought back Dallas. So perhaps nothing is sacred; it’s just a question of how long it takes Hollywoodland to track down its more elusive offspring.

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Dave Roper
Dave has been writing for HeyUGuys since mid-2010 and has found them to be the most intelligent, friendly, erudite and insightful bunch of film fans you could hope to work with. He's gone from ham-fisted attempts at writing the news to interviewing Lawrence Bender, Renny Harlin and Julian Glover, to writing articles about things he loves that people have actually read. He has fairly broad tastes as far as films are concerned, though given the choice he's likely to go for Con Air over Battleship Potemkin most days. He's pretty sure that 2001: A Space Odyssey is the most overrated mess in cinematic history.