Casablanca (film) color ended up being much blander in appearance and, overall, much less visually interesting than its 1942 predecessor." Bogart's son Stephen said, "if you're going to colorize "Casablanca", why not put arms on the Venus de Milo?" Several rumors and misconceptions have grown up around the film, one being that Ronald Reagan was originally chosen to play Rick. This originated in a press release issued by the studio early on in the film's development, but by that time the studio already knew that he was going into the Army, and he was never seriously considered. George Raft claimed that he
Casablanca (film) colleges have adopted the tradition. Todd Gitlin, a professor of sociology who had attended one of these screenings, has said that the experience was "the acting out of my own personal rite of passage". The tradition helped the movie remain popular while other films famous in the 1940s have faded from popular memory. By 1977, "Casablanca" was the most frequently broadcast film on American television. On the film's 50th anniversary, the "Los Angeles Times" called "Casablanca"s great strength "the purity of its Golden Age Hollywoodness [and] the enduring craftsmanship of its resonantly hokey dialogue". Bob Strauss wrote in the newspaper