Casablanca not formalised until 1910. Under the French rule, Muslim anti-Jewish riots occurred in 1908. The famous 1942 film "Casablanca" (starring Humphrey Bogart) underlined the city's colonial status at the time—depicting it as the scene of a power struggle between competing European powers. The film has a cosmopolitan cast of characters (American, French, German, Spaniard, Czech, Norwegian, Austrian, Bulgarian, Russian, and some other nationalities). Europeans formed almost half the population. During the 1940s and 1950s, Casablanca was a major centre of anti-French rioting. A bomb attack on 25 December 1953 (Christmas Day) caused 16 deaths. Operation Torch (initially called Operation Gymnast)
Casablanca (film) "The Usual Suspects". Woody Allen's "Play It Again, Sam" (1972) appropriated Bogart's "Casablanca" persona as the fantasy mentor for Allen's character. The film "Casablanca" was a plot device in the science-fiction television movie "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" (1983), based on John Varley's story. It was referred to in Terry Gilliam's dystopian "Brazil" (1985). Warner Bros. produced its own parody in the homage "Carrotblanca", a 1995 Bugs Bunny cartoon. Film critic Roger Ebert pointed out the plot of the film "Barb Wire" (1996) was identical to that of "Casablanca". In "Casablanca", a novella by Argentine writer Edgar Brau, the protagonist