Casablanca (film) 14, 2012, at Sotheby's for more than $600,000 to an anonymous bidder. The piano Sam "plays" in Rick's Café Américain, put up for auction with other film memorabilia by Turner Classic Movies at Bonhams in New York in November 2014, sold for $3.4 million. Although an initial release date was anticipated for early 1943, the film premiered at the Hollywood Theater in New York City on November 26, 1942, to coincide with the Allied invasion of North Africa and the capture of Casablanca. It went into general release on January 23, 1943, to take advantage of the Casablanca Conference, a
Casablanca (film) seats and a retractable roof. As Tangier was in Spanish territory, the theatre's wartime bar heaved with spies, refugees and underworld hoods, securing its place in cinematic history as the inspiration for Rick's Cafe in "Casablanca"." The scene of the singing of "La Marseillaise" in the bar is attributed by the film scholar Julian Jackson as an adaptation of a similar scene from Jean Renoir's film from 5 years before titled "La Grande Illusion". The first writers assigned to the script were twins Julius and Philip Epstein who, against the wishes of Warner Brothers, left at Frank Capra's request early