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) "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