Casablanca (film) Los Angeles. Although "Casablanca" was an A-list film with established stars and first-rate writers, no one involved with its production expected it to be anything other than one of the hundreds of ordinary pictures produced by Hollywood that year. "Casablanca" was rushed into release to take advantage of the publicity from the Allied invasion of North Africa a few weeks earlier. It had its world premiere on November 26, 1942, in New York City and was released nationally in the United States on January 23, 1943. The film was a solid if unspectacular success in its initial run. Exceeding expectations,
Casablanca (film) depths" as a "phenomenon worthy of awe." "Casablanca" holds a 97% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 77 reviews, with the consensus: "An undisputed masterpiece and perhaps Hollywood's quintessential statement on love and romance, "Casablanca" has only improved with age, boasting career-defining performances from Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman." In the November/December 1982 issue of "American Film", Chuck Ross claimed that he retyped the screenplay to "Casablanca", changing the title back to "Everybody Comes to Rick's" and the name of the piano player to Dooley Wilson, and submitted it to 217 agencies. Eighty-five of them read it; of those,