Casablanca (film) right. The Jack Benny Fan Club can feel vindicated." The film was based on Murray Burnett and Joan Alison's then-unproduced play "Everybody Comes to Rick's". The Warner Bros. story analyst who read the play, Stephen Karnot, called it (approvingly) "sophisticated hokum", and story editor Irene Diamond, who had discovered the unproduced play on a trip to New York in 1941, convinced producer Hal Wallis to buy the rights in January 1942 for $20,000, the most anyone in Hollywood had ever paid for an unproduced play. The project was renamed "Casablanca", apparently in imitation of the 1938 hit "Algiers". Although an
Casablanca (1955 TV series) ultimate winner turned out to be the British wartime naval saga, "In Which We Serve"), but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences insisted that since "Casablanca" was not released nationally until early 1943, it would compete at the Award ceremony taking place in 1944. Sixteen months after its New York premiere, "Casablanca" won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch. There were five additional nominations: Best Actor (Humphrey Bogart), Best Supporting Actor (Claude Rains), Best Cinematography, Black-and White (Arthur Edeson), Best Film Editing (Owen Marks) and Best