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 seven decades since its production the film has grown in popularity. Murray Burnett called it "true yesterday, true today, true tomorrow". By 1955, the film had brought in $6.8 million, making it the third most successful of Warners' wartime movies (behind "Shine On, Harvest Moon" and "This Is the Army"). On April 21, 1957, the Brattle Theater of Cambridge, Massachusetts, showed the film as part of a season of old movies. It was so popular that it began a tradition of screening "Casablanca" during the week of final exams at Harvard University, which continues to the present day. Other