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) up where the film leaves off, and also tells of Rick's mysterious past in America. The book met with little success. David Thomson provided an unofficial sequel in his 1985 novel "Suspects". There have been two short-lived television series based upon "Casablanca", both sharing the title. The first, which aired on ABC as part of the wheel series "Warner Bros. Presents" in hour-long episodes from 1955 to 1956, is a Cold War espionage program set contemporaneously with its production, and starred Charles McGraw as Rick and Marcel Dalio, who played Emil the croupier in the movie, as the police chief.