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) 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