History of Casablanca control of Casablanca was not formalised until 1910. It was especially during the years of military governor Hubert Lyautey that Casablanca became Morocco's economic center and Africa's biggest harbour. The famous 1942 film "Casablanca" underlined the city's colonial status at the time—depicting it as the scene of a power struggle between competing European powers, carried out without any reference to the local population, and with the film's vast cosmoplitan cast of characters (American, French, German, Czech and some other nationalities) including not a single Arab. During the 1940s and 1950s, Casablanca was a major centre of anti-French rioting. A terrorist
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.