There is a city which seems only to be famous for the film named after it. Aside from an epic mosque, Casablanca has few other claims to fame.* But the claim to have inspired a movie which some still consider to be one of the greatest of all time is strong. The connection is set in stone by a commercial recreation of that film’s most pivotal location: in 2004 a plush bar known as Rick’s Cafe opened on the seafront. Here, a short red carpet, two elegant palm trees and as many spruce doormen now flank the entrance to a fictional dimension where it is forever 1942, the year of Casablanca’s US release.
Many are the visual, sonic and gastronomic cues that situate the visitor in the space where one of the silver screen’s most famous couples fall victim to crossed stars and geopolitical manoeuvres. Bar owner Rick and his not-quite-ex Ilsa are played of course by Bogart and Bergman. In case you need a flavour of the chemistry between these two icons, the two can be found smoking and drinking their way through a loop on a large but discreet plasma TV, built into the wooden panels of the establishment’s upstairs gambling den.
It was here that my wife and daughter ate apple pie (because what could be more American?) and a New York cheesecake (named after Rick/Bogart). I was the only person to destroy the illusion by asking for tequila, which, as far as I can recall, has no bearing on the narrative or the atmosphere which is so powerful in the Academy Award winning film. As we quietly imbibed our orders in the bar, feeling underdressed compared with the many diners, a party of five or six Chinese tourists also broke the fourth wall by crowding round the roulette table and photographing the framed promotional posters nearby.
Prices were definitely present day, but I made a foray through the restaurant and found that the balconies, balustrades, and riad-shaped floorplan all offered transport to the universe of Rick’s ‘original’ bar, even if that bar itself was largely an invention of a set designer. And meanwhile waiters in white linen, and fez hats, low lighting and soft cutlery clinking, along with a generally quiet dressy clientele, went some way to recapture the glamour of golden age Hollywood. On some level we were all extras in an immersive performance.
There was a grand piano in the courtyard, same make, model and vintage as that used by a supporting character played by Arthur ‘Dooley’ Wiison: the Sam whose repertoire included “As Time Goes By”, a song he was famously asked to play “again” (even if that most famous of lines is a conflation of dialogue spoken by Ilsa and not a direct lift from the script).**
Rick’s Cafe in Casablanca is not a pure replica and not peopled by replicants. Instead it is a hybrid recreation which blends many details from the filmset with a carefully constructed ambience that perpetuates an image of a city in which tourists can feel less like tourists for a moment and more like, well, members of a transient demimonde each of us engaged in our dubious activities in the shadow of war. At time of writing this wartime context was given added and unwanted spice by the vaunted threat of US imperial ambitions. In January 2026, Rick’s Bar could plan to open a franchise in Caracas.
I would go so far as to say that this commercial dining establishment is — after celluloid, VHS and MP4, Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, and a paperback copy of the script — really a whole new format for Casablanca (1942 – ongoing), bearing a relation to the film akin to an experiential night at Secret Cinema or a visit to the theme park that is Shakespeare’s Globe on London’s South Bank. Bruno Latour argues that the aura of an artwork can ‘migrate’, by appearing in new versions… like this one you can walk right into. Aura might not, as Walter Benjamin was to warn on the eve of Bogie’s war, diminish in the age of mechanical reproduction, it might just migrate and accumulate. In this way Rick’s Bar does as much for distributors Warner Bros. Pictures Inc. as it does for the Moroccan National Tourist Office.
Two people who I know would have loved to visit Rick’s Bar are my maternal grandmother and a husband we knew merely as Tom. Indeed along with a memory of the film, which I saw on video during the late 90s, my visit triggered a childhood recollection in which this rum couple dressed in matching trench coats and fedoras in an attempt to look like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. Spoiler: they looked nothing like him, and on our way out of the house, this Tom was so embarrassed by a last minute wardrobe mandate that a row ensued. I honestly don’t know how often they ever went out to cosplay like this together. But I guess that Casablanca was such a powerful imaginative property for them that it lent itself to tribute and pastiche over and over again. Not to mention the repetition of many famous lines, which we now all own.
A filmic world, anchored in a lesser known city, has now given everyone the chance to participate in a shared nostalgia trip: I can report it is a trip-within-a-trip for anyone lucky enough to visit said city after seeing said film.
* Funnily enough, my hometown has both a strong 1940s movie connection in Brighton Rock (1948) and a secondary attraction in Brighton Royal Pavilion which was built to look like a mosque.
** Incidentally the evening we dropped in to Rick’s cafe, there were a couple of musicians installed next to this venerable machine and traditional Moroccan music was the fare. Perhaps these days, when the in-house pianist, strikes up the tune many people are waiting to hear, the simulation gets too intense.
