In continuing with my series of bad sequels to great classic films, I thought it might be fun to try to imagine what might conceivably be a reasonable (but bad) continuation for the Casablanca storyline, as if this were an actual plan to make a crappy sequel to Casablanca. Naturally, it would have to be called Casablanca 2 (As Time Goes By), because it’s the lamest possible sequel title (with the number 2, rather than the more distinguished-looking Roman numerals), as well as being the most obviously cynically exploitationy one as well. As far as I know, nobody has ever really made a real sequel to Casablanca, so I figured: “What the hell? I’ve already mangled Citizen Kane and Vertigo today, so why not Casablanca too?” So here’s what I’ve come up with for a bad sequel to Casablanca: Casablanca 2 (As Time Goes By):
This sequel begins a few years after the events of the movie Casablanca. The war has ended, Nazi Germany has been defeated, and so Rick and Captain Renault return to Casablanca, where Rick takes a job managing Rick’s Café Américain for its owner Ferrari, who gets to say (based upon his quote from the original film): “Glad to have you back, my boy. Rick’s just isn’t Rick’s without you.” (And he further states, in reference to the original movie: “Oh, and I’ll send over those cartons of American cigarettes right away!”) Coincidentally, Ilsa and Victor Laszlo are staying at the local hotel and still like to come back to Rick’s “for sentimental reasons”. Oh, but it’s not all fun and games, for Victor is back in Casablanca to try to sniff out a rumored Odessa route for escaping Nazi war criminals, which leaves him busy and out all day and night most of the time, leaving Ilsa lots of time to reminisce with, guess who: Rick! And in an unlikely twist, it turns out that Major Strasser has survived his shootout with Rick at the Casablanca airport from a few years earlier (he was rushed to a local field hospital or something, where they patched him up and he was returned to Germany or whatever), and while trying to escape capture for his atrocities, sneaking through the Odessa route to South America (coincidentally passing right through Casablanca: Wow, what are the chances of that happening? I mean, what serendipity for the screenwriter that this conjunction of circumstances happened to occur like this! It sure makes it easier to write the script when coincidences like this happen, you know, by accident.), Strasser finds out that Rick, Ilsa, and Victor are all back in Casablanca too, and he wants revenge (!).
So what happens is, just to screw up and ruin the entire plot from the original movie, Major Strasser spies on Ilsa and Rick and engages in some clandestine photography when things become overly romantic. Then he intentionally allows himself to be spotted and cornered by Victor Laszlo, and when they meet again, he gives Laszlo the photographs of Ilsa and Rick engaged in their torrid affair escapades, devastating him. Well, his heart broken and disillusioned, Victor stops caring about capturing Major Strasser, imploring the fates for an answer to the question: “Is there no justice in the world?”, whereupon Strasser escapes to the airport (the one where Casablanca ends). Rick and Ilsa, upon discovering the presence of Major Strasser in Casablanca, attempt to stop his escape by going to the airport, but they’re intercepted by Victor, who, devastated by Ilsa’s cheating, has a shootout with Rick wherein he’s killed (mirroring the ending of Casablanca, but this time it is Strasser who escapes, after witnessing everything and laughing his ass off). And despite the fact that Rick shot Victor in self-defense, Ilsa cannot forgive him (or herself) for the situation, and she refuses to ever see him again. This devastates Rick, who after finally getting over Ilsa after the events of the movie Casablanca, now returns to being desperately in love with Ilsa again, and he becomes a bitter depressed alcoholic again (and gets fired by Ferrari for drinking too much), to the delight of Major Strasser, who hears about it later from his local Odessa contact. So Major Strasser escapes to South America, and things go back to the way they were before the events of the first movie, except without the war refugee situation, which leaves Casablanca more boring than ever, and Rick and Captain Renault can only now remember back to the time when there were desperate beautiful women willing to do anything to escape, and drown their sorrows in liquor and chain-smoking filterless cigarettes. The End.
There, now wouldn’t that undo all the “happy ending” aspects of the original film, and suitably ruin the whole thing? So this would not only be a bad and cynical sequel, it would be a horribly cynical movie to boot; essentially making it the opposite of a “Hollywood ending”-type film, basically. (Which means it might get made someday after all by indie filmmakers seeking to undo the “unrealistic” aspects of Hollywood product: who knows?)
