Casablanca (Lux Radio Version)

In December 1941, American expatriate Rick Blaine owns a nightclub and gambling den in Casablanca. "Rick's Café Américain" attracts a varied clientele, including Vichy French and Nazi German officials, refugees desperate to reach the neutral United States, and those who prey on them. Although Rick professes to be neutral in all matters, he ran guns to Ethiopia in 1935 and fought on the Loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War.

Petty crook Ugarte boasts to Rick of letters of transit obtained by murdering two German couriers. The papers allow the bearers to travel freely around German-occupied Europe and to neutral Portugal. Ugarte plans to sell them at the club and persuades Rick to hold them for him. Before he can meet his contact, Ugarte is arrested by the local police under Captain Louis Renault, the unabashedly corrupt prefect of police. Ugarte dies in custody without revealing that Rick has the letters.

Then the reason for Rick's cynical nature—former lover Ilsa Lund—enters his establishment. Spotting Rick's friend and house pianist, Sam, Ilsa asks him to play "As Time Goes By". Rick storms over, furious that Sam disobeyed his order never to perform that song again, and is stunned to see Ilsa. She is accompanied by her husband, Victor Laszlo, a renowned fugitive Czechoslovak Resistance leader. A flashback reveals Ilsa left Rick without explanation when the couple were planning to flee as the German army neared Paris, embittering Rick. Laszlo and Ilsa need the letters to escape, while German Major Strasser arrives in Casablanca to prevent just that.

Adaptations

On radio, there were several adaptations of the film. The two best-known are a thirty-minute adaptation on The Screen Guild Theater on April 26, 1943, starring Bogart, Bergman, and Henreid, and an hour-long version on the Lux Radio Theater on January 24, 1944, featuring Alan Ladd as Rick, Hedy Lamarr as Ilsa, and John Loder as Laszlo. Two other thirty-minute adaptations were aired, one on Philip Morris Playhouse on September 3, 1943, and the other on Theater of Romance on December 19, 1944, in which Dooley Wilson reprised his role as Sam.