# Casablanca - what happens to Rick if he stays in Casablanca? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 15, 2025, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-what-happens-to-rick-if-he-stays-in-casablanca/1019666 "2025-06-15T20:09:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![X.L.Lent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/a5b964/32.png) [@X.L.Lent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/X.L.Lent)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2025, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-what-happens-to-rick-if-he-stays-in-casablanca/1019666/1 "2025-06-15T20:09:40Z")
I watched the film Casablanca recently and noticed that Rick (played by Humprey Bogart) mentions that it’s December 1941. Remembering that Pearl Harbor was December 7th of that year and that Germany declared war on the USA a few days later I started to wonder what would have happened to Rick. If Captain Louis Renault (played by Claude Rains) successfully covers the fact that Rick has killed Major Strasser (played by Conrad Veidt) and if he is still in Casablanca when Germany declares war (this would be on December 11) what would happen to him? And what would happen to Sam (played by Dooley Wilson)? I guess a larger question would be what happened to innocent American civilians in Germany and Japan once war was declared. And German and Japanese civilians in the USA - were they allowed to return to their homelands? ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2025, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-what-happens-to-rick-if-he-stays-in-casablanca/1019666/2 "2025-06-15T20:45:24Z")
So it would matter what Morocco has in the way of immigration and repatriation laws. He had resources that were sketchy (transit papers) he sacrificed them for Ilsa and a _criminal_(?) past that may have been troublesome in America. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2025, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-what-happens-to-rick-if-he-stays-in-casablanca/1019666/3 "2025-06-15T20:53:08Z")
The normal treatment for an American civilian in Germany after December 11, 1941 would have been internment as an enemy alien. In Rick Blaine’s case, the Germans would have probably placed him a higher level of detention because of his past anti-Nazi activities. People who are in a country for official reasons, like embassy staff, are repatriated back to their home country, usually via a neutral country. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2025, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-what-happens-to-rick-if-he-stays-in-casablanca/1019666/4 "2025-06-15T20:54:57Z")
If Rick stays he would likely have been arrested. While Vichy France was technically neutral they were partial to the Nazis. In Germany, Americans were arrested and interned once war was declared. Near as I remember their internment wasn’t completely awful (not great but better than an actual prison or death camp). ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2025, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-what-happens-to-rick-if-he-stays-in-casablanca/1019666/5 "2025-06-15T21:45:32Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > If Rick stays he would likely have been arrested. While Vichy France was technically neutral they were partial to the Nazis. Maybe. However, until Operation Torch there was an American Diplomatic presence in Vichy, and apparently American tourists as well. Of course followed by Gestapo agents. Abwehr agents also. So Rick might be okay, just stay quiet until November 1942, about 11 months or so. Then he could join the US army or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![FrenchDunadan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frenchdunadan/32/5449_2.png) [@FrenchDunadan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FrenchDunadan)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2025, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-what-happens-to-rick-if-he-stays-in-casablanca/1019666/6 "2025-06-16T08:21:41Z")
Don’t forget that it’s a movie with considerable stretches from reality. First, Vichy was an independent state. So no Nazi officer doing everything he wanted in Casablanca. He could have been here as diplomatic staff, but wouldn’t have been able to boss around Vichy officials. Second, Vichy was collaborating with Germany in terms of ressources, or even giving up German Jews, but in North Africa there was a standing army trying its best to rearm in prevision of the reprise of fighting. Due to a lack of spare parts, this was mostly infantry. Third, after Operation Torch (that was supposed to go smoothly but the n°2 of the regime was unexpectedly there and he outranked the complotists) this army fought the Americans at first but joined as soon as Germany invaded Vichy France. And thereafter formed the base of the 1st French army that fought in Italy, Provence and Bavaria. So if Rick stayed, he would have been still friend with the chief police officer: free, except for maybe a brief moment after Torch. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2025, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-what-happens-to-rick-if-he-stays-in-casablanca/1019666/7 "2025-06-16T08:36:54Z")
According to David Thomson’s unique novel [Suspects](https://thrillingdetective.com/2018/12/16/david-thompsons-suspects/): > Rick was in Paris for a time doing not much, except trading on the black market and carrying on with Ilsa Lund. He was regarded as a cynic by then. The drinking was constant, and not even Sam, a guy who had come out of Spain with him, could keep him cheerful. The affair with Ilsa was hopeless; she had all these causes, perhaps Rick used her to remind himself of all he’d lost. He wanted it to fail, he was dependent now on self-pity. So when the Germans came in, Rick got out. As I heard it from Sam, Rick was going anyway but later he persuaded himself that Ilsa had let him down. > > He got to Casablanca and he opened the Café Americain, where anything was possible. You could buy or sell whatever you wanted – jewels, drugs, papers, lives – it was a rat-race of a market. There were people of all nationalities and persuasions. The war was held down by money, greed and fear. It was an ugly place, and the movie they made romanticized it and Rick. He was as vicious as he had to be by then, just taking his cut on whatever happened, OK-ing every kind of deal and arrangement. > > The big new thing in his life was Louis Renault (1891–1964), the head of the Vichy police in Casablanca. Apparently he took one long look at Rick and knew he was homosexual underneath all the brooding and the sneers about women. He could see Rick was dying too, and he was decent enough to do what he could for him. After Strasser was killed and the weird but wonderful Victor Laszlo got away, Rick and Louis slipped off into the fog together. They went south, to Marrakech, and they lived there after the war, until Rick died in 1949. I can see him sitting out in the sun, slipping a coin in an Arab boy’s hand in return for one of those sweet cordials. Louis took the best care of him, and at the very end they were laughing together over reports of the red scare in America. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2025, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-what-happens-to-rick-if-he-stays-in-casablanca/1019666/8 "2025-06-16T09:16:51Z")
As you can see from the last scene in _Casablanca_, Rick and Louis decide that they will leave Casablanca immediately for somewhere where it’s safe for opponents of the Germans. They say specifically that Brazzaville in Congo would be safe for them in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G62tkd2t7qk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G62tkd2t7qk) . This was a French colony that wasn’t aligned with the Germans. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2025, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-what-happens-to-rick-if-he-stays-in-casablanca/1019666/9 "2025-06-16T10:13:59Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > They say specifically that Brazzaville in Congo would be safe for them in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G62tkd2t7qk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G62tkd2t7qk) . This was a French colony that wasn’t aligned with the Germans. So was French Morocco. In terms of legal status, there was no difference between Morocco and the French Congo - both were colonies (Morocco a protectorate, legally) of Vichy France, which was technically a neutral state though practically under the hegemony of Germany. It might be, however, that as a result of geographical proximity, the de facto influence of Germany on French authorities in Morocco was stronger. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2025, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-what-happens-to-rick-if-he-stays-in-casablanca/1019666/10 "2025-06-16T11:24:47Z")
> [@FrenchDunadan](#): > > Don’t forget that it’s a movie with considerable stretches from reality. Also, they were in Vichy France but had Letters of Transit from DeGaulle, who was in the UK in exile at the time. The plot doesn’t make any sense, it’s just all about vibes. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2025, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-what-happens-to-rick-if-he-stays-in-casablanca/1019666/11 "2025-06-16T11:38:06Z")
I don’t think this is correct, so I looked up the screenplay. In the scene in Rick’s Café in which Ugarte entrusts the letters to Rick for safekeeping, Ugarte says: “Letters of transit signed by Marshall Weygand. They cannot be rescinded, not even questioned.” I agree that the letters of transit are a McGuffin that don’t make logical sense. In particular, on the one hand they’re magical and will get anyone out of Casablano no questions asked; on the other hand the entire city knows that German couriers were killed for them and that the Germans are on a manhunt for whoever has them in their possession. But Weygand’s signature is not entirely absurd; Maxime Weygand was, in fact, a high-ranking officer (_général d’armée_, equivalent to a British or German field marshal) in the services of the Vichy regime. De Gaulle’s signature would, of course, have no value in a a territory under Vichy control. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2025, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-what-happens-to-rick-if-he-stays-in-casablanca/1019666/12 "2025-06-16T11:54:04Z")
You’re correct, I haven’t seen the movie in years, but here is an article about the movie and the letters. > **["Casablanca," Admiral Darlan, and Rick's Letters of Transit](https://richardlangworth.com/darlan-degaulle-casablanca)** > > Please watch the European version closely and tell us: Whose signature do they say is on the Letters of Transit? Is it Darlan? ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2025, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-what-happens-to-rick-if-he-stays-in-casablanca/1019666/13 "2025-06-16T15:34:10Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > Ugarte says: “Letters of transit signed by Marshall Weygand. They cannot be rescinded, not even questioned.” I’m pretty sure this has been argued repeatedly here, but not by me. That may be the script, but I don’t believe it is what ended up in the movie (for whatever reason, and however little sense it makes). Here is a clip from the film. The relevant bit starts at 2:33. Listen, read his lips, slow it down, he says “General De Gaulle” in his charming Austro-Hungarian accent. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/BztF71vFpnE/hqdefault.jpg "Something Even You Have Never Seen - Letters of Transit.mov") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BztF71vFpnE) ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2025, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-what-happens-to-rick-if-he-stays-in-casablanca/1019666/14 "2025-06-16T15:49:58Z")
No, I’m hearing “Weygand” (that final nasal vowel was the clincher). He was Vichy’s Delegate General in Morocco (but apparently sacked on the insistence of the Germans in November 1941, so if this is set in the December, who knows what such a document would have been worth). ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2025, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-what-happens-to-rick-if-he-stays-in-casablanca/1019666/15 "2025-06-16T16:12:16Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > So was French Morocco. Yes, but so what? I’m talking about the actual movie _Casablanca_. I’m not talking about the novel _Suspects_ by David Thomas that don\_t\_ask linked to. _Suspects_ is basically a piece of fanfiction about the movie _Casablanca_. I don’t have any objections to it as a novel, but it’s not the movie _Casablanca_. In the movie _Casablanca_, they talked about Brazzaville, not about Moocco. In the movie _Casablanca_, there was no mention of Rick and Louis being gay or living together for the rest of their lives. Feel free to enjoy the novel _Suspects_, but remember that it’s not the movie _Casablanca_ itself. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2025, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-what-happens-to-rick-if-he-stays-in-casablanca/1019666/16 "2025-06-16T17:46:38Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > No, I’m hearing “Weygand” (that final nasal vowel was the clincher). I first heard “de Gaulle”, but listening a few times, it does sound more like “way-gau”. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2025, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-what-happens-to-rick-if-he-stays-in-casablanca/1019666/17 "2025-06-16T18:36:51Z")
They are different vowels, even for a German speaker like Peter Lorre: in “Gaulle” it’s closer to the English “oh” (as in "hole’), but in “-gand” it’s like the English “awe”, but nasalised. And yes, the W in Weygand would be pronounced like a V, in French and in German ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2025, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-what-happens-to-rick-if-he-stays-in-casablanca/1019666/18 "2025-06-16T18:55:23Z")
I’m pretty sure that Roger Ebert addressed the issue of whether the letters were signed by De Gaulle or Weygand in one of his columns or his Q&A column. I don’t remember which he said though. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2025, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-what-happens-to-rick-if-he-stays-in-casablanca/1019666/19 "2025-06-16T18:57:03Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Yes, but so what? My point is that I don’t see a reason why Brazzaville would be safer for them than Casablanca even within the universe of the movie. They’re both French colonies under the, at least nominal, control of the Vichy regime. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2025, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-what-happens-to-rick-if-he-stays-in-casablanca/1019666/20 "2025-06-16T20:06:22Z")
Not so: Congo Brazzaville and most of France’s equatorial African colonies had declared for Free France in 1940. North Africa stayed under Vichy control until late 1942. Whether these “letters of transit” would have allowed civilians to travel between them, I don’t know. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casablanca-what-happens-to-rick-if-he-stays-in-casablanca/1019666.md?page=2)