Note: Late 2022 marked the 80th anniversary of the iconic film "Casablanca." Unfortunately, for the last 80 years anyone who's seen this movie has been watching a highly censored, watered-down shadow version of what actually was filmed by Warner Bros. before the Hays Office censors demanded ruinous changes be made. The following attempts to give a much more accurate rendering of what the original movie looked like, at least the highlights.
The camera pans across a crowded open marketplace in Casablanca, the year 1942, people milling about everywhere. Suddenly shots are heard, a man slinks to the ground, people scurry away in a great commotion, and the police quickly arrive. When it becomes obvious the shot man is dead, the highest-ranking policeman orders the rest to "Round up the usual assholes." The camera continues to pan across the scene, finally landing on a large, nightclub-type building dressed in a fake Saharan Desert motif. On the building is a flashing neon sign: Rick's Strip Club.
We are next inside Richard Blaine's strip club and he and a mousy, sleazy man named Signore Ugarte are sitting at a table, smoking.
"I hear a German courier was killed a while ago and letters of transit stolen off him," remarks Rick.
"Indeed, so have I," replies Ugarte. "I heard those letters were signed by Charles De Gaulle, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, Joe DiMaggio, Al Capone, Greta Garbo, and the Pope; they cannot be rescinded, not even questioned." Ugarte, as if screwing up courage, hesitates for a moment and then says, "You know, Rick, by some, let us say, good fortune I happened to come by those letters."
"Really," says Rick, suddenly interested.
"Perhaps now you are a little more impressed with me," utters Ugarte.
"I'm impressed with any man who can suck his own dick like you can."
"Because you hate my fucking guts so much, Rick, you're the only one I can trust." (Also if you get caught with them they'll shoot you dead on the spot.) "Will you hold the letters for me, just for a little while; I plan to sell them tonight in your strip club for more money than I can imagine."
"Okay, but not overnight, I don't want trouble with Renault. Where are they?"
Ugarte reaches into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and pulls out a wallet-sized bundle. "Here."
He gives it to Rick and he looks at it. What he sees are pictures of Ugarte being gang-banged by three men, his clothes torn off, his face in agony.
"I think you gave me your family photo album by mistake," says Rick.
"What?" mumbles Ugarte, taking it back. "Oh, sorry. It's this one," and gives him another packet.
Just then a policeman comes up to Ugarte and asks him to accompany him. He gets up as if to do so, but then makes a run for it.
"Rick, Rick, help me, Rick!" he shouts. But he doesn't get far before the policeman shoots him three times in the back.
Some snotnosed, holier-than-thou bystander says to Rick, "I hope when they come for me, you're a little more helpful."
"I stick my dick out for nobody," he says. "My heart's been ripped out of me and stomped on, my happiness snatched away from me forever, and this is who I am. You don't like it, go fuck yourselves!"
He walks into the main room of the strip club, near some shelves, and when no one's looking, hides the letters under a pile of old G strings. The strippers had been issued brand new G strings for a long time now; what stripper is going to use an old one when she could have a new one? He was pretty sure they'd be safe there.
He then walks over to the bar and talks to Sascha, the bartender. A woman named Yvonne, apparently having had too much to drink, walks over. She looks at Rick and says, "I waited for you last night lying naked in bed fingering my pussy and pinching my nipples, waiting for you to come and fuck me in all my holes, take me to paradise. You never showed up. Where were you?"
"That was too long ago to remember," says Rick.
"Tonight I'm going to cover my tits in chocolate syrup that you can lick off, then I'm going to suck your cock, lick your asshole, and make you come all over my face and in my mouth. Will you be there?"
"I never make plans that far ahead."
She then screams at him and starts beating him on the chest. "Oh, why did I fall for such a shithead like you!" she cries in desperation and rage.
"Sascha, take her home."
"Yes, boss," he says, rather happily.
"And come right back; fuck her in the taxi if you want, but no more."
"Yes, boss," he responds, gloomily.
Rick goes outside for some air and, of course, another smoke. (We are about 15 minutes into the movie by now and Rick has smoked five packs of cigarettes already.) He finds Captain Louis Renault, the prefect of police, sitting at a table nearby. While they're talking an airplane flies overhead.
"The plane for Lisbon, and then passage to America," Renault says. "I often wonder why you're never on it. Is there something in America that prevents you from returning?"
"It's a long story, Louie."
"Are you wanted by the mob in Chicago? Did you knock up some big-shot politician's daughter? Are you married to half a dozen women simultaneously who all found out about it and have threatened to cut your balls off if they ever see you again? I like to think you killed 7-8 men, it's the romantic in me."
"It's a little bit of all of that, I suppose."
The croupier from the club comes out and tells Rick some gambler is on a lucky streak and he needs more money. All three enter the club and go up a steep staircase to Rick's apartment. He gives the croupier the money and he leaves.
"Ricky," Renault begins. "We're to have a special guest in your strip club tonight, Victor Laszlo."
"Victor Laszlo!" Rick says, astonished.
"Rick," Renault notes, "that's the first time I've ever seen you impressed by someone, except for maybe the time that hooker did that dance on your back naked and then made herself come by rubbing her pussy on your ass while sucking your toes."
"Well, he's managed to impress most of Europe."
"Ricky, Victor Laszlo is to remain in Casablanca."
"I wonder how he'll manage it?" asks Rick.
"Manage what?"
"His escape," says Rick.
"He will need an exit visa to do that, and there are no exit visas. Besides, he'll need two."
"He'll take one."
"He's traveling with a lady. He'll need two; I've seen the lady."
"20,000 francs says he leaves Casablanca," says Rick.