Casablanca 'Rick's Cafe' Piano

The piano in Rick's

Casablanca was shot almost entirely at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, between May 25 and August 3, 1942. Most of its action happens inside Rick's Cafe Americain, and the cafe's centerpiece is the small upright where Sam sits. It is the piano on which Ilsa asks him, 'Play it, Sam. Play As Time Goes By.'

The piano was most likely made in 1927. It has only 58 keys, 30 fewer than a standard piano, and is short enough that one reporter called it a miniature instrument. In the film it looks dark; in person it is painted in Moroccan designs that observers have described as golden yellow with touches of green and gold, as orange, and as salmon. The painted decoration was restored about three decades before the 2014 sale under the direction of Warner Bros.

Its importance is not only musical. About 15 minutes into the film, Rick hides the letters of transit, the papers that are the only way out of Casablanca, inside the piano. 'They're under there while Sam plays; they're there for all of the activity that happens in the cafe,' the sale's director of entertainment memorabilia told The New York Times. 'It represents the way out for them.'

To make the hiding place work on camera, the prop department changed the lid. If it had opened from the front, Rick would have had to reach over Sam's shoulder. Instead, according to the 2014 sale description, the top of the piano was removed completely and held on with only a hook and eye, so it could open from the rear.

Sam, who did not play

Arthur 'Dooley' Wilson was born in Tyler, Texas, on April 3, 1886. He was earning money singing in churches at seven and in tent shows at eight, and took the nickname Dooley from a whiteface impersonation of an Irishman. He played in James Reese Europe's band, toured Europe through the 1920s with his own band, the Red Devils, and broke through on Broadway in 1940 in Cabin in the Sky, which won him a contract with Paramount.

In May 1942 Warner Bros. borrowed Wilson from Paramount for seven weeks at $500 a week; Wilson received his contract salary of $350 and Paramount kept the rest. He was a drummer, not a pianist. The playing heard in the film was done by a studio pianist out of camera range while Wilson mimed. Sources disagree on who that was: Wikipedia names Jean Vincent Plummer, while the BBC and other accounts name Wilson's collaborator Elliot Carpenter.

The song was older than the film. Herman Hupfeld wrote 'As Time Goes By' in 1931 for the Broadway musical Everybody's Welcome, and it was a modest hit then. Composer Max Steiner wanted to replace it with his own music, but Ingrid Bergman had already cut her hair short for For Whom the Bell Tolls and could not reshoot, so Steiner built the whole score around it. Wilson could not record it commercially because of the 1942-44 musicians' strike, and a reissued 1931 recording by Rudy Vallee became a number one hit instead.

1942: a film rushed out by the news

Warner Bros. bought the unproduced play Everybody Comes to Rick's in January 1942 for $20,000, then the most anyone in Hollywood had paid for an unproduced play. The film went $75,000 over budget, to $1,039,000, and was shot largely in sequence because only half the script was finished when filming began.

On November 8, 1942, American and British forces landed in French North Africa. Casablanca was rushed out to take advantage of the publicity: it premiered on November 26, 1942, at the Hollywood Theater in New York and went into national release on January 23, 1943. It won the Academy Award for best picture, with Michael Curtiz named best director and the Epstein brothers and Howard Koch honored for the screenplay.

Two pianos, two sales

Casablanca used two pianos. The other, a turquoise upright seen in the Paris flashback, was sold at auction in New York in December 1988 for $154,000 to a Japanese trading company buying for investors, which outbid Donald Trump. Its seller was Beverly Hills dentist Gary Milan, described as owning the world's biggest collection of Casablanca memorabilia, including the second piano. The Paris piano sold again in New York on December 14, 2012, for $602,500 including commission, below its estimate; it had been on screen for about 70 seconds.

The Rick's Cafe piano, the one in this entry, was reported at its 2014 sale to have been owned by a Los Angeles dentist since the 1980s. In that time it was lent to the Warner Bros. Studio Museum and was played at a 2006 Hollywood Bowl concert of Max Steiner's Casablanca music. It came to auction as one of more than 30 Casablanca pieces from a single private collection.

The sale took place in New York on Monday, November 24, 2014. The auctioneers had declined to give an estimate beyond 'the low- to mid-seven figures.' Bidding opened at $1.6 million and closed three minutes later at $3,413,000, including a 12 percent commission. The buyer was not identified. The piano came with a signed photograph of Wilson, a copy of the film and a petrified wad of chewing gum found stuck beneath the keyboard, with the faint outline of a fingerprint. In the same sale the letters of transit brought $118,750 and the entrance doors of Rick's Cafe $115,000.

Legacy

Casablanca was in the first class of films chosen for the National Film Registry in 1989. The American Film Institute ranked it second among American films, behind Citizen Kane, and first on its list of great love stories; 'As Time Goes By' ranks second on its list of film songs, behind 'Over the Rainbow.' Since 1999 the song's closing bars have accompanied the Warner Bros. logo on many of the studio's productions.

The line everyone remembers is not in the film. Nobody says 'Play it again, Sam.' What the piano carries instead is the real line, Ilsa's request, and the plot device that turns the whole story.

The numbers

Film

Casablanca, premiered November 26, 1942

Production cost

$1,039,000

Filming

May 25 to August 3, 1942

Academy Awards

Best picture, director and screenplay

AFI ranking

No. 2 of 100 Years...100 Movies (1998)

Timeline

1. 1927

   The piano is most likely made.

2. 1931

   Herman Hupfeld writes 'As Time Goes By' for the Broadway musical Everybody's Welcome.

3. Jan 1942

   Warner Bros. buys the play Everybody Comes to Rick's for $20,000.

4. May 25, 1942

   Filming begins in Burbank; it ends August 3.

5. Nov 26, 1942

   Casablanca premieres at the Hollywood Theater in New York.

6. Jan 23, 1943

   National release in the United States.

7. Dec 1988

   The film's other piano, from the Paris flashback, sells at auction in New York for $154,000; its seller also owns the Rick's Cafe piano.

8. 1989

   Casablanca is named to the first class of the National Film Registry.

9. 2006

   The Rick's Cafe piano is played at a Hollywood Bowl concert of Max Steiner's Casablanca music.

10. Dec 14, 2012

    The Paris flashback piano sells again in New York for $602,500.

11. Jul 2014

    The Rick's Cafe piano is announced for sale as one of more than 30 Casablanca items from one collection.

12. Nov 24, 2014

    The piano sells at auction in New York for $3,413,000 after three minutes of bidding.

The world in 1942

• Feb 19, 1942

  President Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, leading to the internment of Japanese Americans.

• Jun 4, 1942

  The Battle of Midway begins.

• Aug 7, 1942

  US Marines land on Guadalcanal in the first American offensive of the war.

• Nov 8, 1942

  Operation Torch: US and British forces land in French North Africa.

• Nov 28, 1942

  The Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire in Boston kills 491 people.

• Dec 1, 1942

  Gasoline rationing begins in the United States.

• Dec 2, 1942

  Enrico Fermi's team achieves the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in Chicago.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Casablanca 'Rick's Cafe' Piano is number 24 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (30 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Dooley Wilson, the film's pianist, was actually a drummer.
• The piano came to the 2014 sale with a wad of petrified chewing gum under its keyboard bearing a faint fingerprint.
• Donald Trump bid on the film's other piano in 1988 and lost to a Japanese trading company.
• Nobody in Casablanca says 'Play it again, Sam.'
• Bergman's short haircut for her next film is why 'As Time Goes By' stayed in the score.
• The bidding for the piano lasted about three minutes.