Pre-cult: Casablanca, radio adaptation, and transmedia in the 1940s

Abstract

In cult film studies, there is a tendency to perceive a ‘disconnect’ between the period in which a film is first released and that which marks its cult ascendancy. In this paper, I reconsider this notion, by examining what I call the ‘pre-cult’ phase of a film's life cycle and the nature of its continuities with cult formation. For my case study, I turn to Casablanca, one of the oldest and most influential classical cult films, and to its star, Humphrey Bogart; both film and star became cult in the 1950s when repertory houses began to screen Bogart retrospectives. Putting radio and sound studies into conversation with cult film studies, I argue that the film's frequent adaptation on radio and Bogart's radio presence in the 1940s produced a soundscape of transmediated voices and dialogue that influenced the practice of audience quotation a decade later and that remains today a hallmark of Casablanca's cult identity.

Keywords::

• historical transmedia
• classical cult cinema and icons
• Humphrey Bogart
• The Screen Guild Players and Lux Radio Theater
• The Brattle Theater and repertory houses
• voice and the catchphrase

Notes

^1.Casablanca's music, particularly its theme song, ‘As Time Goes By’, is an important part of the 1940s soundscape, but its complex history places it outside of my inquiry.

^2.Casablanca is no exception to multidirectional intertextuality. For example, it drew from movies emphasizing adventure, intrigue, and romance in an international city where West meets East. These include Pépé le Moko (1937) and its US remake Algiers (1938), which focus on an elusive European figure hiding in the Casbah in the North African city. Warner Bros. also produced movies starring Bogart that acted like Casablanca sequels, such as Sahara (1943). In the meantime, ‘sideways’ adaptations include radio programs like A Man Named Jordan (CBS, 1945–47) that replayed Casablanca's basic structure.

^3. Besides its influence on radio programs, a few texts that Casablanca generated include the Marx Brothers' parody A Night in Casablanca (1946) and eponymous television dramas in the 1950s and 1980s. Warner Bros. released associated cartoons in the 1940s and, more recently, Bugs Bunny parody Carrotblanca (1995). Woody Allen remade his Broadway hit, Play it Again, Sam (1969–70) as a film in 1972. Later stage productions include Japanese and Chinese musical versions in, respectively, 2009–10 (with an all-female cast) and 2011. Like other media, novels such as Michael Walsh's As Time Goes By (1998), maintained essential aspects of Casablanca, while altering its timeline, story, and other core features to recreate it in new media for new audiences. The film has also been featured in theme-park attraction, The Great Movie Ride, at Walt Disney World (1989–present). Films and other media have frequently reimagined it, with perhaps the most outré version being Barb Wire (1996) with Pamela Sue Anderson in the Rick role.

^4. Critics have debated when the Brattle began screening Bogart retrospectives. This 1964 article, marking the tenth anniversary of these festivals, contests the popular idea that the star's cult started after his death in 1957.

^5. For example, in the 2005 American Film Institute's list of the 100 best movie quotes of all time, Casablanca has the most entries. In the Internet Movie Database's ‘quotables’ section for the film, familiar one-liners run beside lengthy exchanges between characters deemed as worthy in this respect.

^6. The film's broad circulation not only demonstrates the difficulty of distinguishing cult from mainstream, but also the manner in which Casablanca's multiple identities in either category coexist or dominate over time.

^7. Other classical cult films that had vibrant pre-cult radio life include It's a Wonderful Life (1946), with multiple productions on The Screen Guild Players alone.

^8. I have not yet been able to locate this program's Casablanca episode.

^9. The show's earlier name was Hollywood Theater of the Air. Since I have found only four installments of its Casablanca adaptation, I have approximated broadcast dates according to the month-long run of its other film adaptations.

^10. The Warner Bros. Archives, The University of Southern California: School of Cinematic Arts, Folder 12732A.

^11. Films were not silent previously (see Abel and Altman 2001), but the talkies ensured the permanent bond between film and sound in production and exhibition.

^12.The Screen Guild Players' adaptations with Bogart also included (the film's release date followed by the episode's airing date): The Petrified Forest (1936; 7 January 1940); High Sierra (1941; 4 January 1942 and 17 April 1944); and Across the Pacific (1942; 25 January 1943).

^13. Seán Street (2015, 31) writes about sound and radio in a Proustian vein, but makes it clear that voice and image are complexly interwoven: in radio ‘the memory of sound is accessed through mental imagery’.

^14. Listeners born during the 1940s and 1950s dominated survey responses about radio memories in Great Britain (Street 2015, 47). Given radio's strong significance from the 1930s to the 1950s in the USA, a ‘radio generation’ is similarly identifiable.