Fathom Events Screens Casablanca

As part of its series “Big Screen Classics”, Fathom Events will present a special showing of Casablanca (1942) at cinemas throughout the United States on Sunday, March 5, 2023 – with an encore showing on Wednesday, March 8.

The program will begin with an introduction by film historian Leonard Maltin.

Show-times will vary, with some cinemas screening Casablanca at 7 pm with a matinee at 1 pm.

To locate a participating theater, enter a city or zip code on the Casablanca page and choose either March 5 or March 8.

Ticket prices are $12.50 for adults and $10 for children. Tickets may be purchased at each cinema’s box office, or in advance at the theater, as well as online through the Fathom Events website and Fandango. A nominal convenience fee will be added to tickets purchased online through either Fathom Events or Fandango.

In celebration of the movie’s 80th anniversary, Warner Bros and Fathom Events will screen a newly-restored and remastered copy of Casablanca in 4k digital, taken from nitrate fine grain film elements, cleaned and repaired to deliver an ultra-high resolution presentation.

Can’t make it to a cinema to catch Casablanca? The Turner Classic Movies channel will show the film on Sunday, March 5, 2023, at 5 pm Pacific, 6 pm Mountain, 7 pm Central, and 8 pm Eastern as part of their “31 Days of Oscar” salute throughout the month of March.

In the small but pivotal role of black marketeer Ugarte, Peter Lorre sets in motion the film’s events by acquiring – through murder – a pair of valuable exit visas that he intends to sell to freedom fighter Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) and his wife Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman).

It was a part to which Peter attached no importance. He later claimed he made more money playing the roulette wheel on the “Café Americain” set than he did in the four days he worked before the camera.

Casablanca did, however, give Peter the opportunity to work with his pal Humphrey Bogart. Not yet a contract player at Warner Bros., Peter was hired back for his third Bogart-starring movie – the second was All Through the Night (1942), filmed in late 1941 – as the studio considered how he might fit in with their stable of actors. By the time he joined Bogart on Passage to Marseille (1944) in late 1943, Peter had appeared in several Warner Bros. films as a member of the Warners stock company.

The making of Casablanca and the on- and off-screen friendship of Bogie and Peter are discussed in the authorized Lorre biography The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre (University Press of Kentucky, 2005), by Stephen D. Youngkin – now available in paperback, eBook, and hard cover.