Humphrey Bogart. Ingrid Bergman. Peter Lorre. Sydney Greenstreet. Some of the brightest stars of the 1940's came together at Warner Bros. to make a movie...
Casablanca -- a movie for all time. Certainly if any story deserved a sequel, this one is it. Rumor has it that Warner Brothers has hired award-winning director Renny Harlin and a stellar cast to finally complete the glorious story of Rick & Ilsa.
Of course, Mr. Harlin will have at his disposal many tools that Michael Curtiz had to do without - such as color film and computer-animated savage gorillas. So we can confidently look forward to a sequel that far surpasses the faded original.
The details of this project have been kept top-secret, but a few tidbits have leaked out. Through means that I am not at liberty to divulge, a partial shooting script has fallen into my hands. In the grand tradition of Web-based information, I present to you everything we know about....
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The Cast:
Gene Hackman as Colonel Strasser and Lauren Bacall as the Voodoo Queen. |
In the opening sequence (which takes place shortly before the final scene of the original Casablanca), Sam (Wesley Snipes) learns that he has been sold, along with Rick's Cafe, to Senior Ferrari. Enraged that his old friend would treat him so badly after his years of faithful service, Sam vows revenge. Knowing he'll need help, he breaks Ugarte (Robin Williams) out of jail, just before he is to be executed. Ugarte, of course, also seeks revenge against Rick for failing to protect him, and for stealing his letters of transport. Sam & Ugarte leave Casablanca hot on the trail of Sam. Senior Ferrari (Marlon Brando), discovering that Sam is AWOL from his new job as piano player at the Blue Parrot, begins a hot pursuit of Sam.
Meanwhile, Colonel Strasser (a cameo by Gene Hackman) was more determined to stop Laszlo than we knew. He had planted a bomb in the Lockheed Elektra that was headed from Casablanca to Lisbon. Victor Laszlo (Steven Seagal) discovers the bomb on board the plane, and in order to save the rest of the passengers, leaps out of the plane with the bomb, just before it goes off. The Elektra's wing is damaged by the blast, and the plane crashes into the sea just off the Canary Islands. The lone survivor: Ilsa Lund (Isabella Rossellini). Dazed and badly injured, she floats into a bay on a wing of the Elektra, to be found by a lonely fisherman name Paulo (Antonio Banderas).
In the meantime, of course, Rick (Bruce Willis) and Louis (Rob Schneider) have fled Casablanca and headed south to Brazzaville, where a band of Free French resistance fighters is garrisonned. Their leader is General Jean-Pierre Peugeot (Gerard Depardieu). Peugeot has learned that, deep in the heart of the African jungle, a rogue German Colonel has been specially commisioned by Hitler himself to take charge of a hideous experiment. The Germans are capturing rare, endangered Silverback Mountain Gorillas, and injecting them with a formula which increases their intelligence to almost-human levels, while also turning them into savage fighters dedicated to the cause of the Third Reich. Colonel Gerhardt Krech (Rutger Hauer)'s evil plot must be stopped at all costs. Peugeot asks for volunteers. Rick and Louis step forward.
Back on the island, Paulo has taken Ilsa into his hut, and begun to nurse her back to health. Only slowly does she recall who she is, and where she must go. In a fevered whisper, she implores to Paulo, "Take me back to Casablanca!"
In Colonel Krech's Secret Jungle Lab, we see the Colonel with his beautiful, but twisted, mistress Mercedes (Tia Carrera), and his misshapen manservant Babu (Tim Curry), who is the unfortunate result of early experiments with the gorilla formula. Krech demands that more gorillas be found to increase the ranks of his growing mutant army. Babu protests that only a few gorillas still exist in the wild, and taking any more could jeopardize the diversity of their gene pool. "What is the fate of one lousy species in comparison to the Glory of the Third Reich?" replies Krech in a brilliantly authentic German accent.
Meanwhile, Sam & Ugarte are zigzagging south, trying to stay one step ahead of Ferrari while closing in on Brazzaville and their new nemesis, Rick Blaine. Little do they realize that their circuitous path will take them dangerously close to the hidden compound of Colonel Krech...
From this point on, I only have small fragments of the shooting script. If you know what happens next, send me email and I'll fill in the rest of the plot.Memorable Lines
The original Casablanca gave us some of Hollywoods best classic, immortal lines. Brazzaville is destined to do the same for its generation. I am not at liberty to reveal everything, but you'll agree that these lines from the new film will stand on their own "as time goes by":
Krech to Rick Blaine: "All the secret laboratories in all the jungles in all of Africa -- and you have to stumble into mine!"
Rick Blaine to Mercedes: "Here's looking at you eat hot lead, kid!"
Ferrari to Sam: "I'm afraid it would take a miracle to defeat an army of mutant nazi gorillas, and Krech has outlawed miracles."
Sam to Ugarte: "If we gets seperated in de jungle, jes whistle. Y'all kin whistle, right Ugarte?"
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