Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 6, 1990 TAG: 9005060288
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By PETER WEBB MATURITY NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: CASABLANCE, MOROCCO LENGTH: Medium
The taxi-driver looked confused when I said, "Take me to Rick's Cafe," and tried to offload me at some joint owned by his brother. Finally, I told him to drop me downtown, and plunged into the Old Medina in the hope that memory would be my guide.
Someone tried to sell me a Rolex watch for $10, and there was no sign of Sydney Greenstreet or the Blue Parrot.
The chief of police was no use either. He didn't look a bit like Claude Rains and expressed skepticism about my mission.
"Monsieur," he said, "you are chasing a piece of fiction."
I said it was real to me, and he muttered something about "crazy foreigners."
After tramping the streets for several hours, I dropped into the Royal Mansour Hotel on the Boulevard de l'Armee Royale for sustenance. This was a classy joint. The bar adjoined an area that looked like a greenhouse with a waterfall down one wall and lots of shrubs and flowers all over the place. Two glasses of white wine set me back nearly eight bucks.
The restaurant justified its high prices, though. I began with a coulis de homard - slices of lobster topped by whipped cream and caviar with a lobster sauce - while my companion had raviolis stuffed with sweetbreads. She followed this with a noisette of lamb that she said was tender but reminded her of lamb hamburger. Didn't I remember some line about never taking dames to good restaurants?
The wine, though, was a revelation - a Moroccan cabernet president that had the quality of a good French burgundy. We never had wine like that in the old days. The whole tab came to just over $60, and set me up to renew the search.
After lunch, I bought a guidebook to Casablanca that listed the main tourist sights. One of them, it said, was the municipal swimming pool, which "is closed at the present time." I consulted the telephone directory and found columns of cafes - but not the one I was looking for.
By this time, I was becoming despondent. Surely someone, I thought, would have had the imagination to re-create an establishment that is known all over the movie-going world.
Finally, I took a cab to the swankiest place in town - the Hyatt Regency Hotel in the Place Mohammed V. And there it was.
Just off the lobby was a sign beckoning me to the Bar Casablanca. Inside, all the old familiar faces looked down from the walls - Bogart, Bergman, Rains, Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Paul Henreid. There were stills from the movie, posters from the movie houses and a large glossy photo showing the neon-lit entrance to "Rick's Cafe Americain."
The waiters wore trench coats and sinister-looking black fedoras and dispensed drinks as though they had been schooled in the part. There was a pianist too, but he was of the cocktail-bar variety, tinkling away at tunes composed long before he was born. And I didn't have the heart to go across, lean on the piano and say, "Play it, Sam."
There is still room, I feel, for an authentic version of Rick's Cafe in Casablanca - one that re-creates the raffish atmosphere of the original with its whiff of intrigue. The sort of place where you might be wary of having your pocket picked but would be totally confident of the quality of the champagne. And, of course, with a pianist who can play like Sam.
So if any latter-day Rick wants to take up the challenge, then one day when a beautiful woman out of his past walks into the place, he can turn to a friend and say, "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in the world, she has to walk into mine."
Here's looking at you, kid.
by CNB