Wartime Stars, Genres, and
Production Trends

Hollywood's On-screen Conversion

On 8 December 1941, a Warner Bros. story analyst filed a report on an unproduced play, "Everybody Comes to Rick's." The story centers on the American expatriate Rick Blaine, whose cafe in French Morocco is a haven for European war refugees, and whose life is disrupted by the unexpected arrival of Lois Meredith, the wanton American beauty who, years before, had broken up Rick's marriage and family and cost Rick his law practice in prewar Paris. The story analyst considered the property a "box-office natural" and a suitable vehicle "for Bogart, or Cagney, or Raft in out-of-the-usual roles and perhaps Mary Astor."¹

A few days later, the report reached the desk of the Warners production chief Hal Wallis, who was encouraged to purchase the property by his savvy story department head, Irene Lee. In light...