Page - 137 - in Der Filmkomponist Max Steiner - 1888 - 1971

3-4- Das Drehbuch 137 „Although the Epstein Script follows in a general way the new story line, I feel it is written in a radically different vein from the work I've just finished on the first half of the picture. They apparently see the situations more in the terms of their comicpossibilities, while my effort has been to legitimize the characters and develop a serious melodrama of present day significance, using humour merely as a relief from dramatic tension. I am not presuming to decide which is the better way to attack the picture, but certainly they are different from the ground up."232 Da die Zeit drängte, zog man jetzt, kurz vor Drehbeginn, auch noch die beiden Autoren Casey Robinson und Lenore Coffee hinzu. Am 25. Mai war Drehbeginn und das Buch war immer noch nicht fertig. Die Epsteins hatten ihren Teil drei Tage nach Drehbeginn abgeschlossen, Howard Koch schrieb danach noch zwei Wochen weiter. Alle hatten sich während der Drehzeit für etwaige Änderungen zu Verfügung zu halten. Während der Dreharbeiten wussten die Schauspieler manchmal nicht, wie die Szene am nächsten Tag weitergeht, weil das Buch noch in der Nacht umgeschrieben wurde. Ein Memo von Hai Wallis an Michael Curtiz vom 6. Juli verdeutlicht die schwierige Situation, in der sich Filmteam und Drehbuchautoren befanden. „Dear Mike, I see that tomorrowyou are shooting in the Cafewith Laszlo and Ilsa arriving and with Renault putting Laszlo under arrest. All of this in the new rewrite on which we are working with Koch is the same as in your Revised Final Script, with the exception of scene 245 where Ilsa asks Rick if he had arranged everything. I am attaching the new dialogue to take the place of this scene. Everything eise remains the same. I am also attaching the new ending as Koch and I have finally worked it out. I think you will find that it incorporates all of the changes you wanted made, and I think we have successfully licked the big scene between Ilsa and Rick at the airport by bringing Laszlo in at the finish of it. It was practically impossible to write a convincing scene between the two people in which Rick could seil Ilsa on the idea of leaving without him. No arguments that Rick could put up would be sufficient to sway her from her decision to remain, and that, I think, is why we always had so much trouble in trying to write such a scene between the two people. However, by bringing Laszlo in for the additional few lines, it makes it impossible for Ilsa to protest further and in this way the scene can be finished convincingly. Will you please look over this whole section tonight and I will discuss it with you tomor- row to see if you have any other suggestions. 232 Zit. in: Harlan Lebo: Casablanca — Bebind the Scenes. S. 103.