DVD Release: Casablanca: The Complete Series

DVD Release Date: June 26, 2012
Price: DVD $39.95
Studio: Olive Films


Casablanca: The Compete Series scene

David Soul (l.) and Hector Elizondo are Rick and Louie in Casablanca.

The “Oh Yeah, I Forgot About That One” Award for the week goes to Casablanca: The Complete Series, the 1983 television show drama based on the legendary 1942 film starring Humphrey Bogart (The African Queen) and Ingrid Bergman (Notorious).

Set in the years prior to when the movie takes place, the series stars David Soul (TV’s Starsky and Hutch) in the Bogie role as Rick Blaine, an American expatriate and the owner of Rick’s Café in unoccupied Africa during the early days of WWII.  Fighting for “the cause” in his own detached fashion, Rick tries to keep things cool whenever trouble rears its head in the form of Nazis and other evil-doers.

Executive produced by David L. Wolper, the show also stars Hector Elizondo (Pretty Woman) as Captain Renault (a role played by Claude Raines in the film), Patrick Horgan as Major Heinrich Strasser (Conrad Veidt in the film), a young  Ray Liotta (Something Wild) as Sacha (Leonid Kinskey in the film),  Reuven Bar-Yotam as Ferrari (a role originated by Sydney Greenstreet in the film), and Scatman Crothers (The Shining)  as the piano-tinkling, “As Times Goes By”-singing Sam (Dooley Wilson in the film).

We’re not surprised that you might not remember the Casablanca TV incarnation as it only ran for five episodes before being cancelled, all of which are included in this two-disc DVD.

Oh, and the series is shot in color, unlike the black-and-white promo shot of Soul and Elizondo that you see above.

Buy or Rent Casablanca: The Complete Series
Amazon graphic
DVD
DVD Empire graphic Movies Unlimited graphicDVD Netflix graphic

About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.