'Casablanca' at 70: Showing again on LI

With all due respect to Humphrey Bogart, the problems of three little people really do amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, especially if they're Rick Blaine, Ilsa Lund and her husband, Victor Laszlo, the three members of the love triangle of "Casablanca."

On Tuesday, the world will once again welcome these lovers and also fans for a special 70th-anniversary screening at theaters in Farmingdale, Stony Brook and Holtsville. And if you've never seen "Casablanca" on the big screen, you've never really seen it, says Bogart's son, Stephen.

"It's just so much bigger and you see so much more. The clarity is amazing and you can see it from the map at the beginning of the movie," says Bogart, who attended a screening for last month's opening of the Warner Bros. Theater at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Bogart credits his father for much of the movie's enduring appeal ("Your eyes are just drawn to him"), as well as his chemistry with the other actors, particularly leading lady Ingrid Bergman.

"Were they lovers? No. But they were both fantastic actors, and that's how they got along," says Bogart, who denies rumors that they didn't get along. "They had a lot of respect for each other. If you watch the movie, you would think they had to have an affair, but no. That's called acting."

Here are a few other facts to know about "Casablanca" before seeing the movie.

Conrad Veidt, who played Major Strasser, was paid $25,000, more than anyone else in the cast. He was also the first cast member to die -- in April 1943, just months after the film's release, at age 50.

"As Time Goes By" was almost cut from the movie. The scene featuring the song was to be reshot using new music by Max Steiner. By that time, Bergman had begun filming "For Whom the Bell Tolls," and her new close-cropped hairstyle made reshooting impossible.

The airport in "Casablanca" was the same set Warner Bros. used for its Technicolor musical "The Desert Song" (1943). They just changed the name of the city on the airport sign. The set was used yet again in the 1943 George Raft adventure, "Background to Danger," with another new sign.

Paul Henreid thought accepting the secondary role of Victor would destroy his career after playing leads in the 1942 dramas "Joan of Paris" with Michele Morgan (Warners' first choice for Ilsa, but her asking price of $55,000 was too high) and "Now, Voyager" with Bette Davis. It was Davis who convinced Henreid he'd be making a huge mistake by turning down the role.

The idea that Ronald Reagan and Ann Sheridan were supposed to star in "Casablanca" is the stuff of urban legends. Warner Bros. put that story in the newspapers to generate publicity for the film they actually did make together, "Juke Girl."

French actress Madeleine LeBeau, who played Rick Blaine's spurned lover, Yvonne, is the sole surviving cast member from "Casablanca." LeBeau, 88, lives in Rome with her second husband, screenwriter Tullio Pinelli.

Screenwriters Julius J. and Philip Epstein wrote an alternate ending for the film in which Ilsa leaves her husband for Rick. Bergman didn't know until the time of shooting which man she would choose.

WHAT The 70th-anniversary screening of "Casablanca"

WHEN | WHERE 7 p.m. Tuesday at Farmingdale Multiplex Cinemas, 1001 Broad Hollow Rd., and Island 16 Cinema De Lux, 185 Morris Ave., Holtsville; 2 and 7 p.m. Wednesday at AMC Stony Brook 17, 2196 Nesconset Hwy.

INFO $13.50, fathomevents.com