5. Someone Slightly Altered Casablanca And Sent It To 217 Film Agencies
In general, hoaxes are perpetrated and perpetuated merely for mischief and the sake of humour, but this particular hoax provides an interesting insight into the workings of the film industry. Casablanca is one of the most famous films of all time, released in 1942 and directed by Michael Curtiz. It stars Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman and won the 1943 Academy Award for Best Picture. In 1982, though forty years after its original release a writer named Chuck Ross decided to play a hoax on the film industry at large, by specifically using two-hundred and seventeen film agencies. The purpose of Ross's hoax was to see if contemporary Hollywood film agencies could recognise great writing (presumably he was a tad frustrated with his getting nowhere). Ross decided to slightly alter the script of Casablanca. He titled the script Everybody Comes To Rick's (which was the name of the original play on which Casablanca was based, written by Americans Murray Burnett and Joan Alison in 1940 and bought by Warner Brothers for twenty-thousand dollars). Not only that, but he changed the name of Rick's friend from Sam to Dooley. The results of the hoax were fairly insightful. Ninety agencies returned the script to Ross unread, seven didn't reply, thirty-three recognized the script as Casablanca, eight thought it was similar to Casablanca and thirty-eight read it, didn't recognise it but still rejected it. Of the agencies that read it, didn't recognise it and rejected it, Ross received feedback like:
"To bridge the gap between 'talented writer', which you now are, and 'professional writer', which is yet to come, you need professional help. And that will have to be paid for. I could recommend a 'literary surgeon' who would help you, but are you ready to accept professional help????"
and
"Too much dialogue, not enough exposition, the story line was weak, and in general didn't hold my interest".
Truly everyone is a critic.