movie trivia: timing is everything

On December 7th 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States entered the Second World War. The next day a Warner Brothers reader began to evaluate the unproduced play "Everybody Comes To Rick's" as a possible movie. It was perfect timing as studios raced to get patriotic pictures into production. Two weeks later, Warners' executive in charge of production, Hal B. Wallis, decided to make the film, changed the title to mirror the exotic romanticism of the studio's hit Algiers, and announced it as a done deal before contracts were signed (Writers Murray Burnett and Joan Alison received a record $20,000 for the rights to an unproduced play).