'Casablanca' Trivia-- Part 3: Playing Games and Groucho

PLAYING GAMES

Because of script changes nearly every day, Bogart had free time on the set.  He could usually be found playing chess against Paul Henreid (Victor Laszlo), who later claimed, "I beat the hell out of him time and time again."

Bergman, on the other hand, learned to play poker on the set.

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MARX BROTHERS MAYHEM

The Marx Brothers wrote a parody of the movie shortly after it was released, even naming Groucho's character "Humphrey Bogus," but they changed the storyline after Warner Brothers issued a formal inquiry concerning the title:  "A Night in Casablanca."

Groucho used the inquiry for a publicity stunt, writing a series of letters back to the studio in which he told them:  "Professionally, we were brothers before you were."  The comedy featuring Groucho as the newest manager of  the Hotel Casablanca, was released in 1946.

--CootBrother

August 2 in History: Declaration, Census, Bad Day for Wild Bill, Black Sox and Gulf of Tonkin

From the Chicago Tribune.

**  1776   Members of the Continental Congress began signing the Declaration of Independence.  (And most people think it was signed on July 4, 1776.)

**  1790   The enumeration of the first U.S. census began.  When it was over, the final total was 3,929,214.

**  1876   "Wild Bill" Hickok was fatally shot from behind while playing poker in a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory.  He was holding two aces and two eights, a combination that became known as the "Deadman's Hand."

**  1921   After two hours of deliberation, the jury in the "Black Sox" trial of eight White Sox players returned a verdict of not guilty in the plot to fix the 1919 World Series.  (However, Baseball Commissioner Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis banned them from baseball for life.)

A real sad day for us Sox fans as we might have had that successful reign that the Yankees had after that.

1964   The Pentagon reported the first of two attacks on U.S. destroyers by North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin.  This was a major step for the U.S. escalation in the Vietnam War.

--  SadSoxCoot

Ten Things About Cheating-- Part 4: Advantage Tools and Robert Kennedy

7.  About a century ago, many American companies that made legitimate playing cards and poker chips also sold a variety of "ADVANTAGE TOOLS"  devices to help cheaters.  These included "card pricks," "poker rings," "punches" or "peggers" to mark a card by creating a subtle indentation, as well as "holdout machines" that allowed cheaters to pull cards out of the deck and hold them until needed -- either up their sleeves or under the table.

Getting caught, of course, might prove to be somewhat unhealthy for the cheater.

8.  ROBERT KENNEDY, who would later become a senator and U.S. Attorney General admired for his support of civil rights and his crackdown on the mob, left his Rhode Island boarding school at age 16 after becoming involved in a cheating scandal.  His roommate and other witnesses said he passed around a stolen English exam, but it is not clear whether he left school on his own or was expelled.

Nothing Up My Sleeve.  --Cooter