Casablanca’s Hilarious Alternative Final Scene Featuring Saturday Night Live’s Kate McKinnon: Pragmatism Carries the Day!

The clas­sic film Casablan­ca is peren­ni­al­ly ripe for par­o­dy, but for some rea­son, its spoofs usu­al­ly con­fine them­selves to Rick­’s Café Améri­cain. It’s rare that any­one gets fun­ny with the famous final scene, where (spoil­er!) Humphrey Bog­a­rt’s Rick sac­ri­fices his per­son­al hap­pi­ness, insist­ing that his beloved board a plane that will safe­ly car­ry her and her hus­band, a leader of the Czech Resis­tance, away from Vichy-con­tolled Casablan­ca.

There are excep­tions of course.

Bugs Bun­ny…

The Simp­sons…

Woody Allen…

Sat­ur­day Night Live’s Kate McK­in­non bests them all with a dewy-eyed Ingrid Bergman impres­sion nail­ing the Swedish-born actress’ glo­ri­ous­ly cin­e­mat­ic mid­dle Atlantic accent, described by writer Trey Tay­lor in The Atlantic as a learned “hybrid of Britain’s Received Pro­nun­ci­a­tion and stan­dard Amer­i­can Eng­lish as it exists today.”

It’s a refresh­ing change to see the Ilsa char­ac­ter dri­ving the laughs.

McKinnon’s scene part­ner, J.K. Sim­mons, gives an equal­ly cred­i­ble per­for­mance as Bogart’s Rick. The award-win­ning actor has demon­stra­ble com­ic chops, but for this sketch, the writ­ers wise­ly had him play it dead seri­ous.

The play­ers are fur­ther abet­ted by the design team’s faith­ful exe­cu­tion of the orig­i­nal, includ­ing cos­tumes by Tom Broeck­er and Eric Jus­t­ian. Who wouldn’t want to wear that hat?

Much of Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, and Howard Koch’s orig­i­nal dia­logue was left intact. It’s repro­duced below for your scruti­ny, along with Bog­a­rt and Bergman’s per­for­mance.

You’ll notice one sig­nif­i­cant line reas­sign­ment, neces­si­tat­ed by this Ilsa’s prag­mat­ic response to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of wind­ing up in a con­cen­tra­tion camp.

As in the orig­i­nal, love does not tri­umph, but they’ll always have Paris.

INT./EXT. AIRPORT HANGAR — NIGHT

Rick takes the let­ters of tran­sit out of his pock­et and

hands them to Renault, who turns and walks toward the hangar.

RICK

If you don’t mind, you fill in the names. That will make it even more offi­cial.

RENAULT

You think of every­thing, don’t you?

RICK

(qui­et­ly And the names are Mr. and Mrs. Vic­tor Las­z­lo.

Renault stops dead in his tracks, and turns around.  Both Ilsa and Renault look at Rick with aston­ish­ment.

ILSA

But why my name, Richard?

RICK

Because you’re get­ting on that plane.

ILSA

(con­fused)  I don’t under­stand. What about you?

RICK

I’m stay­ing here with him ’til the plane gets safe­ly away.

Rick­’s inten­tion sud­den­ly dawns on Ilsa.

ILSA

No, Richard, no. What has hap­pened to you? Last night we said —

RICK

Last night we said a great many things. You said I was to do the  think­ing for both of us. Well, I’ve done a lot of it since then and it all adds up to one thing. You’re get­ting on that plane with Vic­tor where you belong.

ILSA

 (protest­ing) But Richard, no, I, I —

RICK

You’ve got to lis­ten to me. Do you have any idea what you’d have to look for­ward to if you stayed here? Nine chances out of ten we’d both wind up in a con­cen­tra­tion camp. Isn’t that true, Louis?

 Renault coun­ter­signs the papers.

RENAULT

I’m afraid Major Strass­er would insist.

ILSA

You’re say­ing this only to make me go.

RICK

I’m say­ing it because it’s true. Inside of us we both know you belong with Vic­tor. You’re part

of his work, the thing that keeps him going. If that plane leaves the ground and you’re not with

him, you’ll regret it.

ILSA

No.

RICK

Maybe not today, maybe not tomor­row, but soon, and for the rest of your life.

ILSA

But what about us?

RICK

We’ll always have Paris. We did­n’t have, we’d lost it, until you came to Casablan­ca. We got it back last night.

ILSA

And I said I would nev­er leave you.

RICK

And you nev­er will. But I’ve got a job to do, too. Where I’m going you can’t fol­low. What I’ve got to do you can’t be any part of. Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it does­n’t take much to see that the prob­lems of three lit­tle peo­ple don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Some­day you’ll under­stand that.  Now, now…

Ilsa’s eyes well up with tears.  Rick puts his hand to her chin and rais­es her face to meet his own.

RICK

Here’s look­ing at you, kid.

If McKinnon’s take on Ingrid Bergman leaves you scream­ing for more, here are Hillary Rod­ham Clin­ton, Justin Bieber and Ellen DeGeneres.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Twin Beaks, Sesame Street’s Par­o­dy of David Lynch’s Icon­ic TV Show (1990)

A Fun Par­o­dy of Down­ton Abbey Fea­tures George Clooney & the Cast of the Show

The Bea­t­les Per­form in a Spoof of Shakespeare’s A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream, 1964

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.Follow her @AyunHalliday