Piano of Casablanca's 'As Time Goes By'

The Casablanca piano is full of surprises you probably never caught. It's a custom-built 58-key prop on wheels, painted in a rusty Moroccan style to match Rick's Café. Dooley Wilson never played a real key — he mimed the entire performance while an off-screen pianist handled the actual music. The letters of transit were even hidden inside it. The story behind this iconic instrument goes much deeper than what you see on screen.

Key Takeaways

• The piano was a custom-built 58-key studio upright on wheels, painted in a rusty Moroccan pattern matching Rick's Café aesthetic.
• Dooley Wilson never played real keys; he mimed on a dummy keyboard while an off-screen pianist recorded the actual performances.
• Believed manufactured by Kohler & Campbell in 1927, the piano sold at Bonhams in 2014 for $3.4 million.
• Bidding opened at $1.6 million and closed within three minutes, outpacing The Wizard of Oz Cowardly Lion costume's $3.077 million sale.
• The letters of transit, hidden inside the piano for narrative symbolism, sold separately at the same auction for $118,750.

The Custom 58-Key Piano Built for Casablanca

The piano from Casablanca wasn't your standard concert grand — it's a custom-built, 58-key studio upright on wheels, measuring just 39 x 41 x 22 inches.

You're looking at a miniaturized upright design featuring wood and plasticine keys — a clever example of miniature mechanics crafted specifically for film production.

Experts believe Kohler & Campbell manufactured it in 1927, with serial number 252636, and a label inside confirms it passed through Richardson's of Los Angeles.

The wheels weren't decorative; they gave the crew the flexibility to reposition it anywhere on set.

Its rusty Moroccan paint pattern, tied to Rick's Café aesthetic, underwent a decor restoration by Warner Bros. in the early 1980s, ensuring it retained its distinctive visual identity decades after filming wrapped. The piano's storied provenance is further confirmed by an FNP marking on the verso, directly linking the instrument to the Warner Bros. prop room. In 2014, the piano was auctioned by Bonhams for $3.4 million, reflecting the extraordinary historical and cinematic significance attached to the instrument.

The Reason Dooley Wilson Never Touched a Real Key

Behind Sam's soulful performances sits one of Hollywood's most convincing illusions — Dooley Wilson never actually played a single key. His casting choice wasn't about piano skills; producers wanted his warm voice and natural charisma to bring Sam to life emotionally.

Wilson trained as a drummer and singer, spending years in vaudeville without ever developing formal piano technique. So the production used an off-screen pianist for all actual recordings while Wilson employed a mime technique on a dummy keyboard. Director Michael Curtiz kept cameras focused on Wilson's expressive face rather than his hands, and close-ups of Ingrid Bergman's reactions pulled your attention away from any technical inconsistencies. This kind of illusion shares something with the theatrical deception found in painting, where Caravaggio used dramatic spotlight-like lighting to draw eyes toward expressive faces and away from surrounding detail.

The result? A performance so convincing that audiences assumed Wilson was a skilled pianist for decades afterward.

The Pianist Who Actually Played the Casablanca Piano on Screen

While Dooley Wilson charmed audiences from the screen, someone else's fingers did the actual work — and pinning down exactly whose remains surprisingly contested.

Jean Plummer, a Los Angeles-based studio pianist, carries the strongest studio attribution. She recorded multiple "As Time Goes By" performances and had paid session time covering every piano moment in the film. The piano heard during Sam's scene with Ilsa bears little resemblance to Elliot Carpenter's later recording with Wilson, weakening Carpenter's popular claim.

This performance controversy doesn't stop there. Earl Roach claimed involvement but appears in no production or AFM pay records. Georgie Burke's name surfaces through secondhand accounts with no documentation. William Ellfeldt was present on set but in what capacity remains unclear.

Forensic musicological comparison of soundtrack audio against studio acetate recordings concluded that the pianist on the soundtrack performs very different things than Elliot Carpenter does on the DECCA studio recording released in late 1943.

Adding to the on-screen illusion, the piano used during filming had only 58 keys rather than the standard 88, underscoring how the musical presentation was staged from the start.

The debate, decades later, still isn't fully resolved.

The Broadway Origins of "As Time Goes By"

Before "As Time Goes By" ever echoed through Rick's Café, it debuted on a Broadway stage — Herman Hupfeld wrote it for Everybody's Welcome, a musical comedy that opened at the Fulton Theatre on October 31, 1931. That Broadway debut featured Frances Williams delivering the song to audiences who received it with modest enthusiasm. The show ran 139 performances — neither a hit nor a flop — and the song settled into niche jazz ballad territory.

Rudy Vallée recorded the first version on July 25, 1931, even before opening night, gaining it quiet popularity. You might find it surprising that such an iconic song spent over a decade in relative obscurity before Casablanca transformed it into one of cinema's most recognizable melodies. In the film, the piano parts were actually performed by studio pianist Jean Plummer, as Dooley Wilson, who portrayed Sam, was a drummer and could not play piano.

Warner Brothers acquired the rights to the original stage play Everybody Comes to Rick's — which featured the song at its emotional core — just one month after Pearl Harbor attack, paying Murray Burnett and Joan Alison $20,000 each for the rights.

How "As Time Goes By" Almost Got Cut From the Film

But producer Hal Wallis overruled him. Wallis had already listed "As Time Goes By" in pre-shooting memos and wasn't letting it go.

Reshoot constraints sealed the decision permanently — Ingrid Bergman had cut her hair for her next film, dialogue already referenced the song directly, and Jack Warner refused reshoots outright. Steiner had no choice but to weave it into his score, ultimately making it the film's defining musical thread. Writers and creatives facing their own creative blocks can use a random idea generator to spark unexpected inspiration much like the unplanned circumstances that cemented this iconic song's place in cinema history.

Herman Hupfeld wrote the song back in 1931 for a Broadway musical, long before it became the romantic backbone of one of Hollywood's most celebrated films. Notably, Dooley Wilson was a drummer in real life, meaning the piano playing heard in the film was actually performed by studio pianist Jean Vincent Plummer.

Why Rick Hid the Transit Papers Inside the Piano

When Ugarte hands Rick the stolen letters of transit — documents lifted from a murdered Nazi courier granting free passage to Lisbon and beyond — Rick tucks them inside Sam's piano, the one place no suspicious officer would dare disturb. The concealment strategy works because the piano carries an air of innocence that deflects scrutiny, even from Captain Renault.

But the choice runs deeper than practicality. The piano holds emotional symbolism tied directly to Ilsa and Paris — a repository of suppressed longing Rick can't bring himself to abandon. Hiding something so powerful inside something so painful is no accident. The papers stay safe precisely because that piano is untouchable, not just physically, but emotionally. Nobody searches what they assume holds only memories. The real-world piano used by Dooley Wilson as Sam later became a celebrated auction item, estimated by some to be worth between one and three million dollars.

In the film, it is Ugarte — played by Peter Lorre — who first reveals that the letters of transit bear the signature of General Weygand, who at the time served as Delegate-General in French North Africa, making the documents virtually impossible for the authorities to rescind.

How Casablanca Revived a Forgotten Song's Chart Life

The revival didn't stop there. Ray Anthony's band recorded it again in 1952, hitting number ten.

Then Humphrey Bogart's death in 1957 sparked film festival screenings of Casablanca, pulling the song back into public consciousness yet again. Neil Bogart, who later founded Casablanca Records, even chose the label's name partly out of admiration for Humphrey Bogart. The label went on to achieve enormous success, much like the enduring cultural legacy of Saturday Night Live, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in October 2025.

The original Rudy Vallee recording, reissued after *Casablanca*'s release, spent 16 weeks on Your Hit Parade, reaching number one for four of those weeks.

The Casablanca Piano's $3.4 Million Auction Sale

Decades after Casablanca first graced the silver screen, its most iconic prop finally went up for auction. On November 24, 2014, Bonhams New York sold Sam's painted upright piano for $3.4 million, outbidding even the Cowardly Lion costume from The Wizard of Oz, which fetched $3.077 million.

The auction frenzy was real — bidding opened at $1.6 million and closed within three minutes. You'd expect such a centerpiece to carry some provenance debate, and it did: the piano had been owned by a Los Angeles dentist since the 1980s and appeared at exhibitions before its first-ever auction offering.

The sale included a signed Dooley Wilson photo and a film copy of Casablanca, making it one of Hollywood memorabilia's most celebrated transactions. The auction was a collaboration between Bonhams and Turner Classic Movies, who jointly organized the Hollywood-themed event titled "There's No Place Like Hollywood." Notably, the letters of transit hidden inside the piano also sold at the same auction, fetching $118,750 separately.