Where To Watch
This episode of Maverick reused sets (and a plot) from Casablanca
There is also a character very similar Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine.
The second-season episode of Maverick "Escape to Tampico" follows Bret as he travels south of the border to bring back a man wanted for murder in New Orleans. What prompts this escapade? Money, of course. Specifically, money he desperately needs after an uncharacteristic losing streak at the poker table.
Gerald Mohr plays Steve Corbett, the man Bret is hoping to find. Corbett is an American expatriate living in Tampico, Mexico, who started a gambling establishment named La Cantina Americana. In years past, he was paid handsomely for services he provided to the Confederacy during the Civil War. He is wanted for murder in his home country, he never drinks with the patrons of his establishment and he likes a good white suit.
Notice any similarities to a certain American in the classic 1942 film Casablanca? Humphrey Bogart's character, Rick Blaine, owns Rick's Café Américain and fought in the Spanish Civil War (for the losing side). Rumors indicate he may have killed a man before arriving in Casablanca and he never shied away from an all-white tuxedo.
Gerald Mohr even looks like Humphrey Bogart! Not to mention the most concrete (no pun intended) connection of them all — parts of the Café Américain set were used to make La Cantina Americana for this episode of Maverick.
One clear difference between the two stories? Blaine decides to stay in Morocco while Corbett follows the woman he loves back to the States, willing to face his past.
Sometimes TV shows took stories or characters from other places in ways that felt like a cheap copy. Though, at a time when writers had to come up with roughly 30 episodes per season, it's hard to really blame them.
"Escape to Tampico" is different. It’s a clear homage to the original material with connections ranging from story arcs to the actual set.
Related
14 Comments
I pointed out that El Cheapo Warner Brothers used a reaction shot of German officers in full uniform at a table in "Casablanca" for this Maverick episode!
Talk about contempt for the audience. Also in a New Orleans Madi-Gras episode, they used footage from a 1940's Madi-Gras, you can see cars, wrist watches on the men, etc.
Adam West then played the part in an episodes of LAWMAN, COLT. 45 and SUGARFOOT (At this point Warners was trying to convince ABC to pick up a DOC HOLIDAY series and these were "backdoor pilots" but ABC passed.)
The last actor to play Doc Holiday at Warner Brothers was Peter Breck, who had just finished his 2-season run of "Black Saddle". He played Doc in one of the final Season 4 episodes,and 5 of the 13 season 5 episodes of MAVERICK - with no mention of the earlier appearances by Mohr as Holiday! He also played the character differently than Mohr or West.
Ironically, Mohr also played Doc Holliday on an episode of the half-hour western "Tombstone Territory" (one of the more successful TV westerns of the time - 3 seasons) that aired 17 days after he made his second appearance as Doc Holiday on MAVERICK!
-1.jpg)
And not just with TV shows.
Any feature film that WB made throughout its history was ripe for reuse on their many TV shows in the '50s and '60s (For a while there, WB had at least one third of ABC's prime time schedule).
MeTV ought to bring back as many of WBTV's shows as possible - and in Prime Time.
All Hail W. Hermanos!
