Warner Bros. Digital Distribution announced today that to celebrate its 70th anniversary three-disc Blu-ray + DVD combo edition release in March 2012, the Academy-Award winning classic "Casablanca" will be streamed online for free via its official Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/CasablancaTheMovie, on Wednesday, May 16, 2012 at 7:00pm EST/PST.
The film, which won the Oscar for best film in 1944 and starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, will be available for one screening per Facebook account, and viewers must begin watching "Casablanca" before 9:00pm to catch the full feature.
A synopsis of "Casablanca," was printed as part of a press release issued by Warner Bros. as so: "Casablanca": easy to enter, but much harder to leave, especially if you're wanted by the Nazis. Such a man is Resistance leader Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), whose only hope is Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), a cynical American who sticks his neck out for no one - especially Victor's wife Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), the ex-lover who broke his heart. Ilsa offers herself in exchange for Laszlo's transport out of the country and bitter Rick must decide what counts more - personal happiness or countless lives hanging in the balance."
The Facebook screening, according to Warner Bros., also celebrated the release of a new eBook initiative to give movie viewers a new way to get a deeper look at films like "Casablanca," called "Inside the Script." The feature, available for Amazon Kindle, NOOK by Barnes & Noble, and Apple's iBookstore, contains the rare materials from the movie via the Warner Bros. Corporate Archive, including the film's actual shooting script.
Warner Bros. gave an in-depth description of "Inside the Script": "Inside the Script" offers movie fans an all-access pass to go behind-the-scenes of the films they know and love. Every "Inside the Script" title includes the film's complete shooting script in a customizable eBook format; dozens of chapters about the script and the film that detail the movie's development; rare historical documents such as production notes, storyboards and candid photos; and an interactive image gallery of costumes, on-set stills, movie posters, set designs and behind-the-scenes photos. "
Other classic features found in the "Inside the Script" series include "Ben-Hur," "An American in Paris" and "North by Northwest."
