You Must Remember This

• It was 70 years ago today that the now-famous film Casablanca premiered at New York City’s elegant Hollywood Theater “to coincide with the Allied invasion of North Africa and the capture of Casablanca.” During that 10-week showing audiences were first introduced to nightclub proprietor Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), his ex-lover Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman), her Resistance leader husband, Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), and club pianist Sam (Dooley Wilson), who made the song “As Time Goes By” a classic. The film didn’t go into general release, however, until January 23, 1943. Casablanca wasn’t a huge hit to begin with, but it made Bogart a romantic leading man and it has weathered well among young lovers. Click here, here, and here to read more about this 70th anniversary.

• Actress Noomi Rapace, of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo fame, guest stars in The Rolling Stones’ new “Doom and Gloom” music video.

• Because I was away for Thanksgiving, I missed last week’s news that Broken Harbour, by Tana French, won the 2012 Irish Book Award in the Crime Novel category. Also contending for that honor were Slaughter’s Hound, by Declan Burke; Vengeance, by Benjamin Black; The Istanbul Puzzle, by Laurence O’Bryan; Too Close for Comfort, by Niamh O’Connor; and Red Ribbons, by Louise Phillips.

• Speaking of commendations, Uriah Robinson (aka Norman Price) of Crime Scraps Review alerts us that author Åsa Larsson’s Till offer åt Molok has won the Swedish Crime Academy’s 2012 award for Best Swedish Crime Novel. Meanwhile, Peter Robinson’s Before the Poison captured the Academy’s Best Foreign Crime Novel prize.

• Happy 60th anniversary to The Mousetrap.

• And here’s just the thing for writers in search of a next line.