Casablanca Ending Followed Hays Code

The 1942 film Casablanca could not simply end with Rick Blaine, played by American actor Humphrey Bogart, and Ilsa Lund getting back together because Hollywood's Hays Code forbade portraying a married woman leaving her husband for another man. Ilsa was still married to resistance leader Victor Laszlo, so the filmmakers had to keep the romance within the Production Code's moral restrictions. The final ending instead had Rick send Ilsa away with Laszlo, producing the bittersweet conclusion that became one of the film's defining moments.

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