Marx then goes on to derisively make his aforementioned misunderstanding known when he states that he “had no idea that the city of Casablanca belonged exclusively to Warner Brothers,” and claims that he only came to the realization that was so when he “received a long, ominous legal document warning us not to use the name”.
This statement highlights and mocks the Warner Bros.’ likely belief that, since no film prior to theirs had been set in the Moroccan city of Casablanca and had used that as their title, they have exclusive rights to the name. to the imperialistic actions of crusaders that subjugated entire territories on the notion that it was theirs for the taking. The very first line of the letter opens with the scornful statement that “apparently there is more than one way of conquering a city,” which serves to compare the pretentious claims on the part of the Warner Bros. Marx introduces his letter with a sarcastic expression of misunderstanding as he begins to enumerate the logical fallacies of the Warner Bros’ argument. In his letter to the Warner Brothers, Groucho Marx’s satirical style helps him leverage his argument in favor of the Marx Brothers being allowed to use “Casablanca” in their film title. Though the only ostensible similarity between these two films are the word “Casablanca”, the two studios that produced them found themselves entangled in a labyrinthine controversy over this single word, as Warner Brothers believed the titles to be too similar and subsequently forbade the Marx Brothers from including the word “Casablanca”. Four years later, the Marx Brothers, an American vaudeville act, released the farcical A Night in Casablanca. The Warner Brothers’ seminal film Casablanca, starring cultural icon Humphrey Bogart, was released in 1942 and went on to receive the Academy Award for Best Picture that year.