CASABLANCA
Burgundian escargots. The scruffy table and chairs are arranged
haphazardly outside a restaurant, Le Petit Poucet. A favourite
with Édith Piaf and Albert Camus, it was once the talk of the town.
The author of Le Petit Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – once
famously paid his bill there with a couple of pages torn from his
notebook. Faded framed copies stand in for the originals, which
were no doubt sold to pay for the garish ’70s renovation.
Around the corner, a cluster of daytime drinkers have emerged
from backstreet bars into the cool auditorium of the Cinéma Rialto.
As they snooze their way through the fiery afternoon, the distorted
strains of a third-rate martial arts flick slip into their dreams. The
centrepiece in a spanking new city, the Rialto was once packed to
the gunwales with French expatriates – glued to movies and matinée
newsreels. One can only imagine their communal bemusement
when Casablanca was screened there during WWII. Hollywood may
have conjured its own celluloid Arabian Nights rendition of the city,
but the reality couldn’t have been more different if it tried.
A hymn to colonial might, Casablanca was modern, refined and
utterly pristine. Everything about it was innovative and new and, for
the French, it was a grand obsession. Like a much-loved pair of tatty
old bedroom slippers, the city has got comfortable in its own skin as
it’s aged. You could argue that, for the first time in its history, it’s
utterly perfect. The buildings are a study in faded grandeur, and
a veil of glorious shabbiness covers almost everything. Best of all
though, is that the essence of Casablanca is no longer colonial –
but Moroccan through and through. Only when the French left
did the true magic of Casablanca come to the fore, creating the
magnificent lived-in feeling in which the city now bathes.
When the French started to slope back to Europe in the mid-’50s,
yet another vibrant version of the city percolated forth. A prime
example of this reinvention is the Stade Vélodrome. This 1930s
Art Deco cycle track is a jewel, and a cornerstone of Casablanca’s
über-gritty underbelly. These days it’s not so much about spinningA new tramway runs along
Boulevard Mohammed V.
BELOW Specials from past
decades at Le Petit Poucet.
RIGHT The Cinéma Rialto