We'll always have Rick's: 'Casablanca' lives on at re-creation of the nightclub featured in the film

CASABLANCA, Morocco - Our reservation was for 9 p.m., and it was my wife's birthday, so we ducked into a swanky hotel bar for a cocktail first. On the wall, a neon sign flickered: "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."

I was getting close.

Drinks done, we jumped into a red "petit taxi," as they're still called in this former French protectorate, and made our way down dusty, palm-lined streets to Rick's Cafe. Two tall guards waved us past heavy wooden doors, and another bowed with a flourish as he pulled aside a curtain,