The Reel Thing

Call it a perfect Hollywood ending.

A small-town guy gets duped by a big-league movie studio when the prop he bought at an auction 23 years ago turns out to be a fake. He sues and the studio settles. But here’s where the plot thickens.

Plaintiff-protagonist Robert Noe of Ojai tells the studio he doesn’t want money, just the real goods: an authentic chair from the 1942 movie classic “Casablanca.”

That is, after all, what Noe thought he’d bought in 1975 at a KCET auction when he paid $350 for a sturdy leather and wood chair, which he proudly displayed in his Ojai home over the years.

After months of negotiations, Warner Bros. Pictures agreed, and on Monday afternoon Noe swapped his meaningless hunk of mahogany for a Tinseltown treasure--handpicked from the studio’s Burbank basement.

“I think this is our winner,” Noe said, selecting a wooden chair with red leather seat.

Noe, 51, and his lawyer, Glen Reiser, selected the replacement from seven possible chairs in the Warner Bros. vault--all of which appeared in scenes shot in the office of Claude Rains’ character, Capt. Renault.

The terms of Noe’s unusual out-of-court settlement didn’t end there, however. After selecting his new chair, Noe and a group of friends were allowed to venture into the studio’s museum.

They gathered around the original piano from the film, and with the tenor voice of Ventura County Superior Court Judge Steven Perren leading the charge, sang the film’s melodic standard--”As Time Goes By.” The judge, who had no connection to the case, agreed to come along simply as a vocalist.

Although KCET was named as a defendant in the case, the settlement with Warner Bros. resolves the claims against both defendants.

A lawyer for Warner Bros. would not comment on the settlement, saying it was the studio’s policy not to discuss matters of litigation.

Noe’s lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court last June. It claimed that KCET and the Warner Bros. prop department intentionally misrepresented the value of the chair when it was auctioned.

The lawsuit specifically alleges that the chair, donated by Warner Bros., was wrongfully advertised. A script from the sale of Item 5181 reads in part:

“You must remember this . . . a wooden and leather chair from the movie ‘Casablanca.’ The star--Humphrey Bogart. The chair--a prize for Bogart fans. We know there are millions of you out there--Let’s hear from you.”

The sales pitch hooked Noe, a huge fan of the movie. It was not until 1995, when he told an antiques dealer about the chair, that Noe discovered it was not the genuine article.

Marcia Tysseling, president of Star Wares, a Santa Monica-based company that specializes in acquiring and appraising film collectibles, scanned scenes from the movie and could not find a single shot in which the alleged Bogart chair appeared.

Although Noe indicated in court papers that he was not interested in money, an authentic prop from a film classic like “Casablanca” essentially amounts to the same thing.

With the skyrocketing value of film and television memorabilia, Tysseling said the chair Noe originally bought at auction could have been worth up to $50,000--if it had been authentic.

Auction houses are fetching sizable bids for even small film props these days. A small lamp from “Casablanca” sold for $14,950 at a Christie’s auction last year, and a chair from another Bogart film, “The Maltese Falcon,” sold for $32,000 last summer.

Carrying his new chair under his arm, Noe walked into the studio’s private museum and set the chair down next to the famous peach-colored piano. On either side stood costumes that Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman wore in the movie.

At the piano sat Philippe Berger, a piano player Noe brought along from Ojai. As Berger began to play the famous melody, Noe quipped:

“This may be the beginning of a wonderful friendship.”