Casablanca Oscar could fetch $3m at auction

Michael Curtiz’s best director Oscar for the movie classic Casablanca is going up for auction this week and is expected to fetch $US2.5 million ($A2.49 million) to $US3 million ($A2.99 million), according to auctioneers Nate D Sanders.

The Academy Award won in 1943 by the Hungarian-born Curtiz, who died in 1961, will be auctioned on June 28 by the Los Angeles-based company.

Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, and set in the Moroccan city during World War II, is one of the most enduring romances in American cinema. In 2007, the Los Angeles-based American Film Institute named it as the third best film of the past 100 years — via redwolf.newsvine.com