Day #42 - The African Queen

IMDB Link

The African Queen was a 1951 John Huston-directed movie starring Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. It was filmed on location in Africa, which was extremely rare for that time period. It was also a dangerous time to be in the Congo, but John Huston felt it would add needed authenticity to the film. During filming, most of the cast and crew were sick - Katharine Hepburn dealt with a severe case of dysentery - what I think is hilarious about that is that she was so disgusted by how much John Huston and Humphrey Bogart were drinking that she protested by having water only - thus the reason she was so sick. Neither Huston nor Bogie were sick during the shoot - in fact, Bogie said they drank so much scotch that if a fly landed on one of them it would have died instantly :) Apparently Bogie was not too keen on being in the jungle but Kate viewed it as quite the adventure - why am I not surprised? :)

The movie opens with Rose (Hepburn) and her brother holding a church service in German East Africa - they are British and I assume missionaries. We are also introduced to Charlie, a British man who drives a steam ship on the river, delivering supplies to the area. This is where our TV signal went out (I was watching on TCM) - so I missed the next 15 minutes or so - ah! Apparently after learning that the Germans were at war, Rose's brother protested and was killed - Rose then left with Charlie on his steamboat. Rose seemed much more refined and sophisticated than Charlie who was fairly dirty and drank a lot. The rest of the movie is about the adventures they face as they head down the river. Rose feels that they can turn the African Queen into a torpedo boat and if they head down river they can attach a German ship that is keeping a British counter-attack at bay. Charlie is scared, feeling that it would be a suicide mission and far too dangerous. Rose convinced him otherwise and so off they went. They face many obstacles such as rapids and German gunfire but along the way fall in love. Eventually they get stuck in a channel with very little water and too much mud - convinced they are going to die, they go to sleep only to wake up in the lake they have been trying to reach, having been rescued by a storm which raised their boat from the mud. I won't ruin the end - so if you want to know what happens you'll have to see it for yourself!

I really liked the second half of this movie but not the first. It took me a LONG time to get into the story - at first I really just didn't care much about the characters. That being said, once they started to hit the obstacle of the mud, I felt like the added layer I needed was there and I began to really enjoy it. I LOVED Kate and Bogie together, I thought they were fantastic - I was especially impressed with Bogie - I always thought of him as such a serious person and although I liked his charm in Sabrina, I didn't think he could play a character like this. In fact, Bogie won his only Oscar for The African Queen, beating out the favorite Marlon Brando for A Streetcar Named Desire. There is just something about Kate Hepburn - I've seen a few of her movies now and I crave more - I can't put my finger on what it is, I just really love her audacity.