The African Queen (film)
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"Behold three legends of the American cinema: Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn and director John Huston! Bogie won an Oscar® for this role, in which he portrays an ultra-alcoholic version of his famous archetype. An immortal classic about people who come together under unimaginable circumstances."
— MUBI's take
The African Queen (film)
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This film has been preserved in the National Film Registry in 1994.
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The African Queen is a 1951 British-American adventure film adapted from the 1935 novel of the same name by C. S. Forester. The film was directed by John Huston and produced by Sam Spiegel and John Woolf.
Why It Rocks
- C.S. Forester's novel involved a suicidal downriver journey by the reprobate captain of a 30-foot steamer and an orphaned missionary.
- Great performances from Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn
- In Bogart's case, it's his fifth time making a film with John Huston, and Charlie Allnutt is his first completely sympathetic role since early in his career. It allowed him to play drunk and slovenly, yet still heroic.
- Some changes from the novel done for the film were improvements.
- One major way the film differs from the novel is a ten-minute scene that opens the film. The novel starts after the Germans destroyed a missionary camp. But the film takes the time to so how the camp operated first, while also mocking the missionaries' religious fervor and coarsening Forester's characters. In the film, the natives don’t know the words to the hymns they are singing and abandon Samuel’s service at the first distraction.
- Allnutt, who's brisk and efficient in the novel, is introduced in the movie as a sort of stumbling buffoon.
- Samuel dies in the opening pages of the novel, but gets considerably more screentime in the film to skewer the missionary’s pretensions.
- Rose is driven and relatively humorless in Forester's book, but the film turns her into a warm, appealing heroine.
- Huston followed his instincts, which meant trusting the material as he did in his earlier novel adaptations. Forester's book works partially because of it's matter-of-fact tone, and in the film he used a similar emotional distance that allowed the majestic scenery and wildlife to overpower the two main stars.
- Like the book, the film dwells on details: This includes how to fire up a steam engine, where to find fuel, and how to replace a drive shaft.
- The simple, unambiguous nature of the story and characters connected directly with moviegoers.
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