Actors, Movies and Moore

Classic Movie of the month

The African Queen 1952

This most unlikely - and most popular - African adventure film of the 50s was shot largely on location in the Congo, under the most grueling conditions. Forty intrepid people, headed by director John Huston and stars Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, spent nine weeks in the jungle, battling heat, insects, disease, and exhaustion, to film Huston and James Agee`s adaption of C.S. Forester`s novel The African Queen.

This tale of two wildly mismatched people who share romance and a grand adventure in German East Africa of 1914 teamed Bogart and Hepburn for the first time in roles that were drastically different from any they had ever played:

Hepburn as Rose Sayer, the prim, highly moral sister of a British missionary, and Bogart as Charlie Allnut, the disreputable, gin-soaked captain of a broken-down launch called The African Queen.

Against all reasonable odds, they take the Queen on a dangerous journeyto a lake dominated by the German warship Louisa. The odds are even greater against their sinking the warship, but they succeed. By this time, they have also fallen in love.

None of this is really believable, especially the notion that these two people would ever become romantically attached. But viewers looking forlogic would have to look elsewhere. The African Queen is a romp, a tongue-in-cheek adventure that never takes itself too seriously and is all the more enjoyable because of that. Undoubtedly the film hasits share of exciting sequences:

Charlie, dragging the Queen through the jungle swamp, is suddenly covered with leeches; Rose and Charlie miraculously survive the Queens perilous ride over a waterfall; married by the German ship`s captain and about to be executed, Charlie and Rose hear a joyful noise - the good old Queen has fulfilled its destiny and blown up the Louisa !

Bogart`s ingratiating and expert performance won him an Oscar.

Movies of the last Months

February;April ;May ; June ; July ; August ; September ; October ;November ;

December;

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page

Index ; Biography ; Filmography ; Television ; Pictures ; About