The African Queen

[pro-bassoonist]

John Huston's The African Queen has received a preliminary release date for the Gallic markets: February 16.

Brian Koller:

One of the most popular of all classic Hollywood films, The African Queen was also the only movie which paired Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn together as the leads. The top-ranked American Film Institute Actor and Actress, respectively, they proved to have good romantic screen chemistry together as a middle-aged Odd Couple forced together by circumstance, and learning to like it.

Although unquestionably a good film, The African Queen itself is not as impressive as the clever Hollywood formula construction upon which it was based. The story began as a novel by C.S. Forester, who is better known for his Captain Horatio Hornblower serials.

Hollywood sat on the film rights for several years, with Bette Davis originally slated in the Hepburn role. Davis lost the role due to a pregnancy, and had to settle for making All About Eve (1950) instead.

In retrospect, it was genius to cast Bogart as the salty but kindly sea merchant, and Hepburn as the prim but headstrong missionary. The problem was that their characters were too fluid. Bogart is all too willing to risk his life (and hers, too) on an unlikely mission that had little chance of impacting the war, anyway, which was waged on the battlefields of France.

Hepburn, after spending years as a sheltered missionary, decides to wage Naval war on the Germans, and seduces an alcoholic layman who is far below her perceived class. They are practically giddy at the prospect of being hanged, after Hepburn was earlier petrified by a cloud of mosquitoes.

The feel-good story certainly delivers, but relies too strongly on coincidences. The Germans arrive at the village seemingly just after Bogart has left, delivering as an aside the news of the sudden war. Bogart shows up again the day that the failed missionary has died, despite earlier saying that he wouldn't be back for some time.

On the day chosen to torpedo the Louisa, there is a terrible storm. But they go ahead with the plans anyway, despite an earlier assurance by Bogart that the Germans would return again and again. There's hardly need to mention the incredible timing of the Louisa hitting the African Queen, after the marriage ceremony but before the execution. Somehow, Bogart and Hepburn are united again but separated from the German crew, with nowhere to go but back to the leech-infested marsh.

Then there is the stereotyped depiction of Africans as simple-minded children, of World War I era Germans as bullying oppressors, and of missionaries as clueless fools. Bogart's character rings the most true, but it is his performance that makes it credible. The African Queen is certainly a well-made film, but its spell is cast by blockbuster mechanics more than by quality.

While The African Queen was immensely successful from the start, with both critics and general audiences, it received only a single Academy Award. Fortunately, it went to Bogart as Best Actor. It was the only Oscar for Bogart during his highly regarded career, although he was nominated without winning for both Casablanca (1942) and The Caine Mutiny (1954).

The African Queen did receive three other nominations, all in prestige categories. Hepburn picked up yet another Best Actress nod, while John Huston was nominated twice, for Best Director and Best Screenplay. Huston shared script credit with James Agee, who would later receive a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for the novel "A Death in the Family".

Bogart and Huston proved to be a more productive pairing than Bogart and Hepburn. Huston's two best films as director were The Maltese Falcon (1941) and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), both of which starred the charismatic Bogart. Huston's best film was technically Chinatown (1973), where he played Faye Dunaway's amoral father. Bogart's best film was Casablanca, while Hepburn's best is probably Bringing Up Baby (1938).

Filmed on location in Africa, the story goes that The African Queen was a difficult production. Both Bogart and Huston allegedly drank heavily, and much of the cast and crew developed dysentery. Hepburn later wrote a book about the adventure, "The Making of the African Queen or, How I Went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall, and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind." (65/100)

Pro-B