Mogambo
by John Ford
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Ava Gardner, Clark Gable, Donald Sinden, Grace Kelly, Philip StaintonDirector: John Ford
Brand: Warner Brothers
Cinematographer: Freddie Young
Cinematographer: Robert Surtees
Editor: Frank Clarke
Producer: Sam Zimbalist
Writer: John Lee Mahin
Writer: Wilson Collison
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 115 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-06-20
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of Mogambo
Movie Review: Not Quite What I Expected
Summary: 3 Stars
I stumbled across Mogamabo at the library before I got a chance to see Red Dust, which I had heard was excellent. The cover art riveted me, and I looked forward to seeing Ava Gardner as the smoldering temptress. Unfortunately, Gardner's character came across as sniveling and whiney. She appears to be immediately attracted to Clark Gable's character, but when he doesn't return her interest she becomes pouty and sullen. At least twice she ran away to cry, which would have been more understandable if she and Gable's character had ever communicated interest. I just wanted to shake her and say, "You're a beautiful woman. Tons of men would want you. Move on!" Her catty comments and continual attempts to get attention made her character reek of desperation and was quite unbecoming. She was not the strong female character that I am used to seeing in other classic movies. On top of that, I finally saw Red Dust, and there is just no comparison. Gardner does not hold a candle to Jean Harlow in this movie.
Then there is Grace Kelly's character. She is plain, and her waffling is annoying. She is just... boring. She even looked boring. In her other movies, I've found her quite beautiful, but in this movie she looked a little washed-out. Overall, I couldn't really tell why Gable's character would want either of these women.
On a more positive note, I enjoyed Gable's performance. It was interesting to compare to his earlier work in Red Dust. He had a youthful attractiveness in Red Dust that made it easy to see how he would be able to win over the women, and in Mogambo he seems to bring a sense of maturity to the role that changes the tone somewhat. Both performances were good. Additionally, the African scenery was beautiful.
All in all, I would recommend seeing Red Dust above Mogambo, but this is not the review of a Red Dust fanatic poo-pooing the remake; these were the impressions I had before seeing Red Dust, and seeing that movie only confirmed it. Mogambo is alright, but don't expect the best performances from Gardner and Kelly.
Summary of Mogambo
"Hey! A kangaroo," Eloise "Honey Bear" Kelly says when she sees a baby rhinoceros being lifted from an African pit. A Broadway showgirl stranded in the African jungle, Eloise is better suited for the urban jungle. Yet one look at safari guide Victor Marswell and she knows exactly where she wants to be. Times change but the fun remains when Clark Gable portrays man's-man Victor in a sassy, vibrant remake of Gable's 1932 Red Dust. Ava Gardner plays tough-hided, vulnerable-hearted Eloise. And Grace Kelly is the prim anthropologist's wife who catches Victor's roving eye. Both women earned Oscar? nominations,* with Kelly also winning a Supporting Actress Golden Globe. Directed by John Ford and filled with his lung-swelling zest for the great outdoors, Mogambo is classic entertainment for anyone's great indoors.This remake of the 1932 Red Dust is famous for using the very same romantic leading man--21 years after the fact. But when that leading man is Clark Gable, what's a little gray hair in the temples? Gable was certainly still the great strutting rooster of American movies in 1953, when Mogambo made him a safari guide juggling two much younger women. First up is good-time girl Ava Gardner, who's game for a little harmless romp with Gable after she gets stood up by a playboy in the African jungle. But when Grace Kelly--the proper wife of a visiting anthropologist (Donald Sinden)--arrives on the scene, a new affair begins. The location shooting is much in the vein of King Solomon's Mines, although the story is much more intimate. This feels like a bit of a holiday for Hollywood's top director, John Ford, and not one of his most committed pictures. Still, Ford's unparalleled eye for backlit exteriors and for the way people move around in rooms is on display, even when the script wobbles. People always joke about Gable being too old for this movie, but that doesn't take into account his durable movie-star appeal--he certainly looks every inch the Hemingwayesque hunter, and it's not that big a stretch to imagine Gardner or Kelly in the clinches with him. Indeed, he and Grace Kelly had an offscreen affair during shooting, graying temples or not. --Robert Horton
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