The African Queen
by John Huston
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Peter Bull, Robert Morley, Theodore BikelDirector: John Huston
Cinematographer: Jack Cardiff
Writer: John Huston
Producer: John Woolf
Producer: Sam Spiegel
Writer: C.S. Forester
Writer: James Agee
Writer: John Collier
Writer: Peter Viertel
DVD: Region Code 2
Audio: English (Subtitles For The Hearing Impaired), Mono; English (Original Language), Mono; German (Original Language); Swahili (Original Language)
Format: PAL
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 105 minutes
Audience Rating: Unrated
Movie Reviews of The African Queen
Movie Review: One of the must see classics
Summary: 5 Stars
When a seedy river cargo boat captain and a lady from America who is somewhat on the Puritan side are forced to flee downriver from German troops, their adventures and trials are well chronicled by this fine film.
However, the story and adventures are really just a set piece to exhibit the fine one on one acting between two legends of the profession, Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn. The initial antipathy that gradually resolves into mutual respect and affection thru the course of their trial by fire is entirely believable, very funny, and often painful (for the characters, not the viewer). Bogart delivers what may have been his best acting performance.
This film was shot on location in Africa, which was pretty rare for that day. While the shots of Africa's scenic side won't trump what you have become used to seeing on the current crop of HD nature shows, it was remarkable for its time.
This is a must see classic for all fans of great cinema, and is a sterling example of how two top notch actors can hold the stage and your rapt attention virtually by themselves for an entire movie.
Summary of The African Queen
John Huston made better, more powerful films than The African Queen, but none so universally beloved, on first appearance and over the decades since. In this adaptation of the C.S. Forester novel, Humphrey Bogart (who would win the best-actor Oscar®) and Katharine Hepburn costar as an unlikely pair thrown together in German East Africa during the First World War. He's the gin-soaked skipper of what we might call the title character, a none-too-reliable steam launch chugging along the backwaters of the "Dark Continent." Hepburn's a straitlaced Methodist missionary who, following the demise of her bachelor brother (Robert Morley) and the burning of their village by Kaiser Wilhelm's troops, determines that the Queen should be used to attack the Königin Luise, a large German gunboat patrolling a lake downriver. It's an absurd proposition. Then again, John Huston and the absurd were always on familiar terms.It wasn't until he got to the Congo that the director realized what a funny picture The African Queen was going to be, thanks to the odd coupling of Bogie and Kate: "One brought out a vein of humor in the other, and this comic sense, which had been missing from the book and screenplay, grew out of our day-to-day shooting." Within the gunwales of a not-very-large boat, Huston managed to devise myriad ways to keep his two leading characters on separate visual planes even as circumstance and tender emotional urgency conspired to push them together. This was Huston's first feature film in Technicolor, and the peerless Jack Cardiff (The Red Shoes) was there to shoot it. Unfortunately, neither of them could do anything about the process-screen technology needed for, and glaringly inadequate to, the sequence of Bogart and Hepburn shooting the rapids--just about the only lapse in an enchanting fairy tale for adults. The script is credited to Huston and James Agee; the uncredited Peter Viertel, summoned to the African locations to write some additional material, would later fictionalize the experience as White Hunter, Black Heart, a savage roman ŕ clef. --Richard T. Jameson
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