The African Queen (1951)
Saturday, April 12, 8:30 PM
A Classic Couple...

This movie adaptation of the C.S. Forrester story is now so identified with Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, it's hard to imagine anyone else ever leaving their fingerprints on it. The fact is, however, that in the 1940s, Warner Bros. owned the movie rights and made a trade announcement on April 16, 1946 that it would be filmed with Ida Lupino and Paul Henreid in the leads. Before that could come to fruition, Ida’s contract with the studio expired and Bette Davis was announced for it with John Mills as her co-star. Then it was to be Bette and Trevor Howard. Then Bette also exited the studio and Warners let the rights expire. Other producers expressed interest, and other casting combinations came and flew before Sam Spiegel and John Huston became involved as producer and director. It was the two of them who brought together the perfect duo: Bogart as a scruffy, gin-loving roustabout aboard a 30-feet river steamboat heading down uncharted waters in German East Africa during World War I; Hepburn as a prim, chatty lady missionary who accompanies him. Magic time! 

It was the first and only teaming on film of Bogart and Hepburn, but the fifth time Bogart and Huston worked together as star and director. The two men, it's said, initially exasperated Hepburn while everyone was on-location working in Africa because of their excessive drinking, although, by her own admission, she eventually came to admire them both enormously, something she covers in a book titled “The Making of  'The African Queen' or: How I Went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Life.” Huston, she said, also gave her the best piece of acting advice she'd ever been received from a director. (“Think Eleanor Roosevelt,” he told her when she was having trouble figuring how to play the indefatigable spinster, Rose.)

One thing about this movie:  no matter how many times you see it, it still feels fresh at each viewing, always grabbing your interest and attention, as if one is seeing it for the first time. It certainly was noticed by Oscar. The film itself was nominated for four Academy Awards (but, inexplicably, not for the “best picture” award), and it won the prize for Bogart as Best Actor over a hugely competitive field which included Marlon Brando in his break-through performance in “A Streetcar Named Desire”; also Montgomery Clift in “A Place in the Sun.” That turned out to be the only Academy Award Bogart won during his long career.  For years he'd scoffed at the idea of Oscars and prizes for actors but the tough guy was visibly touched when that Oscar finally did come his way.

1951. 105 minutes. Technicolor. Producer: S.P. Eagle (Sam Spiegel). Director: John Huston. Screenplay: John Huston, James Agee. Cinematography: Jack Cardiff.  Editor: Ralph Klemplen. Music: Allan Gray. Art direction: Wilfred Shingleton. Continuity: Angela Allen.  Cast: HUMPHREY BOGART, KATHARINE HEPBURN, Robert Morley, Peter Bull, Theodore Bikel . A Horizon-Romulus production, released by United Artists.