Review of The African Queen (1952) by Stephen R — 29 Mar 2010

An Alphabetical Guide to Every Film You Ever Need to See Vol.1.

For director John Huston, The African Queen was his chance to make a proper adventure movie on the rivers of the Congo, and to a certain extent (maybe even to a larger extent) was an opportunity to shoot at some wild game on off days. For Humphrey Bogart, this was the film that would finally earn him a long overdue Academy Award, and it was a chance to work with his pal Huston again after they had teamed so successfully on films like The Maltese Falcon and The Treasure of The Sierra Madre. It would take an extraordinary woman to wrestle this film from the grasp of these two drunken juggernauts. Katharine Hepburn was that woman.

The African Queen opens in German East Africa, in the straw hut that serves as the church for the services of Rev. Samuel Sayer (Robert Morley). His sister Rose (Hepburn) mans the organ as the two of them sing hymns over the wail of tribesmen who clearly don't have much command over the English language, but Rose's voice remains strong and clear as she pounds on an instrument that has clearly seen better days. Later in the film, we find out that Rose and her brother have been in Africa for 10 years. 10 years of preaching to people who may or may not understand a word she's saying is exemplary of the kind of blind determination that Rose possesses, and it's this aspect of her character that drives the film.

Not to say that she comes off as tough, quite the opposite in fact. When riverboat captain Charlie Ullnut (Bogart) arrives to deliver the duo their mail Rose seems downright demure, but that won't last for long. Unfortunately, Mr. Ullnut isn't just delivering the mail on this trip. He also has news that war has broken out in Europe (that would be WWI) and the Germans might be raiding the colonial villages to try and turn tribesmen into soldiers. They do, and after Samuel loses a bout with malaria Rose is left alone in the burnt out shell of the village that she and Samuel spent a decade building. When Mr. Ullnut returns he offers Rose passage on his ship, The African Queen, but a trip home will not be enough for Rose Sayer.

She soon devises a plan to use The African Queen to sink the fabled Geman gunship The Luisa. All they have to do is figure out a way to build a torpedo, navigate the boat over some rapids, sneak past a German base without being shot, and try not to get eaten alive by a vast assortment of wild animals. Here in lies the importance of the casting of Hepburn and Bogart. There is no reason why Ullnut should go along with Rose's plan, but if any woman was ever strong enough to convince a man to take this risk it was Katharine Hepburn, and if there was ever a guy cool enough to say "what the hell, let's give this thing a shot" it was Humphrey Bogart.

No film actress has ever had the physical range of Katharine Hepburn. She could throw herself around like a rag doll one minute, and be the picture of elegance the next, and neither one would seem forced. In The African Queen her character undergoes more of a subtle unwinding. Rose is as prim and proper as The Queen of England at the beginning of the film, but after she pilots the boat over a set of rapids she seems to undergo a profound, almost sexual, awakening. It's not long after this that her relationship with the gin swilling Ullnut takes a romantic turn- something we couldn't' imagine the buttoned up Rose at the beginning of the film doing, and by the end of the film she is down in the muck pulling the African Queen through the reeds, a roughneck on an equal par with her male counterpart.

John Huston's direction is not flashy, but it is solid. He keeps the pace moving along nicely, never slowing down but never moving so fast that we lose sight of where we are, and he wisely never lets the tone of the film get too dark. This is after all an adventure story, it should be fun to watch, and it is.

The film was shot almost entirely in Africa so it looks much better than other nautical adventures of the era which were sometimes quite obviously filmed in swimming pools. The special effects used are quite archaic, but they come off as more quaint than laughable, and let's face it they are not the star of this show. The African Queen is a chance to see two of the greatest, if not the absolute greatest, movie stars of all time on a trip through the jungle. Hepburn. Bogey. Huston. This is Hollywood royalty.