The African Queen (NR) ** 1/2 Starring Humphrey Bogart, Katherine Hepburn Directed by John Huston Year Released: 1951 A Review by Frankie Paiva
Classics rarely translate through the generations. What may have been a spectacular journey into the unknown for audiences in the 30s and 40s might have seemed different for those in the 60s and 70s. But what’s really frustrating (to me personally as a movie critic) is to not be able to see what all of the praise was about in the first place. This is how I feel about The African Queen, one of the later Humphrey Bogart movies, and (in my opinion, don’t sue me or anything) not one of his best. While I’m sure that it played with a much different reaction when it was first released in theaters in 1951, this is a film that (for me) has failed to translate itself for my generation.
Charlie Allnut (Bogart, definitely at a change of pace from his detective movie work) is captain of a boat that delivers mail to African colonies during World War I. One this particular day he’s delivering to a brother and sister who run a church for the Africans and try and convert them to Christianity. Rose Sayer (Hepburn) is uptight and religious, quite accustomed to her nice, clean way of life. When troops (I believe German) attack the camp she is forced to flee and join Charlie as they sail down the river. She comes up with an idea to attack an enemy warship that Charlie eventually goes along with.
All the usual sorts of plot cliches happen, at first they are afraid and argue with each other, then they start to fall in love. There are many challenges to greet them along the way. Rapids, leeches, enemy posts, it’s like the filmmakers went through a list of all the possible dangers and checked them off one by one. Will they survive the horrible journey? Or will the boat sink and the two of them be gone forever? Almost all of the goings-on seemed predictable to me.
I think that I have a much different view of the film than anyone viewing it around the original time that it came out would. The cinematography is just beautiful. The entire movie was filmed on location in Africa and the shots of alligators jumping into the river and flamingos hopping in the water make up some of the best parts of the movie. I also think that the film was sort of making a point by saying that women could go on adventures and survive right along with the men. An interesting side fact (that proves my point), the film’s tagline is, “The Greatest Adventure Man Ever Lived...With A Woman!� But for all of the praise surrounding it, (I’m really in trouble this time. Number 77 on the greatest films of all time list on IMDB and I didn’t like it.) I didn’t think that anything really happened in the story, and therefore I didn’t find the film very interesting at all. While Katherine Hepburn does give a convincing performance, I didn’t think that the film was up to par with what it could have been. Obviously I have a different view than when original audiences viewed it. Few people knew much about Africa then, and not many people had ever been on such a grand adventure. Despite this, I still can’t give The African Queen too much credit, so it gets ** 1/2 stars.
The Young-Uns: The film contains some slightly scary scenes involving rapids and thunderstorms. There is also quite a bit of drinking and a gross scene that has to do with leeches. Good Age 12 & Up
A Review by Frankie Paiva The 12 Year-Old Movie Reviewer E-Mail me at SwpStke@aol.com Visit my website at http://www.homestead.com/teenagemoviecritic/mainpage.html
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