Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn Indelibly Team on The African Queen

 

Serving as one of the screen’s ultimate romantic comedy adventures, The African Queen provides the sole, exemplary pairing of two cinematic giants, Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, in a captivating excursion down the Nile. Helmed by John Huston, who made the on-location production quite an adventure in itself, the James Agee screenplay (from the 1935 novel by C.S. Forester) by Huston, James Agee, Peter Viertel and John Collier expertly combines comedic, dramatic and elements in a tantalizing fashion that Huston crafts into some of the most entertaining 105 minutes found on celluloid. In detailing the inventive story of craggy steamboat captain Charlie Allnut (Bogart) and the prim, spinsterish missionary Rose Sayer (Hepburn) as, circa 1914, they traverse down the river via the rickety-but-durable title vessel, finding a wealth of intrigue in the process while developing a unique, endearing bond, Huston and his faultless stars and crew engender a rare cinematic experience sure to please and thrill viewers of any age, no matter how often they watch the invigorating Sam Spiegel and John Woolf production.

John Huston continued his fruitful association with Bogart with the richly satisfying Queen. Starting his directional career with Bogart via The Maltese Falcon, possibly the detective film from Hollywood’s Golden Era, Huston would achieve additional success with the star, including Key Largo and Oscars for writing and directing his 1948 masterwork, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, while also filming one of the best film noirs, 1950’s The Asphalt Jungle. With Queen, Huston appears particularity enlivened by the choice material, deftly meshing a sense of fun throughout the film with the more tense and dramatic situations on view. He is greatly assisted in capturing the perfect ambiance for the tale by Jack Cardiff, one of Technicolor’s supreme cinematographers, who lenses the atmospheric African settings to vivid effect, allowing a viewer to feel they are in very close proximity to Charlie and Rose’s often hair-raising predicaments. After Queen, Huston would remain a primary force in cinema, both as director (Moulin Rouge, the ambitious Moby Dick, The Misfits and a fine late-career resurgence with Under the Volcano, Prizzi’s Honor and The Dead) and in his shift to acting, with an Oscar-nomination for The Cardinal under another noteworthy director, Otto Preminger, and his incisive, disturbing Noah Cross in Chinatown.

As Allnut, Humphrey Bogart gained one of the richest roles of his career after a spectacular 1940s that featured his 1941 breakthrough in High Sierra and Falcon, followed by a great run as both an anti-hero and romantic lead in classics such as Casablanca, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and, opposite costar and wife Lauren Bacall, To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, Dark Passage and Largo. With Queen, Bogart was able to show a more relaxed, comical side, and he seems to be having a ball on screen portraying the uncouth but friendly and good-hearted captain. Also, his potent chemistry with Hepburn makes the evolving relationship of their polar opposite characters amusing, believable and ultimately moving and exciting as the tale’s chief adventure comes to the fore, with scenes such as a drunken Charlie taking Rose to task and a thrilling ride down some rapids coming across with robust comic brio due to the perfectly-pitched teamwork of the stars, in their sole, ideal outing. Following Queen, Bogart would build a solid film resume in the 1950s, with Oscar-nominated work as the unstable Captain Queeg in 1954’s major hit The Caine Mutiny, the same year he reteamed with Huston for the offbeat and highly engaging Beat the Devil and formed a star box-office trio with Audrey Hepburn and Willian Holden in Sabrina, and a return to his gangster roots in the tense The Desperate Hours among his output before his passing in 1957.

Katharine Hepburn also left one of her most permanent impressions on film with her sage and alternately funny and emotionally forceful interpretation of the deeply religious, unemotional Rose, who embarks on a journey that vastly changes her demeanor and outlook. Hepburn claimed she had trouble getting a grasp on the role until Huston suggested she use Eleanor Roosevelt as a model, and in her calm, observant manner at the outset of the film, the star does appear to be channeling the legendary gracious-yet-formidable former First Lady. Armed with one of the more abundant character arcs in movies, which shows Rose becoming uninhibited and daring as the trip takes Charlie and her on a series of unexpected turns, Hepburn persuasively conveys each aspect of Rose’s complex makeup with humor, skill, and depth, allowing her great talent and intuition as one of the cinema’s best and most individual actors to shine throughout. In Rose Hepburn creates a dynamic portrait of a courageous woman finding her purpose and sense of self under surprising circumstances. Also, her singular teaming with Bogart allows Charlie and Rose to rate among the most unlikely but appealing and exhilarating hero and heroines ever to take on an arch enemy, with the audience heartily rooting for these brave, seemingly outmatched and overwhelmed underdogs to gain their ultimate objective. Hepburn would go on to gain continual praise for the rest of her lengthy career, including three Best Actress Oscars to add to her first for 1933’s Morning Glory, with her instinctive-yet-crafty, emotionally driven work as Rose Sayer maintaining a high place in a filmography full of unbeatable performances.

Robert Morley makes the strongest impression among the rest of the players as Reverend Samuel Sayer, Rose’s ultra-somber, forthright brother. Morley handles both the comic and dramatic facets of the brief role with verve, illustrating, for example, the reverend’s subtle but aghast reaction to the hungry Allnut’s out-of-control stomach pangs at dinner with dismay and dead-on whimsical aplomb, then later depicting the despondent clergyman’s shattered state after tragedy strikes his East African mission with a moving clarity that stays with a viewer. Morley would go on to add much merriment to another Huston outing via his reteaming with Bogart in Devil, and remain a leading figure on stage, screen and in literature before his passing in 1992 at 84, scoring a particularly notable late-career success with his lively comic work in 1978’s Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? Two other well-known characters actors also pop up in the film’s final act, with Peter Bull and Theodore Bikel, in his first film role of note before going on to an impressive career as an actor and folk singer, making their presences felt as the cold, skeptical adversaries Charlie and Rose encounter.

Released in L.A. in late December 1951 to qualify for the Academy Awards, The African Queen quickly captured the imagination of the general public and the substantial approval of the critics. At the box office, the stellar teaming of Bogart and Hepburn, aided by the colorful plotline Huston’s inspired direction, helped make the movie one of the biggest hits of 1952, with U.S./Canadian rentals of $4,000,000, placing it among the year’s top ten moneymakers (according to Variety). The movie placed on Time magazine’s Ten Best list, then had its Oscar campaign meet with success with four nominations for the film, including ones for Best Director, Best Actress and a win for Bogart over no less than Marlon Brando for A Streetcar Named Desire. The enduring appeal of Queen has allowed it to maintain a high status among the great 1950’s films, aided by a 1987 best-selling book by Hepburn detailing the making of the movie and latter accolades, such as inclusion on the National Film Registry’s 1994 list and a lofty #17 placement on the AFI’s 1998 “100 Years. . .100 Movies” list (after first placing in the top ten on a 1977 AFI poll). For an unsurpassed, riveting cinema experience of the adventure/comedy/romance ilk, movie buffs will be rewarded with an intoxicating watch as they journey along with Bogart and Hepburn downstream on the diverting African Queen.