Reel Classics: The African Queen

Reel Classics today takes a look at the film that won Humphrey Bogart the only Oscar of his career—The African Queen.  Humphrey Bogart was a favorite of mine and appeared in a num­ber of my favorite movies (Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, High Sierra, and Key Largo, just to name a few).  In The African Queen, he is paired with one of the all-time great actress­es, Katherine Hepburn.  Their char­ac­ters could not be more opposite. 

The African Queen was adapt­ed from a 1935 nov­el of the same name writ­ten by C. S. Forester.  Katherine Hepburn plays the very prop­er and stiff sis­ter, Rose Sayer, of her British mis­sion­ary broth­er Rev. Samuel Sayer (Robert Morley).  They are serv­ing in German-con­trolled East Africa in August 1914.  Their mail and sup­plies are deliv­ered by a small riv­er steam­boat named The African Queen. It is cap­tained by the very coarse, liquor-drink­ing Canadian Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart). 

One day while mak­ing a deliv­ery Charlie informs the broth­er and sis­ter that war has bro­ken out between Britain and Germany and that they could very well be in dan­ger.  They choose to stay, and soon after German colo­nial troops come in and burn the vil­lage, tak­ing the res­i­dents cap­tive.  Rev. Sayer protests and is beat­en by an offi­cer.  He dies after the beat­ing, hav­ing become deliri­ous with a fever.  Charlie helps Rose bury her broth­er, and she agrees to escape with him on the steamboat.

They begin their jour­ney down the riv­er with Rose preach­ing and Charlie swill­ing alco­hol.  He men­tions to her that the Germans have a gun­boat patrolling the lake down­riv­er that pre­vents the British from attack­ing the German-led troops.  Rose comes up with the plan to use the steam­boat as a tor­pe­do boat to sink the German gun­boat.  She even­tu­al­ly con­vinces Charlie to accept the plan.  During their trip down­riv­er they are plagued by many mis­for­tunes along the way (insects, heat, wild ani­mals, and tor­rid rapids to name a few), but the jour­ney helps bond this unlike­ly couple. 

The film has been described as hav­ing a “per­fect mix of action, romance, and com­e­dy.” A review in Variety describes The African Queen as “an engross­ing motion pic­ture... Performance-wise, Bogart has nev­er been seen to bet­ter advan­tage.  Nor has he ever had a more know­ing, tal­ent­ed film part­ner than Miss Hepburn.” 

Humphrey Bogart’s real-life part­ner, Lauren Bacall, accom­pa­nied him on the loca­tion trip to Africa.  She assist­ed in mak­ing camp and cook­ing and struck up what was to become a life-long friend­ship with Katherine Hepburn. 

The cast and crew had their dif­fi­cul­ties while on loca­tion in Africa.  Most of the mem­bers became ill due to poor food, unfil­tered drink­ing water, and of course the dif­fi­cult heat and humid­i­ty.  It was report­ed that only Bogart and direc­tor John Huston did­n’t get sick as they lived on canned food and whiskey.  Bogart was quot­ed as say­ing, “All I ate was baked beans, canned aspara­gus, and Scotch whiskey.  Whenever a fly bit Huston or me, it dropped dead.” 

Katherine Hepburn refused to drink any­thing but water and as a result, suf­fered a severe case of dysen­tery.  At one point she was so sick dur­ing the ear­ly scenes in the church that a buck­et was placed off-cam­era for her.  She lat­er told the sto­ry where she made a mad rush to the out­house only to find a black mam­ba snake inside—then mak­ing a bee-line into the trees.

An ear­li­er attempt had been made to bring the sto­ry to film.  In 1938 a pro­pos­al to make the film with Bette Davis and David Niven did not come to fruition.  Later, in 1947, the part of Rose was again offered to Bette Davis with James Mason in the role of Charlie.  Davis had to drop out of the project due to preg­nan­cy.  The ver­sion we know and love was released in 1951.  It report­ed­ly earned $4 mil­lion in North America. 

The African Queen was said to be one of Walt Disney’s favorite films, and it was said that his ride “Jungle Cruise” was pat­terned after the adven­tures on the riv­er.  In 1994 The African Queen was select­ed for preser­va­tion in the United States National Film Registry, and in 2007 The American Film Institute list­ed the movie as #65 on their list of the Greatest Movies. 

The boat used in the film was built in England in 1912 and was uti­lized by the British East Africa Company from 1912–1968 to take pas­sen­gers and car­go across Lake Albert (locat­ed between Uganda and the Belgian Congo).  It was retired and lat­er brought to Key Largo in Florida—docked next to a Holiday Inn.

Though Bogart and Hepburn have the major­i­ty of screen time, a cou­ple of oth­er notable actors are present.  Robert Morley was pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned as Rev. Sayer, and Theodore Bikel appeared as a navy offi­cer.  Bikel was also a well-known folk singer.

Lux Soap broad­cast a radio play where Bogart played Charlie Allnut and Greer Garson took on the role of Rose.  In 1977 a tele­vi­sion sequel con­tin­ued the sto­ry of Charlie and Rose with Warren Oates and Mariette Hartley.  It was hoped that the tele­vi­sion sequel would be picked up for an ongo­ing series, but that failed to happen.

The Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB) rates The African Queen at 7.7 out of 10.  Rotten Tomatoes has a crit­ics’ score of 96% and an audi­ence score of 86%.  I found it avail­able for stream­ing for free on Roku on two sites—Movieland TV and Hoopla (avail­able with your library card).  The Clark County Public Library also has the DVD on the shelf. 

The African Queen tru­ly is a reel clas­sic, and I encour­age you to check it out (be it the first time or the twen­ti­eth time).  I’ll repeat a line I used above—it’s a “per­fect mix of action, romance, and comedy.”

Be watch­ing for the next Reel Classic, and check out the trail­er below.