Last one for today, and it's a doozy. I love this movie so much.
The African Queen 1951
An inspired piece of casting brought Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn together. This is a comedy, a love story, and a tale of adventure, and it is one of the most charming and entertaining movies ever made. The director, John Huston, has written that the comedy was not present either in the novel by CS Forester or in the original screenplay by James Agee, John Collier and himself, but that it grew out of the relationship of Hepburn and Bogart, who were just naturally funny when they worked together. Hepburn has revealed that the picture wasn't going well until Huston came up with the inspiration that she should think of Rosie as Mrs. Roosevelt. After that, Bogart and Hepburn played together with an ease and humor that makes their love affair -- the mating of a forbidding, ironclad spinster and a tough, gin-soaked riverboat captain -- seem not only inevitable, but perfect. The story, set in central Africa in 1914, is so convincingly acted that you may feel a bit jarred at the end; after the lovers have brought the boat, the African Queen, over dangerous rapids to torpedo a German battleship, Huston seems to stop taking the movie seriously. With Robert Morley as Hepburn's missionary brother, and Peter Bull. Bogart's performance took the Academy Award for Best Actor. (Peter Viertel, who worked on the dialogue while the company was on location in Africa, wrote White Hunter, Black Heart -- one of the best of all moviemaking novels -- about his experiences with Huston.
Great movie. Just great.
Posted by sheilaAbsolutely the best movie, and so many phenomenal stories about it - you said it, Sheila, it's a doozy.
This is the movie I fell in love with Humphrey Bogart. Up until I saw this one, I respected the hell outta him, but I don't think I was in love. Lauren Bacall's book describes him so lovingly and worshipfully (seems appropriate to me) that the windows had been cracked, but there was no breeze. Then this movie, and he became just the most lovable, kind man. Sigh. Plus little miss marvelous at the other end of the boat in her tattered lace outfit and her great big fantastic self.....THIS MOVIE ROCKS.
Posted by: Stevie at April 25, 2005 2:32 PMStevie - I love how his character kind of bucks your assumptions ... Like: my assumption was that, somehow, she would have to be the one to crack his exterior, etc. But it seems like - he was the one who allowed it to happen. He became an old softie - he's so intimate with her, you know? Watch him as she picks the leeches off him ... he's a tough guy, but he is truly frightened in that moment. He can barely deal with what is going on.
Like: in so many movies of this era, the guy is hard and tough, the woman flighty and insistent ... and her insistence ends up wearing him down (all with good humor of course)
But not in this one.
No. This guy is more grown up than that. He just plain old falls in love with the dame, you know? All on his own.
Posted by: red at April 25, 2005 7:37 PM