Tuesday, May 7, 2013

2. The African Queen

I remember seeing an old VHS tape of this around my house when growing up and the only thing I can remember is that somewhere in the movie there was a waterfall.  So I decided to refresh my memory.

The African Queen is a story about Rose Sayer (Katharine Hepburn), who is in Africa doing missionary work with her brother.  The only other Englishman that she has contact with is Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart).  When a war breaks out in Europe, the Germans come into the village, round up all the natives, and burn down their houses.  Rose's brother suffers from shock and eventually dies leaving her all alone.  Charlie comes back to the village to check on them to find Rose all by herself.  He knows that he can't leave her all alone so he takes her aboard his boat, The African Queen.  

This is where Rose concocts her plan.  They are going to make homemade torpedoes and then run the African Queen straight into the German.  Charlie thinks that Rose is a mad woman and decides to ignore her by drinking the case of gin on board the boat.  Needless to say these two opposites fall in love.  

The story was simple and to the point and relied mostly on the acting talents of Hepburn and Bogart.  So basically a producers dream.  At times it was a little hokey but what movie from the 50's isn't.  However, the only thing I kept thinking to myself was, are Humphrey Bogart's teeth really that big?  Have I never noticed it before?  Maybe there fake teeth.  Anyways, minus the whole teeth fiasco I don't really have anything else to nitpick about.  Oh and yes.  There is a waterfall!

Rating: ***

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