For the next three months, Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I will be watching cozy, mysterious, or comfy movies. Erin made these awesome graphics detailing what we are doing and what movies we will be watching.
This week we watched The African Queen, which I am not sure was really a comfy, cozy movie but I forgot some of the details when I suggested it. I’m not sure why I picked it for this feature, but it’s still a good movie and we did find some cozy(ish) moments in it as a romance began to blossom in the middle of a very stressful situation.
The movie, released in 1951, stars Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. It was directed by John Huston.
It is both an adventure movie and a romance.
Katherine plays Rose Sayer, a missionary in Africa, and Humphrey portrays Charlie Allnut (which Katherine pronounces as Ulna throughout the movie).
Rose had stationed been in African villages with her brother for a decade and meets Charlie when he travels up the river in his small, rickety steamboat to deliver mail and other supplies. The steamboat was dubbed The African Queen by Charlie.
On one visit Charlie tells Rose and her brother Sam that he probably won’t be there for two months because war has broken out. The movie starts in 1914 so this is the beginning of World War I.
He leaves and within a matter of hours or days, or I’m not sure which, the Germans march through with an army made up of Africans and begin to burn down the village. This leaves Rose’s brother in a state of shock and also affects his physical health and he passes away a couple months or so later.
Rose is now alone in the village but luckily not for long as Charlie finds her and she asks him to take her with him up the river.
Rose and Charlie are very different. She is very prim and proper and British and he is very “uncouth” one might say. My husband said that the movie is based on a 1935 novel and that the main characters in the novel are both British. Charlie has a cockney accent. Humphrey refused to try to pull that accent off so he was made Canadian for the sake of this movie.
The chemistry between the two is great with them bouncing quips off each other throughout the film.
When Rose finds out they are upriver from a German ship that will be used to launch an offensive against the British, and that Charlie has potential weapons on The African Queen, she decides they will travel this very dangerous river with rapids, crocodiles, and a German fort, and blow up the German ship.
Charlie, for his part, thinks she’s nuts but agrees to help her – that is until things get more and more dangerous and he’s certain they are going to die in the rapids.
When he tells her in the beginning that it isn’t possible to take the steamboat down the river she says, “How would you know? You’ve never tried.”
He scoffs. “I’ve never tried shooting myself in the head either.”
In another scene, Charlie gets drunk on the gin that’s on the boat and Rose is not happy about it.
“Oh come on,” Charlie says. “It was just human nature.”
Rose raises her chin and says, “Human nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put on this world to rise above.”
There are several comments or lines like that throughout the film which turns romantic somewhat by accident when Charlie celebrates one of their accomplishments and kisses Rose on impulse.
Kissing and being romantic was most likely a huge challenge for Katherine because she, like most of the cast and staff, caught dysentery and malaria and was very sick for the time in Africa.
Huston wanted the film to be as realistic as possible so he shot on location in Uganda and the Congo for part of the film with the rest being shot in London, outside and on a sound stage. Scenes where the actors were in the water were deemed to be too dangerous in Africa.
It was so realistic that Katherine and others got sick, as I mentioned, and during one scene when she’s playing the piano, she actually had a puke bucket off-scene just in case and I guess there were a few “cases.” Poor woman.
Boggie later joked that he and Huston didn’t get sick because they drank whiskey instead of the local water.
As a bit of trivia, the only Oscar Boggie ever won was for this film. Katherine was nominated for best actress but did not win. Huston was also nominated for best director but didn’t win.
Katherine won four Oscars and was nominated 12 times over the years. She also won an Emmy and two Tony Awards.
This comment came from my husband who always has a cheery note about when or how one of the actors died as we watch a movie: “To think he (Boggie) would only have five more years after this.”
At one point, when Charlie apologizes for getting drunk Rose says that is not upset about that.
“You think it was your nasty drunkenness I minded? You promised me you’d go down the river.”
“Well, I’m taking my promise back,” Charlie says.
Little Miss looked at me and said, “Fun fact. You can’t take back a promise.”
So there you go. Some wisdom for your day.
When this movie came out, both Boggie and Hepburn were older and some critics said moviegoers wouldn’t want to see two old actors fall in love.
According to movie critic Roger Ebert, though, that wasn’t true. Many people wanted to see the movie and loved it despite it being released at the same time as A Streetcar Named Desire with Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh.
The novel was much darker but Huston credited Boggie and Hepburn with making the movie have some humor in it.
“They were just naturally funny when they worked together.” Miss Hepburn, on the other hand, gives the credit to Huston. “The humor didn’t just grow, it was planted. The picture wasn’t going well until Huston came up with the inspiration that Rosie, my role, should be played as Eleanor Roosevelt.”
Ebert said of Bogart’s role: “Whatever the case, the many scenes Bogie and Kate play together are superb. Bogart, as the gin-swilling proprietor of a banged-up riverboat, created a strange little laugh for his role. He was shy, amused and intimidated by this Bible-reading missionary lady who washed out her unmentionables each and every night. And the laugh, meant to conceal his unease, also serves to display the thoughts of a taciturn man. He does not often laugh at the things Rosie finds funny.”
There was one scene with leeches and I wanted to know if they were really on Boggie. A quick search online brought me to a site full of trivia which let me know that: “While filming the scene where Charlie finds his body covered with leeches, Humphrey Bogart insisted on using rubber leeches. John Huston refused, and brought a leech-breeder to the London studio with a tank full of them. It made Bogart queasy and nervous, qualities Huston wanted for his close-ups. Ultimately, rubber leeches were placed on Bogart, and a close-up of a real leech was shot on the breeder’s chest.”
It is an interesting site and I was going to leave a link here to it but it says the site is not secure so I won’t do that – just in case.
The bottom line was that I did like this film but it wasn’t necessarily comfy, cozy or creepy. I guess it was a mix of comfy and adventure.
To read about Erin’s take on the movie, hop on over to her blog: https://crackercrumblife.com/
If you would like to join in on our Comfy, Cozy Cinema you can print out our watch/post schedule here:
Arsenic and Old Lace (Sept. 28)
Oct. 5 (break for us or you to catch up!)
The Lady Vanishes (October 13)
Strangers on a Train (Oct. 19)
Rebecca (Oct. 26)
Little Women (November 2)
Tea with The Dames (November 9)
