The African Queen (1951)

Adventure films were big business in Hollywood in the 1950s. With all the trouble coming from the Cold War and the ubiquitous unsettling threat of a nuclear holocaust, people were only too willing to hand their money over at the box office to sit down for a couple of hours and watch a good old slice of escapist fun. There are few better examples of a adventure film than The African Queen.

The story, as with any good adventure film, is minimal. Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart) lives on the African Queen, an old tramp steamer, working in East Africa during World War I. He makes his living by transporting supplies for the locals, as well as occasionally delivering mail to two missionaries, Samuel Sayer (Robert Morley) and his sister Rosie (Katharine Hepburn). Charlie is in the missionaries' village when the Germans appear, burning the village to the ground and fatally injuring Samuel. With nothing left in the ruins of the village for her, Rosie agrees to let Charlie take her back to civilisation. As the two travel along the African waterways on the small boat, Rosie grows frustrated with Charlie's boarish manner, and he doesn't bother to conceal his annoyance at her cultured ways. Their fractious relationship results in Rosie pouring Charlie's stash of gin into the river, but from then on the two begin to warm to each other. The film is then free to focus on the developing relationship between the couple, and their dangerous journey as they work their way through rapids, African wildlife and German sailors, towards freedom.

The African Queen was adapted from a novel by English novelist C.S. Forester (famed for his Horatio Hornblower series of novels), published in 1935. It was produced independently by Sam Spiegel, who would go on to earn great acclaim for his work with David Lean on The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and directed by John Huston who was one of the most popular American directors at the time and had already won four Academy Awards. Guy Hamilton was also employed as assistant director, who would go on to direct some of the ultimate adventure films when working on the James Bond series - starting with Goldfinger (1964) and returning for four further Bond films in the 1970s. The decision was made to film as much of the picture as possible on location in Africa, working in Uganda and the Congo, but if this wasn't enough of a challenge for the film crew it was also decided that instead of working in black and white, which was still the standard method of filming in 1951, the film would be made in Technicolor. Because the Technicolor camera used three reels of film per frame as opposed to one for black and white, the cameras were absolutely huge, and completely unwieldy. For shots that were impossible to film on location, or simply didn't require it, the rest of the movie was filmed in Isleworth Studios in Middlesex.

The film had a particularly difficult production - it was still very rare in 1951 for American films to go on location in areas as exotic as East Africa - and the crew were ill prepared and many came down with numerous tropical diseases. A later interview with Hepburn reveals that Bogart managed to remain unaffected by any of these diseases - but that was only due to the fact that whilst she was drinking water to remain hydrated, Bogart refused to drink anything but whiskey, thereby avoiding the dysentery that plagued the rest of the cast and crew.

It's quite tough to put your finger on why The African Queen works so well. If this was made nowadays, the male and female leads definitely wouldn't be 50 and 43 respectively - they would cast as far younger actors. But the fact that these are grown up and worldly-wise adults really gives the film a kind of authenticity that's rare in Hollywood. Of course, if you're going to get two people to play these roles you can't go far wrong with Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. Bogart is now widely considered to be one of the very best movie stars ever to come from America, while Hepburn was a staple of the Best Actress Academy Award nominations for 20 years - the four which she won still stand as a record. I think that the real success in the film comes from the casting - the vast majority of time is spent with just these two characters and if they were not believable, or if they were annoying then the film would just fall apart. But because such excellent actors were cast, their relationship is believable and by the end the audience is rooting for them to stay together. It's hard to imagine it working half as well with any other actors in the role and it's telling that the film has never been remade - it surely never could be remade?

The film opened in February 1952 and immediately became a box office hit. It also netted Humphrey Bogart his one and only Oscar (for Best Actor), as well as nominations for Katharine Hepburn and John Huston (for Best Director as well as Best Adapted Screenplay with James Agee).

The African Queen was given an extensive 4K restoration in 2009, and it's really rejuvenated the film, which had previously only been available in murky prints with gloomy colours. Now it really does look fantastic and I'd recommend anyone who can to pick up the Blu-ray, which is a fantastic release. The only problem with such a thorough cleanup is that scenes such as when the couple and their boat are getting thrown around by the rapids, it can now quite clearly be seen that it is a model boat, and they are not actors on there but lifeless figures. But to focus on such things is to miss the point of the film - it's a great piece of entertainment starring two of the very best actors of their generation in strong, believable roles, and now it can finally be seen as it was intended, over 60 years after its release.