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...