Movie #180: The African Queen

Movie #: 180
Movie Title: The African Queen
Year Released: 1951

Director: John Huston
Notable Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morley

Short Description: In Africa during WWI, a gin-swilling riverboat captain is persuaded by a strait-laced missionary to use his boat to attack an enemy warship. (IMDB.com)


Rank on the Top 100 Lists (as of 1/7/2013)

AFI.com: #65
IMDB.com: N/A
Ranker.com: N/A
Lifed.com: N/A
Empire.com: N/A
FilmCrave.com: N/A
FlickChart.com: N/A



Date Watched: 1/21/2016

Grade: 1.5 out of 5 (Marginal)

Rationale: I found The African Queen to be utterly obnoxious and slightly pretentious at times. Based on the IMDB description you’d think this might be good. Sadly, all of the good points are wasted by terrible dialog that doesn’t stand up against the test of time or misleading characterizations. Calling’s Humphrey Bogart character a “gin-swilling riverboat captain” may be accurate, but that only comes into play in a mildly negative way a whopping one time until Katharine Hepburn’s character dumps all the gin into the river. He wasn’t so much “persuaded” into using his boat as a bomb as he was badgered, belittled, and blackmailed after he saves her, out of the goodness of his own heart, from being stranded all alone in the African jungle. That he calls her “old girl” in an affectionate way on numerous occasions is baffling because, at least to me and in this day and age, I wouldn’t assume that’s a compliment. And seriously, her character just stopped hating him what seems like five minutes before they’re talking about having grandkids. That made no sense. Not everything was bad, particularly when they were trying to pull the boat though the marshy area of the river, but plenty of things made this hard to like.