The African Queen
The African Queen (in Argentina and Venezuela, La reina africana; in Spain, The African Queen) is a 1951 Anglo-American adventure film directed by John Huston, based on the 1935 novel of the same name by C. S. Forester.
The film featured Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morley, Peter Bull, Theodore Bikel and Walter Gotell in the lead roles.
The African Queen won an Oscar for Best Leading Actor (Humphrey Bogart), and had three other nominations: Best Director, Best Leading Actress, and Best script.
In 1994, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Plot
World War I has begun and in German East Africa, Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart), a Canadian who transports goods up the Ulanga River with his old boat, called The African Queen, he comes to a village that he visits regularly. After being invited by a Methodist missionary, the Reverend Samuel Sayer (Robert Morley) and his sister Rose (Katharine Hepburn) to have a, for him, uncomfortable tea - due to the orchestration that mounted their guts during the snack "The Guts they roar at me as if I had a hyena in my stomach"—, he says goodbye to his hosts and leaves. Soon after, a platoon of German colonial soldiers appears, burning the village and carrying off the inhabitants. Only the missionary and his sister remain among the ruins. He, shocked by the destruction of his congregation by the soldiers, goes mad and dies.
Charlie returns to the village, having heard about other destroyed villages, to take the missionary and his godsister back to civilization in his boat. There he learns of the death of the alderman of the Kungdu I Methodist Church, and after burying him, he urges Rose to leave the place, since he assumes that the Germans will be looking for him to requisition her boat.
Charlie knows the dangers of the journey and warns Rose, but she tells him she's willing to take the risk. During the trip down the river, she takes control of the boat despite not having the remotest idea of navigation (throughout the film the captain will be teaching Rose how to handle the boat) or knowing the dangerous tributary of Lake Victoria and They experience various adventures together. Charlie is a drunkard and, when he wakes up from a severe hangover, he sees, amazed, but helpless before Rose's determination, how she spills and throws at her the dozens of bottles of gin that he so lovingly guarded. In his only rebellious reaction during the adventure, he calls her "spinster, devout and shy". Then, as before, he continues to submit to Rose's almost always successful initiatives.
In the course of the trip they must pass in front of a German fort -the Shona-, where the soldiers shoot at them. A bullet destroys a hose on the machine and the boat can only move forward with the force of the river's current, but both manage to survive. Between Charlie and Rose, two adults, but simple and naive, a growing sympathy begins to grow. They must go through a section of turbulent currents of the river, between large rocks. The boat suffers several damages, specifically the propeller shaft is bent and one of its blades is broken, forcing them to stop and find a way to repair them.
Notable vicissitudes are the attack of a tremendous cloud of mosquitoes that intimidate Rose who is covered with a tarp by Charlie and the one who suffers from leeches (when running aground at the mouth), for which he feels irrepressible disgust, and from which Rose frees him by covering them with salt.
Rose begins to plot revenge for the death of her brother, targeting the German gunboat Königin Louisa, which patrolled the shores of Lake Victoria, whose existence Charlie had told her about, and she convinces to adapt to The African Queen two improvised torpedoes made with two oxygen bottles that he fills with explosives, devising a simple detonator mechanism, by shock, which he places on the bow, one on each side of the stem, a little above the water, to sink the gunboat. Both at this time and when the propeller repair took place, Charlie Allnut shows great mastery and ingenuity in mechanical work.
They go through another difficult stretch, and after passing it, Charlie in his excitement, kisses Rose, later being flabbergasted by her action. However, Rose is also attracted to him and passion begins to grow between them. The last part of the river, before reaching Lake Victoria, is the most difficult. It is a delta in which they get lost and have to push the heavy boat with great difficulty to be able to continue. Exhausted, they see how the waters of the river go down and how the longboat is trapped in the silt. Charlie comes down with a fever and Rose says a prayer for them, convinced that they will die.
It is at that moment when torrential rain begins to fall, which changes the situation; the movement of the boat awakens Charlie who watches, to his delight, as the boat finally reaches the lake. Already recovered, they see in the distance that the German gunboat is heading towards them, and Charlie decides to hide along with the boat among the vegetation. The gunship gets closer and closer, then suddenly turns and comes back. It was just a patrol. Rose again insists on her plan to torpedo the gunboat, this time counting on Charlie.
With the Union Jack flying the ship, the plan is in full swing and they both know they could die trying, when a storm breaks out and The African Queen capsizes, splitting the ship apart. couple. Charlie is captured and is interrogated by the captain of the gunboat (Peter Bull) and orders his hanging for espionage. Meanwhile, a lifeboat from the gunboat picks up Rose, much to the relief of Charlie, who thought she was dead.
The German captain then decides to hang them both. Now with both of them with the noose around their necks, Charlie asks the captain to marry them before he dies, he accepts, and, after doing so, he orders the execution to continue. At that moment, a huge explosion, caused by the collision of the gunboat with the torpedoes of the half-sunken The African Queen, sinks the warship. Charlie and Rose appear among the wreckage of the ships, miraculously alive. Clinging to a board of The African Queen, they swim to shore, singing, seeking to get on with their lives.
Cast
- Humphrey Bogart - Charlie Allnut
- Katharine Hepburn - Rose Sayer
- Robert Morley - Reverend Samuel Sayer
- Peter Bull - Captain of the Empress Louisa
- Theodore Bikel - First Officer
- Walter Gotell - second officer
- Peter Swanwick - first Shona officer
- Richard Marner - second officer of the Shona
