The Story
Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart in “The African Queen”
German East Africa, 1914: Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart), a Canadian boatman, is running a little steamer, The African Queen, carrying supplies to small villages at the outbreak of World War I. He comes to a village under the authority of a stuffy British missionary, Rev. Samuel Sayer (Robert Morley), and his spinster sister, Rose Sayer (Katharine Hepburn), who is utterly devoted to her brother. She tends the sick, plays the organ at church services, and acts as if the African wilderness were nothing more than an extension of peaceful England. When German troops invade and destroy the village, Rev. Sayer dies, and Charlie offers to take the distraught Rose back to safety. So he heads downriver with Rose on board, and the two are soon at odds with one another. Rose is appalled at Charlie’s constant gin swilling, and when he gets drunk, he scorns her as a “crazy psalm-singing skinny old maid!” That prompts her to dump his ample liquor supply, a painfully hungover Charlie unable to stop her.
The journey continues, and Rose comes up with a plan to contribute to the war effort against the Germans. She suggests that they sail down the dangerous Ulonga-Bora River to Lake Tanganyika, where they will sink the powerful German ship Louisa. Charlie thinks she is crazy, but her persistence wears him down. The pair sets off in the old, bobbing, steam-belching tub on a wild adventure. They overcome every obstacle, yet eventually lose their way in the reedy channels at the river’s end. Exhausted, hungry and ill - and very much in love by now - they lie down to die at the bottom of the boat. Heavy rain finally raises the river level and carries the Queen out into the lake, where they revive and spot the enemy ship straight ahead of them. Charlie fashions some makeshift torpedoes and attaches them to the bow. They launch a night attack against the Louisa, but a raging storm overturns their boat. Both are picked up by the German warship at dawn and sentenced to death by the ship’s captain. Their touching last request, that they be married before the execution, is granted. With the ropes around their necks, Rose and Charlie exchange vows with smiles on their faces. All appears lost until the capsized Queen rises to the surface and strikes the Louisa with its torpedoes, causing the German ship to explode and sink. As the warship goes down, Charlie and Rose joyously swim toward a friendly shore, blissful as husband and wife and as accomplished saboteurs.
Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart in “The African Queen”
John Huston magnificently filmed C.S.Forester’s novel mainly on location in the Belgian Congo and Uganda, but the even bigger treat of this picture is the superb combination of Hollywood legends Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, who make one of the most remarkable on-screen couples in movie history. Bogart received the 1951 Best Actor Oscar at the 1952 Academy Awards Ceremony for his portrayal of Charlie Allnut; Katharine Hepburn was nominated but lost to Vivien Leigh’s Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire.
In 1987, Katharine Hepburn published a memoir on the making of this film called The Making of The African Queen, or How I went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind (read that book; it is just as delightfully unusual as its title - or, as one contemporary critic put it, the book is “like Katharine Hepburn - slim and irresistible”).
Star Bios
Katharine Hepburn was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on May 12, 1907 (“despite everything I may have said to the contrary”, as she wrote in her memoir) into a prominent New England family. After graduating from Bryn Mawr College in 1928, she embarked on a sometimes turbulent career as a stage actress, appearing in several summer stock and Broadway productions. Her appearance on Broadway in The Warrior’s Husband (1932) led to a film contract with RKO Studios, where she made her screen debut as John Barrymore’s daughter in A Bill Of Divorcement (1932). Her unconventional looks, mannerisms, and unmistakable voice put off some moviegoers at first, but her endearing performance as Eva Lovelace in Morning Glory (1933) won her the first of her record four Academy Awards for Best Actress. In her early films, Hepburn portrayed memorable female characters, showing off her versatility in movies like Little Women (1933), Alice Adams (1935) and Stage Door (1937).
By the time she teamed up with Cary Grant for the classic screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby (1938), her film career was on the skids, and she had been labeled “Box Office Poison” by the American movie exhibitors. She returned to Broadway to star as the spoiled socialite Tracy Lord in Philip Barry’s The Philadelphia Story, which was a smash hit and led to an equally triumphant return to Hollywood in the 1940 film version. Her next picture, Woman Of The Year (1942), cast her opposite Spencer Tracy - they would star together in a total of nine films in the years between 1942 and 1967, and remain romantic partners off screen until Tracy's death in 1967. Their films together are sparked by the chemistry of their interaction, and are fondly remembered as exhilarating variations on the “battle of the sexes” theme, several of them made in the 1940’s.
But some of the peak achievements of her career were still to come. In 1951, Hepburn went on location to Africa with Humphrey Bogart to star in John Huston’s The African Queen. She gave further memorable performances in Summertime (1955), Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) and Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1962). Her last appearance alongside Spencer Tracy was in Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (1967), which won her another Oscar, as did her powerful Eleanor of Aquitaine just one year later in The Lion In Winter (1968). She followed this triumph by making her Broadway musical debut as couturier Coco Chanel in Coco (1969).
Hepburn’s continuing work throughout the 1970s and 1980s culminated in her teaming up with fellow screen legend Henry Fonda in On Golden Pond (1981), which won her her fourth Academy Award. She continued to star in several made-for-television films, often in leading roles until 1994, the year in which she also made her last big screen appearance as Warren Beatty’s feisty aunt in Love Affair. Her long awaited memoir, Me: Stories of my life, published in 1991, is full of incredibly candid and self-deprecating passages, and she most touchingly writes about her nearly 27-year romance with Spencer Tracy. When she died at her family home in Fenwick, Old Saybrook, Connecticut, on June 29, 2003, the world mourned the loss of one of the most iconic performers in Hollywood history.
Humphrey Bogart was born on December 25, 1899, in New York City. While serving in the US Navy during World War I, he suffered an injury to his upper lip that left him with a characteristic scar and slight speech impediment. Having started out as a stage actor in the 1920s, he made his Hollywood screen debut in Broadway’s Like That (1930), a short film. Achieving little success in his early movies, he returned to New York. His portrayal of the murderer Duke Mantee in the Broadway production of The Petrified Forest (1935), followed by the film version one year later, marked a turning point in his career. Throughout the late 1930s, Bogart became a popular gangster figure in crime pictures like Dead End (1937), The Roaring Twenties (1939) and High Sierra (1941). They were followed by the two roles that made him a legend: hard-boiled private detective Sam Spade in John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon (1941), and - of course - expatriate cabaret proprietor Rick Blaine in Casablanca (1942), the mother of all cult classics (“Here’s looking at you, kid …”).
Bogart etched further memorable portraits as a world-weary romantic hero in To Have And Have Not (1944, during the production of which he met and married Lauren Bacall, his future fourth and final wife), as private eye Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep (1946) and as the greed-crazed Fred C. Dobbs in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). Besides his delightful Charlie Allnut, Bogie was also supremely funny in Billy Wilder’s Sabrina (1954, opposite Audrey Hepburn) and in We're No Angels (1955). On January 14, 1957, he succumbed to cancer of the esophagus.
The Director
John Huston was born on August 5, 1906, in Nevada, Missouri. Born into a theatrical family (his father was the distinguished actor Walter Huston), he began his Hollywood career as a screenwriter in 1931. Before that Huston had been, for short periods, a lightweight boxer, a cavalryman in Mexico, a reporter, a magazine editor, an author of short stories and plays, and an actor.
His first work as a film director was The Maltese Falcon (1941), which starred Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade and became the definitive private-eye picture. During World War II, Huston served in the U.S. army and made several acclaimed documentaries. After the war, he won Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), which once again starred Bogart and also earned a Best Supporting Actor statuette for his father. More classics were to follow, such as The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The African Queen (1951), Moulin Rouge (1952), Moby Dick (1956) and The Misfits (1961), which - sadly - provided both Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable with their final screen appearances.
Huston was also a very good actor, leaving a lasting impression with his roles in The Cardinal (1963) and Chinatown (1974). At 78, he delivered another remarkable achievement directing Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner in Prizzi’s Honor (1985), a black comedy about Mafia assassins. He died on August 28, 1987, in Newport, Rhode Island.
His daughter Anjelica Huston (born 1951) is a renowned actress.
Quotes
(manually transcribed from video)
Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn in “The African Queen”
Charlie: Well, Miss?
Rose: Yes, Mister Allnut.
Charlie: How’d you like it?
Rose: Like it?
Charlie: White water rapids!
Rose: I never dreamed…
Charlie: I don’t blame you for being scared - not one bit. Nobody with good sense ain’t scared of white water…
Rose: I never dreamed that any mere physical experience could be so stimulating!
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Charlie: How’s that, Miss?
Rose: I’ve only known such excitement a few times before - a few times in my dear brother’s sermons when the spirit was really upon him.
Charlie: You mean you wanna go on?
Rose: Naturally!
Charlie: Miss, you’re crazy -
Rose: I beg your pardon?
Charlie: You know what would have happened if we’d come up against one of them rocks?
Rose: But we didn’t. I must say I am filled with admiration for your skill, Mister Allnut. Do you suppose after I practice steering a bit, that some day I might try?
Charlie: Let me tell you something, Miss. Them rapids ain’t nothing to what’s up in front of us - on second thought, I wouldn’t call them rapids at all.
Rose: I can hardly wait!
Charlie: But Miss …
Rose: Now that I’ve had a taste of it, I don’t wonder that you love boating, Mister Allnut!
Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn in “The African Queen”
Charlie: We can’t do that!
Rose: How do you know? You never tried it.
Charlie: Well, yeah, but I never tried shooting myself in the head neither.
Captain of the “Louisa”: By the authority vested in me by Kaiser William II, I pronounce you husband and wife. Proceed with the execution.
Rose: Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.
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映画の邦題：『アフリカの女王』1951年