The African Queen (1951)

Star Rating: 4
Length of Film: 105 minutes
Director: John Huston
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morely, Peter Bull, Theodore Bikel, Walter Gotell, Peter Swanwick, & Richard Marner
Oscar: Humphrey Bogart (actor)
Oscar Nominations: John Huston (director), James Agee, John Huston (screenplay), Katharine Hepburn (actress)









The African Queen is based off of the 1935 novel written by C.S. Forester. It's based in Africa (obviously) where missionary Rose (Katharine Hepburn) and Reverend Samuel Sayer (Robert Morely) were working with an African tribe when World War 1 broke out. Charlie (Humphrey Bogart) delivers the mail and supplies to the tribes, and decided to rescue the damself in distress to take refuge on his boat, Rose agreed after Reverend Sayer died.


In the beginning, Rose wanted nothing to do with Charlie. It was pouring outside, Rose was covered under a tarp. Charlie woke up, soaking wet and went in her space, and she freaked out. She later apologized and let him be under the tarp, out of the rain. She even gave him, her umbrella. She was a stuck up Christian and thought Charlie should have the same virtues as her. One of the biggest disagreement was his drinking. She dumped his gin into the river.



After experiencing her first white water experience, she let her hair down and started loosening up. She even let Charlie call her "Rosie". They saw a group of hippopotamus' and Charlie imitated a hippo. It was the first moment, where sparks were flying.

The Germans who attacked the African village has a gunboat, the Queen Louisa, that patrols a lake downriver. The boat is perfectly located where no British boats can come and counter-attack. Rose comes up with an idea to convert the Queen into a torpedo boat, and sink the Louisa boat themselves! It was a brillant plan, but they did not expect the queen to travel in the mud and reeds. The only way to get through the channel is to pull the boat by hand. Which caused Charlie to have leeches covered all over his body. Rose happily grabbed salt and helped removed the leeches.

Two individuals, from separate backgrounds couldn't deny their love anymore. They fell in love with each other, worked side by side, and successfully filled the Queen with explosives to help their home country, England.

Setting up the torpedos, they did not put in thought the impact the torpedos weight would put on the Queen, and the boat started filling up with water, and the boat sank. Charlie and Rose got separated in the water and Charlie was captured by the captain of the Louisa. I

 will tell you this...at the end of the movie, two nooses were involved, explosions, and "I Do's".

Watch the movie...it's great!