The African Queen

This film was shot in Africa and also in the Isleworth studios, which is present in  London.And whenever you search best 100 movies in English, naturally you will find this film in the entire list.African Queen is the name given to the boat which is responsible for saving the lives of the hero and heroine.

It was this  boat who saved them when they were about to be hanged by the Germans. Apart from this this boat also travels a very dangerous  route in the river which was totally impossible. Well, let’s see the artists and the technical crew along with the general information about the movie.

Technical crew of the movie

i)This film was directed by John Huston and produced by Sam Spiegel and John Woolf

ii)Actually this film was adapted the 1935 novel which was written by C. S. Forester and John Huston and James Agee took care  of the dialogues in this film

iii)Allan Gray composed the music for this movie

iv)The cinematography for this movie was done by Rick Cardiff and editing by Ralph Kemplen

v) Officially this film was released on 20 February 1952 and it was distributed in USA by United Artists and by Independent  Film Distributors in the United Kingdom

vi)This film very special for Humphrey Bogart as he got an Oscar award for the best actor, for his characted Charlie Allnut.

Artists and cast

This film mainly revolves around the hero and heroine and apart from for the first 15 minutes another character,i.e.,  heroines brother will play a vital role, whose death makes the heroine to take a decision to leave that place and go with the  hero so that she can be saved from the German Army. So the characters includes

i)Humphrey Bogart as Charlie Allnut, who is the captain of the ship "African Queen" and he belongs to Canada and his job is  to bring mails to some of the Europeans present in Africa(Except German and their allies)

ii)Katharine Hepburn as Rose Sayer and he along with his brother Robert Morley( who acted as Samuel Sayer) runs a Christian  Missionary in the German East Africa.

About the Movie

The film starts in 1914, during the First World War and in the opening scene they show a church in German East African  village, which was run by Rose and his brother Robert who were preaching the local Africans there. At this time a steam boat  comes there and in that boat Charlie’s comes and delivers a mail to them and he says that he might not come there for another  2 months as the war has started, and leaves that place.

After some days a German troop comes to that small village and they burn all the houses and they take away all the Africans  from that village and they also hurt Robert while the go. Robert couldn't tolerate this and as a result he had a heavy fever  which resulted in his death. He died early in the morning and that day Charlie comes there and sees that all the houses in the  village were burnt and he meets Rose and asks here to come with him. Charlie helps Rose in burying Robert and after the funeral Rose travels with Charlie in the African Queen.

While the sail Charlie says Rosie that they could make to the British Colony where they will be safe but there is a problem, because the Germans had a powerful ship called as "Louisa" which patrols the area that leads to the British colonies and also  another major problem is that it is very difficult to travel downstream due to irregular current flow and also due to the presence of Crocodiles and Hippo.

So to overcome the German ship problem Rose says a idea by which, she can make use of this boat as a bomb to sink the German ship. Another major problem is that the course of the river as mentioned early and also they have to cross the German Port on the way and crossing this German port is their first hurdle.

SO Charlie hesitates first but later accepts but still he was not confident  enough that they could make it. Before reaching the they found lot of crocodiles in the river and Charlie thinks that his predictions are going to be true and when they cross the port the German Soldiers starts shooting. Both Rose and Charlie lie down and they somehow managed to escape from them as they cross that for with minor injury to the boat as the hose which was connected to the boiler gets disconnected and Charlie has to connect it again.

Now they have crossed their first hurdle and they need to tackle the rapid flow of water and they also succeed in two times but during the third time the flow was very heavy but they somehow managed to tackle it with some damages to the boat as the shaft in the propeller got struck. They took the shaft out and they find that it was broken. So they used hammer and fire so as to do the welding job and they also succeed in this and continue their journey.

While they moved further down they lost the channel and couldn’t find it so they took them to the mud amid dense reeds and the image below shows how the tried to take the boat with a hope that they could find the channel

They tried their level best to find the channel but in vain and they gave up and decided to take rest. While they were sleeping at that night there was a heavy rain and as a result of this the water level rises and they could find the channel to the main river.

When they reach the main river they find the German ship Louisa and they retreat back and hid the boat.Charlie believes that that ship will return to that place again in one day and by this time they can make use of converting their boat into a bomb. Charlie used his Oxygen tank and he also puts in some bombs and makes ready so that the boat could go and hit the German Ship and they could jump from the boat and escape.

When the German ship comes after one day they started to implement their plan but unfortunately it started to rain and the Whole plan gets spoiled, and they were caught by the Germans in that Ship and the Germans decided to hang them. While they were about to be hanged Charlie asks for a last wish and he says that he want to marry Rose and so does Rose. The captain of the ship accepts the request and after they were married the captain orders the soldier to hang them.

When they were about to be hanged the German Ship struck with the African Queen which was about to sink that time, and as a result of this an explosion occurs and all of them jumps into the river.Rose says Charlie now they are succeeded in their plan and they start to sail towards Kenya where the could find the Britishers and can be rescued.

The image below shows the boat which was used in that film and it is used for tourism purpose in Florida.

The IMDB rating for this movie is 8.1out of 10