The African Queen

1951.

#17 / #65

Winner of 1 Academy Award.

In THE AFRICAN QUEEN, Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart) - captain of The African Queen - takes Methodist missionary Rose Sayer (Katharine Hepburn) down an African river to torpedo a German gunboat. It's a little more complicated than that, i.e. there are rapids and alligators along the way. Eventually, of course, they fall in love.

Eddie: Some movies on the list are there for purely nostalgic reasons. In this case, I think AFI voters were wooed by the pairing of Bogart and Hepburn (not to mention director John Huston), and they overlooked this film's numerous flaws. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that I didn't like this movie. The whole thing seemed so cheeseball, it never gained any traction. Humphrey Bogart was all right, I guess, playing a parody of himself. And Katherine Hepburn's character was laughable at times.

What impressed me was the ending, which took a twist that I didn't see coming. So that was good, I suppose. Oh, well. You can't love 'em all.

Sarah: The phrase I said repeatedly throughout the movie was "This is so silly." Not to say I didn't enjoy how ridiculous the movie was (because I did), it just didn't deserve to be on the AFI 100. Nor do I think Bogart deserved the Oscar he got for this role. (He was up against Brando in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE!) It seemed as if the Academy was making up for not giving Bogart the Oscar for CASABLANCA.

As soon as Hepburn and Bogart boarded their boat, The African Queen (wait a second, that's the name of the movie!), I wondered if this is what inspired Disneyland's The Jungle Cruise. It totally did. I just wish Walt would have stayed more true to the film. How much fun would it be if after you passed the bubbling hippos some Germans shot at you from a fortress?

Why You Should See It: The movie reaches the height of silly when Bogart imitates a hippo. He almost loses all of his cool points.