Defying the Odds—The African Queen

As far as Hollywood was concerned, it just couldn’t be done. The book was basically un-filmable—a belief echoed by numerous studio readers given the task of evaluating its cinematic potential. The book in question was C.S. Forester’s The African Queen, a novel about a rum-soaked reprobate, Charlie Allnut and a proper, middle-aged missionary, Rose Sayer who take it upon themselves to sink a German gunboat in East Africa at the onset of World War One.

First published in 1935, The African Queen kicked around Hollywood for quite some time with no one sure how to adapt it. The lead male character, Charlie wasn’t exactly the heroic type, having been described by the author C.S. Forester as a “Liverpool or London slum rat.” The lead female character, Rose was simply described as a spinster; neither character embodied the tenets of youth and beauty that Hollywood enjoyed portraying.

Originally bought by RKO Studios in 1946, Warner Bros. bought the rights hoping to turn it into a vehicle for Bette Davis. By 1947 they were desperately trying to unload the rights—no one, NO ONE, thought the book could translate into a successful film.

It was then that director John Huston decided he wanted to go hunting and kill himself an elephant. While that may not be the exact reason he and his partner Sam Siegel bought the book’s rights in 1950 for their independent company, Horizon Pictures, but it did give the director a reason to head for Africa. As one assistant director commented, “John wanted to shoot an elephant. That was what the whole picture was about.”

After Siegel sent the book to Katherine Hepburn and received her commitment to the role, Huston took Humphrey Bogart to lunch at Romanoff’s and supposedly told him, “The hero is a lowlife, and you are the biggest lowlife in town and therefore most suitable for the part.”

Huston and Bogart had all ready teamed up for a number of successful projects such as The Maltese Falcon, Across the Pacific, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and Key Largo, so based on that, and Bogart’s desire to share the screen with Hepburn, he signed on board.

“The local hazards included poisonous snakes, crocodiles, scorpions, invading soldier ants, leprosy, dysentery, and a particularly nasty malady called bilharzias that comes from contact with tainted river water and involves worms working their way under one’s skin,” recalled the late Katherine Hepburn in her memoir.

To accommodate Huston’s desire to hunt, the film was shot on location in the Congo, rather than Kenya which was the original setting in the novel. Despite putting in a great performance, Bogart wasn’t interested in hunting, nor did he like Africa. “The food was so awful we had to drink Scotch most of the time,” he had stated, adding that Hepburn “kept saying wouldn’t it be mahvelous if we could all stay there forever.” Apparently, based on the amount of drinking Bogart and Huston engaged in, Hepburn also noted that anything that bit the two, mosquitoes or otherwise, died right away.

The African Queen, under the influence of Huston, Hepburn and Bogart prove everybody wrong and was a box-office success. The film garnered four Academy Award nominations for Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay, with Bogart winning in his category.

To celebrate this classic film, that Hollywood had a hard time believing in, Paramount Home Entertainment has meticulously restored The African Queen to its original glory and released it in an impressive Commemorative Box Set.

A perfect double feature with The African Queen is Clint Eastwood’s brilliant but often overlooked White Hunter, Black Heart. In the film Eastwood channels the spirit of John Huston playing a director making an African Queen-like film, but also obsessed with killing an elephant.