The African Queen

An inspired piece of casting brought Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn together. This is a comedy, a love story, and a tale of adventure, and it is one of the most charming and entertaining movies ever made.

A film that has everything--adventure, humor, spectacular photography and superb performances.

A ripping, gripping yarn, a surprisingly erotic love story and, as it happens, a premonition of Herzog's Fitzcarraldo.

A slick job of movie hoodwinking with a thoroughly implausible romance, set in a frame of wild adventure that is as whopping as its tale of off-beat love. And the main tone and character of it are in the area of the well-disguised spoof...Mr. Huston merits credit for putting this fantastic tale on a level of sly, polite kidding and generally keeping it there, while going about the happy business of engineering excitement and visual thrills.

With Huston spending most of the shoot big-game hunting, it’s probably cameraman Jack Cardiff who deserves kudos for turning this odd-couple romance into such a colourful escapade through east Africa.

A perfect ensemble of cast, photography and screenplay are all subtly handled through Huston's direction, bringing out Bogart and Hepburn's performances beautifully.

The direction is often questionable, but the screenplay (by James Agee, John Collier, Huston, and Peter Viertel from C.S. Forester's novel) is a model of tight construction.

So much fun. Inspired casting of Bogart and Hepburn, super funny comedy, thrilling adventure, heart tugging romance, eye filling photography all add up to total wow. I've seen this **** dozens of times, never fails to entertain. Good times.

Trying to wrap my head around why this is a classic. I guess it's because it's an adventure/romance in Africa, which would appeal to the lowest common denominator as it doesn't have really much to say. I was hoping for some point about missionary work in Africa and the political climate during WWI, but nope, it's just a straight up rom-com. Hepburn and Bogart have zero chemistry and the plot is ridiculous. In reality, no scraggly boat captain would want a woman aboard, let alone giving orders of a military nature (not to mention throwing his booze overboard). Any ship captain would throw her overboard or simply drop her at the first outpost up river. I'll add to my issue with older movies. There's a quality I can't put my finger on, but some of it is the result of filming technique. Once they were cutting edge (Citizen Kane being my best example), but now we've seen them over and over. Credit to the filmmakers for being pioneers, but it's lost on anyone who has seen a lot of movies that emulate these techniques. Just not a fan of Bogart or Hepburn to be honest. Haven't seen a movie yet, as I go through the AFI 100, that I found either of their performances compelling.

Maybe this movie was a great one in the 50s, but today so many things are outdated. The story is a bit unrealistic, some dialogues were too long, some scenes looks very cheap, the humour didnt catch me. The acting was good

Some very funny miniature work, the multiple scenes of them going down the rapids with clear action figures of Bogart and Hepburn is silly looking, for the time it was likely well regarded i guess. The lead performances are alright but i was confused by the tone of this movie and not really engaged by the story at all.