The African Queen

Director: John Huston (Across the Pacific, The Maltese Falcon)
Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Morely
UK/USA, 1951

Seen: Aug 15, 2006 on Mpix

Reason to see: Its on my 101 list of films I can't believe I haven't seen.

I absolutely loved Katharine Hepburn's character in the film. Not so much the properness, but the optimism, sense of strong will, that she would get in the thick of things, believed anything was possible... it was so great. Then I realized the character bore a strong resemblance to Kathryn Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager (one of my favorite shows). After thinking this was cool, then I actually ended up feeling a little cheated. Not about The African Queen but about Star Trek, how many years later was Voyager made? Couldn't their been a different strong female character? Alas.. I digress.

I did enjoy the film. Like The Bridge on the River Kwai it had that whole British proper thing going on which is great. Pretty good adventure story, very interesting characters... which is great I don't always like films with Humphrey Bogart. I also have to mention, although it is very 'of it's time' the depiction of 'the natives' feels so inappropriate.

I think this is a new record... took me almost 3 months to write the review! (edit: review originally published November 12, 2006)

Shannon's Overall View:
I enjoyed it
I'd likely watch it again
I'd recommend it

Return to Film Reviews

© Shannon Ridler, 2006