What's the AFI Project, you ask? For more information, or if you just enjoy my bemused ramblings, read here: http://www.spout.com/blogs/pippin06/archive/2008/3/1/25756.aspx
The African Queen is on the following AFI lists:
The Original Top 100 (#17)
100 Years...100 Passions (#14)
100 Most Inspiring Movies (#48)
The Revised Top 100 (#65)
The African Queen is not available on DVD right now (I have no idea why), so I had to set about acquiring it. Through the internet. Yes. If you love this movie, though, you can go to Turner Classic Movies' website (www.tcm.com) and vote for the film in a sort of petition to get studios to publish some of these films on DVD. Also, join the "We'd Buy These If We Could" Spout group and tag or list the film appropriately. Spout says you can buy it from them, but I imagine it's a reservation at best. I would research that a little more before I paid for it.
I'd watched this movie before when I was trying to make my way through the AFI lists. I liked it better during the first viewing. It strikes me that The African Queen gets less interesting on repeat viewings, but for what it's worth, the movie is an adorable adventure-romance starring two people no bad film could have in it: Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn.
Bogey plays Charlie Allnut, the captain of a tramp steamer called the African Queen, which ships supplies and mail to villages in East Africa. Kate plays Rose Sayer, the prim and proper maiden sister of a British missionary (Robert Morley). In 1914, as World War I begins in Europe, the Germans invade their own African territories and set fire to the villages. Rose and her dear brother bear witness to the burning of his village, and he is unable to handle the trauma. When "Mr. Allnut" rolls back through, he brings Rose aboard to escape the threat of the return of the Germans. He's drunken and improper; she's judgmental and stubborn, and the two are like oil and water at first. Their dislike turns to love in common purpose: Rose suggests that they ram the African Queen into a German ship called the Louisa, to which Charlie reluctantly agrees, using explosive components aboard their boat, but they have to make it down the dangerous river before they can enact their plan.
The African Queen is cute in a makes-you-chuckle sort of way. Truthfully, it is engaging as it is because Bogey and Kate were consummate performers. Some of the scenes between them are a hoot, and they have a genuine chemistry. They were friends in real life, so their comfort with one another made the initial oil-and-water motif funnier than it could have been. There was some definite pit-a-pat moments when their feelings of dislike turned to love. Bogey was simply the best romantic leading actor ever, I think. A man's man who could efface a passionate, sensitive side - the love scenes earned the film its place on the AFI's "Passions" list largely because of him. And Kate's sheer acting prowess made her coy moments endearing.
As to story and dialogue, though, this film has some weaknesses. There were, it seemed, many actions and deeds undertaken by the characters that had no explainable motivations, and there were some contrived moments too. The beginning of the film is actually the weakest part: Mr. Allnut stops by to bring mail, have tea, and tell Rose and her brother that a war in Europe has begun, and then two seconds after he pushes off down the river, a regiment of German troops comes in and burns the village to the ground. The brother is driven to insanity (not the best performance), and the viewer is given no sense of the passage of time before Mr. Allnut swoops in, on the very day Rose's brother passes away, and takes her aboard his boat. Rose becomes extremely patriotic and clever about their plan, devising the scheme to ram the Louisa with homemade torpedoes, but then asks Charlie an inordinate number of questions about everything to follow. Some points simply felt contrived and convenient.
Also, the score was annoyingly melodramatic. I noticed it right away. I don't remember who received composing credit, but the music was noticeable in a distracting way that did not always fit the scene it was meant to augment.
Technically, the film had nothing special or groundbreaking to it, other than the on-location African settings. The African Queen is simply a very good adventure movie, the precursor of the summer blockbuster, and the heart of the movie is the relationship between Charlie and Rose. Thanks to Bogey's and Kate's performances, the film retains an iconic status and gives it a sweetness; Bogey won the only Oscar of his career for playing boozehound Charlie.
Ultimately, though, I think the film took a deserved tumble on the Revised AFI list (it dropped 48 spots) because it simply is not as good the more one watches it, at least in my opinion. Its luster is in its first impression. For all of these reasons combined, the African Queen passes my test only in that I have a digital copy acquired from the internet. Yes. In addition, I rate it an 8 for being very good/minor flaws, though if any other stars had been in it, that rating would have dropped significantly. Actors can make a picture, and Bogey and Kate made this one; the film's greatness is owing to the greatness of these great stars.