Arguably director John Huston's most popular film pairs Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn as a crude Canadian skipper and the uptight missionary who joins him on the titular supply boat in 1914 German East Africa. When war breaks out, the two disparate personalities must come together to steer the Queen through treacherous rapids and torpedo a German gunboat. Bogart won his only Oscar as Charlie Allnut, whose enthusiasm for liquor may not have been his toughest acting challenge. Hepburn was instructed by Huston to pattern her portrayal on Eleanor Roosevelt, adopting her "society smile" when the going gets tough. Just as the skipper and the missionary's downriver journey looks like a metaphor for sexual initiation ... it becomes an actual sexual initiation. The courage and lip-quivering vulnerability of Hepburn are tremendous: "I never dreamed that mere physical experience could be so stimulating!"
This screening of The African Queen is made possible by a generous donation from the Harry & Mary Perrin Fund of the Coral Gables Community Foundation and hosted by Don & Jeannett Slesnick.
