The African Queen

The African Queen is top flight entertainment, delightful, different, always interesting.

Five minutes in, and cowriter-director John Huston has already set the stage for something besides your typical '50s jungle-bwana boogie.

It is a picture with an unassuming warmth and naturalness...

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.

Impossible to deny this film's entertainment value...

And so 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.

Humphrey Bogart finally won his Best Actor Oscar. It's an amusing performance, though it doesn't compare to his work in High Sierra, Casablanca, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, In a Lonely Place, The Caine Mutiny and a handful of other indelible turns.

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

[A] grand, propulsive and plumly-restored slice of Technicolor derring-do.

What an inspired pairing! And to think the roles of Charlie Allnutt and Rose Sayer were nearly played by David Niven and Bette Davis.

It's probably cameraman Jack Cardiff who deserves kudos for turning this odd-couple romance into such a colourful escapade through east Africa.

Huston understands the majestic savagery of his surroundings well enough to let it exert some dramatic pressure on what is primarily a buoyant romantic comedy.