THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951) *** It's a sweet movie, it's a fun movie, it's a really good movie…but I don't see what all those people see who put this on all those Greatest Film of All Time lists. Katherine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart and John Huston are all wonderful and tremendous, but it's hardly an isolated incident of any of that, we've seen them all greater. Huston's pacing is brilliant, yes, and Bogey's soft side is convincing and winning, but if it's really Kat's movie, for me. She turns…well, she was always good and she was always tough, but you can see, feel, those qualities blooming and blending in the most pleasant and productive manner. As far as all that goes, it's probably Robert Morley's greatest of many fine performances, but no one ever goes on about that. No, I think the reason that it's so celebrated is that it lends itself so nicely to so many themes for term papers: how a little risk-taking liberates Kat from a stifling approach to the cosmos, how a bit of domestication focuses Bogey's animalistic energies, the relationship of the principals to the cosmos, matters of prayer and fate and never folding. All that. Which is quite a lot, actually, when you think on it, and even more in action.
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