African Queen
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | African Queen |
| Original title | The African Queen |
| Country of production | Great Britain |
| original language | English , German |
| Publishing year | 1951 |
| length | 105 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | John Huston |
| script |
James Agee John Huston Peter Quarter |
| production |
Sam Spiegel John Woolf (anonymous) |
| music | Allan Gray |
| camera | Jack Cardiff |
| cut | Ralph Kemplen |
| occupation | |
| |
African Queen is a British feature film from 1951. It was directed by John Huston and based on the novel by CS Forester in Africa.
action
The film is set in German East Africa during the First World War . In a small settlement, far away from civilization, the strict and somewhat old-young Rose Sayer lives and works as a missionary together with her brother Pastor Samuel Sayer. The settlement is supplied with the essentials and with news from the rough and neglected captain Charlie Allnutt and his decrepit little steamboat called African Queen . Nobody expects the war to have a major impact on the settlement, but it is completely destroyed by German soldiers during a punitive expedition . Pastor Sayer then falls into a state of mental confusion and dies a little later. Captain Allnutt is forced to take Rose with him on his journey further down the river.
The coexistence of these two different characters in a confined space is naturally not easy. The brittle and strict rose makes life difficult for Charlie, forces him out of his neglect and one day pours his entire supplies of gin overboard. But she also shows unexpected strength and courage, with which she slowly infects Charlie and pulls him out of his rather resigned attitude. She has got it into her head to go all the way down the river, although this is considered impossible, and to sink the German ship Louisa, which is cruising in the adjacent lake . Together, the two set out to put this idea into practice. They have now carefully approached each other and are now lovers.
The difficulties the two have to struggle with on the way are almost insurmountable. A German position that takes them under fire, from rapids that are considered impassable (here Rose grows beyond himself and controls the boat while Charlie has to take care of the unreliable machine) to a labyrinth of shallow branches in the river mouth full of cane vegetation, Mosquitoes and leeches in which Charlie has to haul the boat by hand until he is completely exhausted. He cannot find a way out of the labyrinth, both of them fall asleep exhausted and without hope. Heavy rain sets in at night, the water level of the river rises. When the two wake up, the boat moves by itself in a current that is now present towards the lake. In the distance you can see the Louisa crossing.
Charlie then empties two oxygen bottles on board, fills them with explosives that he also has on board, and thus builds two torpedoes that he attaches to the bow of the African Queen . He makes the impact fuses out of wood, nails and two cartridges. They prepare the African Queen by pushing the torpedoes through holes in the bow and arming them. On the night of their planned attack, there is a strong storm on the lake. The boat has overflowed so full through the holes in the bow that it can no longer be steered. It begins to sink and capsize. Rose and Charlie cling to the boat, suddenly Rose has disappeared.
Charlie is captured a little later by German officers who interrogate him and suspect him of espionage. This is a trial in which he is eventually sentenced to death despite claiming that he was only fishing on the island where he was found. Suddenly a dinghy docks and Rose is brought on board too. Charlie initially denies them. But Rose wants at least the satisfaction of telling the Germans about their two plans. Your report meets with disbelief, because the river is considered impassable and your description of the torpedoes does not sound particularly convincing to the Germans. Both are sentenced to death by hanging. Rose asks that she be hanged at the same time as Charlie. The astonished captain trusts the couple at Charlie's last wish. In the meantime, you can see the capsized African Queen floating on the surface of the lake with her torpedoes and the Louisa heading towards it. Just as the ropes are slowly being tightened to hang the two of them, an explosion shakes the ship, it catches fire and sinks immediately.
Rose and Charlie swim unscathed in the lake towards British territory. Rose finds a piece of wreckage floating in the water from the bow of her steamboat, on which "African Queen" can be read. The two realize that their plan unexpectedly worked out.
background
The historical expedition that formed the basis of Forester's novel was led in 1915 by the self-centered British corvette captain Geoffrey Basil Spicer Simson . Spicer Simson had the order to break the German supremacy on Lake Tanganyika with the two motor launch HMS Mimi and HMS Toutou . These events were summarized by Giles Foden in the book The True Story of the African Queen . A German ship served as a model for the gunboat Louisa ; the Goetzen, which is still in use today. In the film, Louisa is portrayed by the British tug Buganda , which also still exists today and lies in Mwanza. The original African Queen was actually called S / L Livingstone and was built in 1912. The boat was then in use on Lake Albert and the White Nile . Since it actually had a diesel engine, it was covered up and various parts were added to make it look like a steamboat in the film. The ship can now be seen in Key Largo , Florida , where it is a popular tourist attraction.
African Queen was partly filmed on location in Africa: the outdoor shots took place in Butiaba on Lake Albert and in Murchison Falls National Park - around 1,500 kilometers from Lake Tanganyika , the alleged location. It was very time-consuming to shoot on location in Africa with the Technicolor cameras, which were modern at the time. In addition, the film crew had to live under relatively Spartan conditions, even the film stars (in addition to Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart , Lauren Bacall , who accompanied her husband Bogart on the trip to Africa). Other scenes, especially the dangerous ones, were shot in British film studios due to their safety and technical feasibility.
During the shooting of the film in Uganda, the film team was also supplied with drinking water by the British colonial administration. Due to stomach problems and diarrhea, the film crew's sick leave was so great that shooting of the film had to be suspended for more than ten days. The production company determined that the film crew would have to pay almost £ 25,000 extra on the basis of these ten days. Furthermore, the production company was supposed to pay around 4,000 British pounds in the ten days of administration for various services such as the conversion of a ship to an African Queen as well as the rental of further ships, port facilities and food. The production company refused to pay and in return asked the administration for £ 25,000 in damages. In their opinion, the stomach upset and diarrhea were due to unclean water supplied to their employees by the administration. The administration declined liability, pointing out that it is not uncommon for newcomers to the tropics to experience stomach upsets when drinking iced drinks and using fans to keep them cool after work. This tendency is exacerbated if, as in the present case, many hours are worked. The parties went to court in Great Britain, but the production company lost and ultimately had to bear its additional costs and pay the £ 4,000 to the colonial administration. According to Bogart, Humphrey Bogart and director John Huston remained healthy as the only members of the film crew, which he attributed mainly to the fact that both only drank whiskey.
The sometimes chaotic filming, which suffered from the fact that John Huston preferred to hunt elephants than to work, was processed by Peter Viertel , who was involved in the screenplay of African Queen , into the 1953 novel White Hunter, Black Heart (published in Germany as a man in the jungle ) . Quarter's novel was filmed as a feature film White Hunter, Black Heart by Clint Eastwood . In her autobiography, Hepburn described how she once accompanied Huston on a hunt and both barely escaped with their lives because they were suddenly confronted with dangerous animals. In 1987 Katharine Hepburn wrote the book African Queen or How I went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall and Huston and nearly lost my mind about her experiences during the shooting .
The original script called for a British Cockney accent for Bogart's role, but that was dropped when he couldn't handle it. Another linguistic unusualness arose from the cast of British actor Peter Bull as the German ship's captain: Since Bull could not speak a word of German, his German sentences had to be repeated in the original English version by German actor Walter Rilla .
synchronization
The film was not released in German cinemas until seven years after the premiere. The dialogue book was written by Harald G. Petersson , while Alfred Vohrer was responsible for the dialogue direction . However, individual shots were cut that were considered “anti-German” at the time. For a long time only the shortened version was shown in Germany. To this day, the shot in which Pastor Sayer is knocked down by a German soldier when he tries to defend himself against the burning down of his church is mostly missing in TV broadcasts.
| role | actor | German dubbing voice |
|---|---|---|
| Rose Sayer | Katharine Hepburn | Edith Schneider |
| Charlie Allnut | Humphrey Bogart | Wolfgang Lukschy |
| Reverend Samuel Sayer | Robert Morley | Erich Fiedler |
| Captain of the 'Louisa' | Peter Bull | Curt Ackermann |
| First Officer of the 'Louisa' | Theodore Bikel | Gert Günther Hoffmann |
| Second Officer of the 'Louisa' | Walter Gotell | Peter Elsholtz |
Reviews
“The excellent film adaptation of Forester's satirical novel has suffered unnecessarily from the late eradication of 'anti-German'. Still worth seeing. "
“Huston 'dipped' the Hepburn and Bogart into a colorful African rainforest with all the trimmings, speak with all beauty and danger, and created a cinematic masterpiece in which he found a balance of tragedy, romance and comedy Tension never loses and also lives from humorous and intelligent dialogues. "
"One of the most beautiful adventure films of the fifties."
"Tea versus gin is the watchword in this subtle battle between the sexes in the jungle of Africa, in which Bogart satirizes his own myth [...]."
Awards
- Oscar for best male leading role to Humphrey Bogart
- Other Oscar nominations for best director (John Huston), best female lead (Katharine Hepburn) and best screenplay
- Entry into the National Film Registry in 1994
Awards from the American Film Institute :
- 1998: 17th place of the 100 best films of all time, 2007: 65th place
- 14th place of the 100 best love films of all time
- Ranked 48th of the 100 Most Inspirational Movies of All Time
literature
- CS Forester: The "African Queen". OT: The African Queen. Ullstein, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-548-24620-6 .
- Katharine Hepburn: African Queen or How I went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall and Huston and almost lost my mind. OT: The Making of The African Queen Or How I Went to Africa With Bogart, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind. Heyne, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-453-05257-9 .
- Giles Foden: The True Story of the African Queen. OT: Mimi and Toutou Go Forth. Fischer, Frankfurt a. M. 2006, ISBN 3-596-16837-6 .
Web links
- African Queen in theInternet Movie Database(English)
- African Queen in the German dubbing file
Individual evidence
- ↑ IMDb Trivia
- ↑ Staff Magazine Vol. 1–4, March 1953 p. 6. (PDF; 29.5 MB)
- ↑ African Queen - Trivia
- ↑ African Queen - Trivia
- ↑ African Queen - Trivia
- ↑ Peter Bull at the Internet Movie Database
- ↑ Film-Kurier No. 58 (1959), p. 18.