1951 classic movieRating: 13/20 (Abbey: 1/20)
Plot: During World War I, a Canadian mail man and a missionary spinster travel down an unnavigable African river via the title vessel, another obvious phallic symbol. They fight white water rapids, waterfalls, crocodiles, German soldiers, and the elements. The mail man performs hippopotamus impressions until the woman (I can't remember their names. If only the characters would have used the names before or after every single line they spoke or something!) can no longer control herself and pounces upon him like a hippopotamus on a sexy dwarf. Between the physical manifestation of their sins (i.e. frequent boinking), they concoct a stupid plan to construct a torpedo or two to take out a big German ship off the coast of Africa.
Seriously. Is anybody going to deny that Bogart won the Best Actor award only because of that hippopotamus impression? This movie has more flaws than memorable moments. Not once did it feel like these characters were facing immediate peril. When the crocodiles were sliding down the bank into the water? No, they were safely in a boat. When the Germans were shooting at them from that fortress? No, the movie wasn't ready to be over yet. When the expert boatswoman Hepburn had to maneuver the ramshackle boat through dangerously violent waters? Hippo, please. I did enjoy the obvious green-screen effects. I didn't enjoy watching the impossible-to-buy romance between the leads. More believable would have been a romance between Bogart and the leeches. I'll give this some credit for the on-location filming as well as the dangerous in-studio filming. That alone can't save this from drowning in its own silliness though. Any movie that doesn't earn the 20 rating from Abbey has to be pretty bad.
I totally agree. This is supposed to be a classic, but it never really worked for me. Watching Boggie get emasculated by an asexual Hepburn is just sad. Amazingly, Bogart beat out Montgomery Clift in "A Place in the Sun" and Brando in "A Streetcar Named Desire". Bogart has a few roles deserving of an Oscar, but not this one and he's not in the revolutionary Brando's league. Disgusting. A 14.
ReplyDeleteBogart likely got this Oscar because of what came before this, right? Yeah, I didn't think he was even close to great. I didn't like the character (well, either of them) anyway. The most embarrassing scene was when he was supposed to be drunk. I thought he looked pretty hungover the entire movie.
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