THE STANFORD THEATRE
The African Queen poster

The African Queen

1951 ★ 105 min
Studio: Horizon Pictures
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morley
Director: John Huston
Writer: John Huston, James Agee, Peter Viertel
Producer: Sam Spiegel, John and James Woolf

The African Queen is a 1951 adventure film adapted from the 1935 novel of the same name by C. S. Forester. It was directed by John Huston and produced by Sam Spiegel, and John Woolf. The screenplay was adapted by James Agee, John Huston, John Collier and Peter Viertel. It was photographed in Technicolor by Jack Cardiff and has a music score by Allan Gray.

Trivia

  • Won the Academy Award for Best Actor.
  • Also nominated for: Academy Award for Best Actress; Academy Award for Best Director; Academy Award for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay.
  • Based on The African Queen (novel by C. S. Forester).
  • Production censors objected to several aspects of the original script, such as the unmarried characters Charlie Allnut and Rose Sayer cohabiting on the boat (as in the C. S. Forester book), and some changes were made before the film was completed.
  • Another change followed the casting of Humphrey Bogart; his character Charlie's lines in the original screenplay were rendered with a thick Cockney dialect, but the script had to be completely rewritten because he was unwilling to attempt the accent.
  • The rewrite made the character Canadian.

Filming Locations

  • Democratic Republic of the Congo
  • Turkey
  • The cast and crew assembled in Africa in December 1950 and much of the film was shot in Lake Albert, Uganda, and in Ubundu, of the Belgian Congo in Africa.
  • About half of the film was shot in the UK. The scenes in which Bogart and Hepburn are seen in the water were all shot in studio tanks at Worton Hall Studios in Isleworth, near London.
  • The shots of the German-occupied Fort Shona were all filmed at Worton Hall, where a fortress set was constructed from tubular scaffolding and covered with plaster.

Previous Showings

16 Runs • 13 Festivals

26,737 tickets sold

All runs on record (16):

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