The Making of the African Queen - Embracing the Chaos - Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart

how about the uh the new picture you're going over to the Deep Dark Continent to make yes we're going over to Africa probably down around Nairobi and Northern Ria uh incidentally we just found out it was raining there so we may have to shoot it in Scotland I don't know maybe it's a new picture African queen movies are like sus they either rise or they don't and people seldom are able to predict or tell you why the African Queen is an improbable cinematic Triumph made against seemingly insurmountable odds and comprising a bunch of disperate desperate characters who saving the movie business would probably not even be in the same world let alone the same room with each other there's something special about the film immediately it's still a film that has an enchantment about it it's exciting and a lot of it has to do with the relationship of Bogart and he the way they play off one another that's one of the great charms of the African queen it's played by Adam not kids pulling a boat through water African queen is a classic one of the best films I mean it's the sort of film that is shown constantly this is is an independent film in those days this was the time of the big studios but the either the studios made it and distributed it or where were you You' got to remember that making films in location was not the norm you know the thought of going to Africa to shoot a fictional film with actors and full Cruise was not something that was looked upon as a reality I don't think anybody in Hollywood would have ventured to do that except for John Houston he always seemed to have a feeling for places that were exotic wild Houston got the big picture and in order to make the African queen with all its dramas you needed to get the big picture I think when you watch this movie there's no question they're in Africa this is really happening and you can just imagine what was going on outside the [Music] frame the African queen had been written as a novel in 1935 by CS Forester Forester was a a major popular writer of that time he was not a great author but he was a very good Craftsman and Storyteller he wrote wonderful books that I loved as a boy about Captain Horatio Hornblower a very very complicated not to say elusive character in the first place his name was not c as Forester when he wrote an autobiography he wrote it so you could never tell where he came from and the name of Forester was chosen for him by a local typist who typed up his first novel The African Queen wasn't a big high adventure as much as it was the story of these two in Congress people on this little 30-foot rig been published in 1935 I think and then uh it had been hanging around Warners for good six or seven years and Betty Davis was interested in doing it RKO had wanted to do a a version of it with Charles lton and his wife Elsa Lanchester so now it's 1950 Warner had had given up on it and also Alexander Corda who said you know who wants to see a pair of old people going up and down an African river you'll be bankrupt well then enter SP Eagle Sam Spiegel Sam Spiegel was overbearing charm as a devil he had no moral conscience spent some time in jail and spoke nine languages heavyweight boxer extremely controversial he just had two problems money and women he was convinced that unpleasantness was what was called for in a producer a producer was not meant to be nice all these elements combined in one man is necessary to be a good producer and Sam had them all the projects that he's his name is is attached to the pictures that he's that he's made um he seemed to really love movies and produce some extraordinary films including just you mention a few on the waterfront Lawrence of Arabia uh bridg and Riv of course Sam Spiegel had come to Hollywood with very little he did his first picture as you know Tales of Manhattan as SP Eagle the American Eagle right and then later on of course he went back to his Spiegel but for a while there it it was SP eagle and you know there are people now say to me that was his real name Spiegel wasn't his real name which is ridiculous know he fled the sheriff he fled Nazis he fled everything I mean he was chased out of Berlin because of Hitler and arrived in San Francisco and was put in prison because he was pretending to be a Egyptian official he was so quick on his toes as Kazan said about Spiegel he said this is a man who could be dropped naked without a penny and the next day he would be having lunch in the best hotel at one point at at a party or dinner he saw John Houston and asked him if you had your brothers what story would you pick to make and it's worth noting that all John Houston's movies are based on books Stories the maltes Falcon of course Treasure of Sierra Madre Mobi dick or Mula Rouge Asal jungle and remarkable Mana would be king they are all based on literary sources and at this dinner party John Houston apparently mentioned the African queen which had the advantage of having been written so long ago that the rights were very easy and very cheap to get so Spiel says let's form a company John I'll do this I'll like African queen with you I'll R the money he secured the rights of the African queen and then he went to Bogart and said John Houston is directing the African queen for me and he would like you to Star and I would like it to Star would you do it and boy said sure then he said what what would you say who who would be a good co-star for you says you know I never worked with Katherine Hein that would be an interesting combination so then spegel went to Katherine Hein and said got John Houston directing bogy starring Will you co star and she said absolutely so now he had absolutely no money to make this film Sam Spiegel was not the finer of the movie he rounded up the money in those days with the beginnings of the breakup of the studio system financing was always difficult money had fallen through endlessly there was Walter hella guy from Chicago bringing in money and then Spiegel brought met up with the wolf Brothers Romus films my brother was in Hollywood at the time and we started two companies Romulus films to produce films and independent film Distributors which was to distribute films throughout the world that we financed but we found that it was very difficult to get really good Independent films in fact we we we lost on on various films that we we were able to get at that time so we decided that we had to go in for production for ourselves and we set up the African queen to be made in this country and in Africa it was the time of the unamerican Activities Committee if you remember uh Senator McCarthy and there were a number of top Hollywood directors who were unhappy staying in Hollywood so I asked my brother to go back there and see if if there were any projects that we would be able to make in this country John Houston Katherine heurn and Humphrey Bogart were all to a greater or lesser degree involved with what were in the early 50s perceived as left-wing or leftist or communist ideologies or activities the backstory the context of The African Queen really is the the political Strife that was going on in Hollywood in 1947 is when when the house of un American Activities Committee was getting going they they figured that the film industry was a was ripe because you don't want Communists in the film industry and so many of these people had to leave others were prevented from working Houston Bogart ball other movie stars who were part of this committee for the First Amendment went to Washington believing that they were going to set everybody straight on how patriotic they were and as Lauren ball said uh they really hadn't a clue the propeller into which they had walked and it's very problematic within the within the studio because everyone fears that if Bogart is any actor is tarnished by this then it's it has nothing to do with what's right or wrong is that the films are not going to make money and so there's a great fear that his luster as a as a star will will go down I think Hein was too big of a star to actually have been blacklisted though there was considerable talk and was in the newspapers that she was going to be subpoena my name came up because I did a speech about censorship that was in the Gilmore stadium and I like a silly I I thought of wearing a white dress and then I thought they'd call me the dove of Peace So I wore a pink dress and right in their hands the idea of leaving town of going someplace and moreover of having Bogard and heurn play Super Patriots where we're going to do miss Impossible on this rickety little boat to torpedo the German gunboat and raise the Union Jack even if it wasn't the Stars and Stripes all three were very shrewd characters they knew what they needed to do and what better project than the African queen John Houston was a very for his kind of rough and tumble ways was a very literate person very well read and had great admiration for writing and one of the people who worked with him on the adaptation of this was James a who had written let us now praise famous men and had established a career is a very literate writer about about films and and in film criticism James a was essentially a disheveled drunk was a kind of poetic gift for language he was a most remarkable character remarkable looking he was big great Rush of hair which I speak from Envy his way in with Houston was he wrote A Life magazine article called undirect director and then they struck up a rapport and a kind of a mutual admiration Society it was only a matter of time until Houston began thinking of AG as a potential collaborator on his screenplay and AG began thinking of Houston as his conduit to Hollywood I said well how about doing a picture with me and um said he like nothing better first one I did why the African queen Mr allnut I'm still right here miss there ain't much of any other place I could be on a 30ft boat one of the key things besides um Bogard and heurn of course is this extraordinary script by James AG from the Forester novel and kind of mixture of this romance which is kind of blooming and adventure story AG gave the African queen a lot of its early spark he consciously modeled the characters portrayed by Humphrey Bogart and kathern heern on his own mother and his own father what an absurd idea what an absurd idea what an absurd idea lady you got t upet ideas for by one and I think it's what gave it some of its magic and its special charm a was a big smoker you know and they actually had a regime where they where they went to bed at 10:00 they didn't drink that much you know we get up early in the morning and play couple of sets of tennis have breakfast and then go to work work through until lunchtime lay off for a couple of hours and then work again for 2 or 3 hours and another two or three sets of tennis dinner and after dinner we'd work Jim was forever bring more pages he was doing an enormous amount of work and I didn't see how how he could manage to turn so much work out and then I discovered that he was working at night and getting very little sleep and at one point John left for a little while and was called back because James AG had a heart attack I remember after he' had his heart attack we were alone in a room was 2 or 3 days after the heart attack and um Jim said give me a cigarette and I said no I said Jim it wouldn't be fair to the doctor you thought about that not it right and that was the last time John talked to him a year and a year and a half later AG was going to would die Smite the amalekites oh Lord Smite them hi the great shame or tragedy was that he was so gifted in so many forms that if he had Liv longer uh we would have had more Ag More of AG's wonderful writing before Houston and Company departed for Africa the screenplay the ending of the movie was still being hotly debated when John Houston did the African queen you know it was to really shoot Africa and apparently his obsession was to shoot an anant Katherine heo who was a control W fre was desperate to talk about her role with John Houston who perversely gave her a tour of his hunting gear she was Furious and Bogart who knew Houston pretty well just said oh you know that's the monster for you John houon had the idea of doing the whole thing in Africa and uh he said it was going to be so easy because we could make a mockup of the African queen for the main scenes on a raft and just drift along the Congo we were going to start and do the film in Uganda in Lake Victoria which was British territory and then houon went out there and I was on another film I didn't go and he said he didn't like that location it was too too pretty too too much like maiden head and so on so he disappeared for a couple of weeks and we wondered what had happen whether he would been eaten by crocodiles or something when John got to the first location before Katie heurn and bogy arrived he was uh told that the food was scarce and so they got a hunter who said he was a hunter to go hunt game bring in Monkey bring in pig or whatever and every day they were eating and so there was always food in the pot you know was was always me and then one day the U the soldiers came and collected him and we didn't know why for a few days and then then discovered that uh during that previous period villagers had had been missing and this was why he was finishing meat for the pot and this guy was hung he actually was uh was was was hung for for doing this a few days it's absolute when we flew to Africa for the African queen we all left London from what was then North Hol airport the men are in coats and jackets and Tweed things and we're going you know from England to Africa which is you know searingly hot I think we stopped in Rome we stopped in carum and landed in Nairobi and much to John's Fury all his artillery was confiscated by Customs his ambition was of course to shoot an elephant and it was explained to him that there were only five licenses a year were issued and there was a 5year waiting list and obviously that didn't shoot John at all I think he met a Belgian at the bar that night and John told him that he was very disappointed with Kenya that he wanted to shoot an elephant in the Bel and said oh I mean you want to go to the Belgian Congo I mean there you can shoot anything whatever you like next morning he had vanished he' taken a plane and had gone off to the Belgian Congo it was an incredible situation Bogart cther Heber jumped on various planes and arrived in Africa to be told that um Houston had gone off to shoot an elephant which Katherine heurn said was an utterly piggish thing to do and about 2 days later he returned he said kid uh a FAL location it's uh you know really very interesting I think you'll like it and it was right in nowhere land I mean it was called beyondo this place and it was beyond anywhere it was two days Jeep ride from Stanleyville there were two principal locations in Africa where uh the film was made one was the ruii river in the Belgian Congo which is a very small River they wanted narrow Banks and the water was Pitch Black because of the underground foliage that had rot it and so forth and so on and for somehow this appealed to John Houston what a brightly strong smell what smell the river smells like Maragos stale ones does huh not a very good smell for a flower the fact that he went on location to Africa to make the African queen obviously had an effect on everybody there the performance of Bogart and and Catherine Hein would be night and day if they filmed this on a back lot somewhere they were in the real place and you can't fake that stuff we were in the middle of a leper colony no hotels and now we got to put the crew up and the art director wilri shlon who assembled we got to build one and we built a sort of this shape cabins cabins cabins all the way around put up about 40 people all made of bamboo and a rat hand on top to go to bed you had to pull back the flap in as I said the dormet Tre try to get your shoes off try and leap into bed before something came with you and pull the net cuz you you had to sleep under Nets you couldn't shoot on the African queen because it's only about 16t long and about 5T wide by the time you get the camera in there which you do occasionally where do you put the lights the the solution to that was another pontoon with bits of the African queen you had the stern so that if you had ktie driving and Bogart sitting there you could be the camera and there was room for the lights and they had an African queen they bought an old boat an Old river boat there that was actually built in 1912 and they rechristened at the African queen but now a technical camera has loads of gear there are the makeup and hairdress that got their terrible little boxes plus the props we haven't got room for them on that so we build another pontoon which has all the crew sitting on that are not working so you had this kind of this parade going down the river every day and shooting and then we had to pull Miss Hepburn's personal l in her contract apparently she had a private Loop and so we had to improvise which wasn't easy because the river you know turned around you know navigating all the floating flotillas and Taylor Charlie is Katie's L John Houston who was doing it didn't know a hell of a lot about River traffic the current would take us kening down we'd get swept way over to one side and uh everybody would say duck and we'd lie flat otherwise we would have been scraped right into the crocodile pit or something it's really quite easy isn't it Mr allnut ah you got to learn to read the river we got not very far around the river on the first Bend Katie's loot got hooked up on the trees and so I yelled and shouted to the natives behind to chop it and we'll pick it up on the way back unfortunately Miss heurn is very regular and at 10:00 she said where is my blue I then said Katie I'm terribly sorry we had to abandon it dah dah dah she didn't take very kindly to that and I couldn't see why she couldn't do what the rest of the crew did was to go whenever we were alongside into the bushes somewhere we had no other sanitation and I'll just go up in the bar hang off the anchor chain you can stay back here in this turn and do whatever you have to as long as we don't look it won't matter huh now Houston sort of says okay I want you to understand one thing we have to shoot this film in Technicolor now you may say well you know this is a big deal this is 1951 most theatrical films at that time were still being made in black and white the technical camera was a monster it has this huge blimp to be soundproofed so it's a box you know about 4T tall and about 2T wide and inside this great soundproof box three films ran through the camera you've got to open it all up and reload three reels of film it required immense amount of light well there ain't two hours a daylight left Miss we can go a long way in 2 hours Mr olut there's the color in the film which is still very very rich something very special about that true Technicolor of course the movie you know was shot by Jack ciff who was the probably the greatest of all Technicolor cameramen you know people known now for the pictures he made with Paul pressberg like of course the red shoes and a matter of life and death and black narcissist I said to the producer in London that I wanted to take two lamps two lamps to Africa with me with a baby generator and he said Jack he said we're going to Africa and the son he said you don't need lamps in Africa I said believe me sometimes you do and it also helps to uh to you know to put a bit of light in the shadows cuz the light is very strong so so I was allowed to have my two lamps ironically the first two weeks of shooting an African queen it rained every day but we were able to shoot every day because I had my two lamps what are you doing I ain't doing nothing Miss well get out this instant when we talk about Bogart and Katherine heurn being being the only actors going to Africa we had Lauren ball who was Mrs Bogart at the time going not to be in the picture but to be with bogie and of course according to all accounts she was a big help where you are going to Africa rodesia Nigeria did you say Nairobi Nairobi Nairobi do uh we have still cannibals wild animals stuff like that I don't think so uh they're wild animals honey yeah well oh yeah sure they I suppose they're crocodiles all kinds I'm not too familiar with the animal life of the Nairobi I bet you he even promised you a leopard skid you know I'll bet you he didn't how thought that nothing but mink she wears nothing but mink she kind of made her own role there as the camp cook and nursaid as one after the other of the crew members got sick they suffered dissenter and a few got malaria and one of the crew members had an attack of appendicitis and ball would take care of them help them write their letters home do whatever she could and as she had done on Treasure of the sier Madre she's began also to help out cooking some of the meals that is one of the great and I think fully truthfully so one of the great romances of Hollywood I she was devoted to him of course I saw arguments but not serious arguments that's where the miss ball comes in because when they were having an argument he would always call her miss ball but they were devoted to each other and the children Lauren Mall even though much his his Junior in terms of years and is often seen as a that he was sort of the father in the relationship but as time went on particularly when his alcoholism and his lifestyle started to wear more on him she became more of a caretaker to him and became his sort of strength you see that of course all the stories an African queen African queen is one of my favorite Bogart movies for a number of reasons one it's him later in life taking on this very different character than he's ever played and doing it with great Applause Houston among others propagated the notion that Bogart was kind of an ordin AR just guy if you saw him on the street or at a party or something but then when the camera came on something magical happened bot was a marvelous movie actor I never saw him on stage but he knew what to do with that camera knew how much and how little and the camera loved them for it could you make a torpedo boie of course was he put on this big act he was a tough guy you know I mean he told me at the beginning about makeup you know he said Jack he said see this face it's Tak me many years to get this all these lines and Pringles in it he said that's the way I want it don't light me out make me look like a godamn you know I want to look like this so I did it he never seemed to carry a script around most actors hang on to their scripts like directors do like drowning men hanging on to a life book but he never seemed to have a script but he was always word perfect I never saw him fluff aake ever he was very much of a gent very well born frightfully good manners not a tough guy not at all the exact opposite exact opposite but he was one of the few actors he really liked his profession he really was proud of being an actor he was doing what he wanted to do boie was always amable he'd asked you you know when's my next shot and I could figure that out perfectly well you won't need you for a couple of hours bogie and he would very quietly not as you would have today a motorboat come and take him back to his Caravan and so he would go and make himself a bed and go to sleep then you kick him and uh always the same outfit and that terrible cap uh it didn't matter how dirty he got that was part of the routine Humphrey Boer and John Houston the director were were sort of made for each other in many ways their attitudes towards life and their attitude towards their work was very similar I mean they were hard drinkers hard livers afternoons I was always sleeping one off John was much more wild bogy was more domestic he didn't mix into the uh Hollywood Circuit of course I didn't see very much of bogy and Hollywood usually we were kicking around the world some other place he obviously is a greatly responsible for making a star at Bogart I think with the malti Falcon which was of course his own First full credit as director but he also wrote High Sierra the r Walsh film made the same year at Warner Brothers and those two were the Breakthrough pictures for Bogart uh so really way they help make each other I think Houston loves adversity he one of the things he loved about shooting Treasure of the Sierra Madre is they were up in the kind of bad lands of Mexico and that it was you know he loved the the tough circumstances for it you're going to find evidence of chaos and making a many great films if a shoot goes smoothly and everybody gets along and uh uh usually the movie is not very good so well this African queen was that times 10 they're there in what was then the Belgian Congo now zir way up River and Houston is sort of almost crowing he says you know we have every known disease here and almost every known type of servant and he's thrilled about that I used to go out shooting in the mornings before we started shooting on the picture I we used to out with the rifle in the mornings and Katie took a very dim view of this she said you know John this just doesn't go with the rest of your character you're you're not a murderer I know and yet you go out and shoot these these beautiful animals and I said well Katie you don't really understand and you wouldn't unless you came with me and experienced it yourself and she said all right I'll come I can't think why she went presumably uh to discourage him as they're walking through the jungle there's this giant grumbling they were that close to the elephants they heard the grumbling in the stomachs and they realized they you know they were downwind for up until this point and the wind changed and all of a sudden there was a herd of elephants they were within 15 20 yards of and one of the bull elephants started to to Bell you know it started to turned around and they started to charge and John realized my God I almost lost you know our star our leading lady that was like it was very irresponsible in any case from from that moment on Katie was vable Diana of the hunt in actuality dad never shot an elephant people often think that he was a bragger and inflated but he was much more subtle than that first of all he thought would be a crime to shoot an elephant but no it wasn't a crime it was a sin and this is a non-religious man saying it's a sin this is a man who refused to be bored in his early childhood he was diagnosed with an enlarged heart he was basically dying the doctors were saying you can't move you can't do anything and all he wanted to do is get out he was a kid he would look out his window and and and he could see that there was like a river down a distance away so what he did he waited at night and he snuck out the window what he didn't know the first time he jumped in the river was that the river turned into a waterfall I went under water for a little while and then came out and discovered it was great Sport and he had some kind of epiphany that far from avoiding danger if he went right for it somehow it would turn into nothing which worked really well for him but was kind of dangerous for other people he loved to tell stories of beautiful losers everybody in John Houston's movies are trying to do something and failing he kind of recognized the strange unconscious urge that part of humanity which makes you want to fail and has a defeat in your own makeup you know uh it's like man is His Own Worst Enemy and you can feel that in all of Houston pictures whether it's finding gold in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre or stealing Jewel in the asphalt jungle or pachy and Dany and the man who would be king going off to be Kings in kafiristan uh and that doesn't work Ahab going after the whale nothing works and he doesn't seem prejudiced about it he doesn't say this is a bad thing in this character it's just part of being alive it's being human it's being a human being African queen which is kind of almost an upbeat picture the way they he takes him to the brink of total disaster is extremely unusual what you being so mean for Miss man takes a drop too much once in a while it's it's only Human Nature Nature Mr olut is what we are put in this world to rise above we had a famous scene between Bogi and Katie and John said fine print it and she said but you weren't watching but I was listening no you weren't watching said Katie and this went on dad usually knew almost intuitively whether the the shot had gone right or Not by the way that the actor sounded what he would do is turn away listen to the beat of the lines I mean we've gone through all the rehearsals we've gone through the setup dad would just listen to the music of the words and then at the end of the shot he'd say to his cameraman did you get it and if the cameraman said yes sir that was it his gold standard was take one now most of us as directors do two or three takes we give notes to the actors in between but Houston did none of that he did a quick rehearsal and say let's go for it he'd shoot it do the cover and say that's it problem I think today that we do so many setups they had setups they locked in with that camera they did camera moves but they locked in and once they had it you had the world around them you could feel the Flies you could feel the humidity you know the heat you know put the actors in there and I I I quite you know once they once they got it set once they got it set how many takes could you do one of the uniqueness about his Direction was that he would often let the actors work things out he would tell them go ahead and you know do what you want and then he tweaked and he would tweak in such a way that the person wouldn't even know that they were being given an instruction in the African queen very famous uh situation with Katherine heurn she doesn't like Charlie onnut she doesn't like this character that her character doesn't like and she's playing it condescendingly and and and angrily and and whatever for the first three days they're shooting in other words you are refusing to help your country in her hour of need Mr olut I wouldn't put it that way just how would you put it Mr onut and John is picking this up you know he says this is not the kind of relationship it's going to develop into a good relationship and that's what has to happen in this in this movie and so he calls her aside he says may I talk to you he said that he thought that she ought to be more of a lady and she took him umbrage by that because she felt she was a lady she says well what lady he says have you ever seen how Elanor Roosevelt who she always thought herself as an ugly woman but when she visited people she always had this smile on her face you see he he kept it really simple and cathine heer in her book the making of the African queen says that was a single greatest piece of Direction she has ever received she got the character it was immediate she understood who Rosie was supposed to be and that's genius that is what a great director does see the key thing as as you know is really trust with the actors and uh you gain the trust of the actors um you get you trust them too uh and they feel protected they feel they got a safety net they feel enriched you could try anything I had a moment of weakness well now if you're feeling weak a day or two more here won't make any difference oh no we'll go on thank heaven for your strength child Catherine heurn a woman woman who had invented herself several times over the course of her career she had been labeled box off as poison and had come back with the Philadelphia Story and but she'd worn out her welcome again she was now going to Corner the market on spinsters she was a unique individual I don't know anybody like her I mean can you can you think of one Soul who who's in her area or you was comparable people always talk about summertime David lean's a Charming film that he made in Venice uh as a first like great middle age role but it's really I think a few years earlier but African queen this is the moment when she separates herself from her contemporaries and really becomes the Great American institution that she became we were in a delightful part of Africa it was new and exciting and it was a joy there were there were a few instances of people getting ill some some malaria even on the whole it was a very pleasant experience most pictures are fun to work on I mean the conditions are everybody's come out of the war all the crew had all been in the war they'd all slept in much worse conditions than we had no problems one night I Remember The Clapper boy coming and saying coming home tonight with the African queen it was shipping water overnight it did fill up and sink so next morning when we all go to work there is the African queen lying on its side in the mud and the entire male unit and anybody else who was around were up there around the trees with roots we had to get 30 of the crew including boy to help pulling it back U right have you ever heard of a I well don't jiggers were sort of little worms that get between your toes bogy gets a and so he showed it to the doctor uh and he said can you take it and he said no no no you must not take it uh uh it's an operation because if you pull it out with tweezers the head stays in and then you get blood poisoning Etc the house boy will do it it was somebody in the crew who was East African and therefore knew about this sort of thing the thing is that he holds the back into the and he puts a hot cigarette and the goes oh and that's the moment where you got to pull it out we thought it was absolutely fascinating bogy was lying on his stomach and he couldn't he couldn't know what was happening behind and great shout of Triumph when the came out boy had another among countless other problems the soldier ants one night as heer and imal were walking back to their tents they started screaming and they walked in and they realized that everything was just blanketed with soldier ants they March like an army about four deep and they keep their distances and if they go through like a hen house or something the hens are gone they were in the clothing they were just blanketing on the floor the yach department very sensibly had the natives de a trench all the way around and if they were ever to attack we would counter attack I was set the kerosene light I remember that night of of of of of everybody's on the wall path you know going up burning and moving things they knew that they had to finish up at that location rather quickly because there was no getting around the soldier ANS the second location in Africa was Uganda to do the scene of the school and the burning Etc that was all done in Uganda and from there then we went up the merchon Nile merchon Falls and Lake Albert that was where the kernigan Louise was supposedly patrolling the lake animals are plenty uh that was one of the reasons for going to Lake Albert because on the banks there are really big mothers waiting for their supper Miss and when you wake them up they come crashing down into the water it's quite impressive and also the bumps on the boat because suddenly hippos come along I was riding away and the hippo Rose underneath the boat John always tells a story and she just went on writing never even reacted but he sort of lifted us up and he went down again he went down oh with the hippos were there the baboons were on the far side they didn't attack us no they just used to come out and watch every day as as we were shooting down I doubled for Katie taking the boat when they're on the hill the Germans shooting down that me steering the boat down there and I went with the captain of the lard who gave me one go round to the base of the thing where all the crocodiles are lying on the B with their mouths wide open and very large ones you know you can't go left you can't go right you know you got about a foot either side and I was of course having to be down under the tiller you know if I'd have gone ground I mean we didn't really have anything to push us off with except I don't even think we did have a pole on the boat but was good fun now there ain't no of was both going to do it now that I've about time to study it I can plainly see it's a oneman job you couldn't be more right charlier well now Rosie I'm glad you agree with me when the time comes I'll put you off on the East Shore you'll wait there for me while I attend to the Louisa certainly not you're the one to be put ashore me the screenplay was actually written by AG and by John Houston and at the end because they were unable to find a satisfactory ending another Hollywood screenwriter named Peter vertell was brought over to Africa briefly to work on the revision of the script in the original CS Forester novel they don't succeed my father was a a pessimist and he didn't think things should go right the African queen get swamped and sunk there we are it's the end of it the book ends it differently and you know do they is it a happy ending do they get blown up does the do they get the German boat or not does the Torpedoes work you know I mean there's a lot of different ways you can go with it and as pet quoted William Wier and he said you know William wer said everyone comes to me with a good beginning but what's hard is finding a good ending Sam Spiegel definitely thought that they should somehow pull this off Houston being true to his beautiful losers ethic was probably adamant that no such thing should happen don't think he would have had them hung but I think he would have had them possibly drowning when they hit the water I think until they were actually rolling it didn't occur to any of them that this was a comedy and I think the person who realized it with the keenest appreciation for it was Houston one he perceived the chemistry between Bogart and Katherine heurn I think the reason that the ending got Rewritten in Africa was because of that and he just thought no way can't kill him can't kill Rosie and Charlie you know you fight a lot to make a good picture but the greatest enemy is your own preconception you have to go with what could change and what's there um and I think it's very tempting to take it easy and just rely on what you know you can do well but you have to fight it and that's why unlikely assortments of people you find them lugging at three strip C Technicolor camera through the Congo and getting malaria I mean it's an extraordinary thing don't you understand Charlie I wouldn't want to go onia without you then the river ceases to be they're now coming into the marshes for the great shot of coming out and revealing Lake Elbert we had a wonderful Carpenter called Harry Arbor who John loved who had to build this extraordinary ramps and get the C which was a very heavy camera in those days the three strip technical camera and this was John's idea I mean it was his idea to get the shop they managed to build it and shoot it the lugard was sort of luxury compared to what we had because they were cabins I think some of the El Ians had to double up and whatever and triple up but anyway we all fited in the ship we were on the filter on the water which we drew from the from the lake what we were shooting on uh wasn't there it had disappeared we were drinking pure pure late water with the droppings of hippos and crocodiles so they got absolutely every single disease known to Africa we were all sick very very sick I mean all kinds of dentry all kinds of vomiting everything there was an incredible story of uh Katherine hat bone being filmed playing the organ and then there was a bucket where she was throwing up every 5 minutes she was vomiting between takes and it was always terrible and Jack cardiff's concern that she was looking green and Technicolor and if you look at the restored version you can tell what was shot in Africa and what was shot in England because Kate became so dehydrated that her face literally started to sink in the big joke was on me because I was rather self-righteous and I thought while I'm traveling with two drunks I better not drink anything so I drank lots lots of the water lots of the water everything in that John never got sick uh Houston never got sick bogey never got sick because they never touched water they only drank whiskey and I nearly died of the disent cuz the water was poison they finished up in Africa and then the cast and crew moved on to London where they filmed all of the scenes that take place in the water wonder how much damage we've done let's get the water out and see the scenes with Robert Morley were also filmed in London riched little man what indifference he's a Canadian doesn't he realize he's in this too and all of those people on the German gunbow we have Theodor beel and we have Peter Bull and the others that was all shot in England was there a woman with you it was three scenes one was on board this gunboat show an interior that was built the next one was when we were about to hang them on the deck and then in the water it was built on the lot outside the Wen H Studios it was built on stilts about 15 ft High because it had to get above trees so the deck was against the sky they have to shoot a lot of stuff in England which is soft pedals in terms of the public some people say 50% of this movie was shot in England not sure that it was that much but for example the water was so poisonous where they were shooting in Africa that no scene in in which any of the actors or crew had to be in water could be shot in Africa that was deadly so all the scenes that involve water or Bogart or heurn in water were shot in the [Music] UK swallowed half the river that time it was then the mockup of the um various mockups of the African queen both Stone and AF against blue screen meaning that they would Matt in the background and originally you did have some distortion on the Technicolor prints because you had bleed that happened in the early blue screen years for a while with with color that was there at the time and the boat was on rockers and during the storm we used dump tanks with these huge gallons of water pouring down and there were rain heads over the tank and you did have a miniature African queen that was probably I don't know it looks to be about 5 ft that was used a lot for going down the Rapids and so on where youd cut to the long shot but you'd intercut that with them on the craft and you'd see all of this water coming over them with a blue screen uh with Bogart and heurn at the tiller there there's a lot of those shots the famous leech scene was filmed in England oh that little Bish I said to bogy surely you're this great strong man just take a Le and put it on you they were repulsive looking so he said not me H in his perverse way wanted real leeches to be used I don't suppose anyone who ever saw that movie can forget those leeches and Bogart's reaction to them that completely convincing had that reaction quite naturally you know he brought out a leech to to show him even though the leeches he put on him eventually were like rubber ones and before boie had to climb into the water they were stuck to his back they just fall off it was so bony every move nothing would stick to him finally they got something that stuck but it wasn't a real leap the scene is that he jumps out of the water and everybody gets rid of the leeches but one look from Miss heurn means that he's got to go back in there again because you haven't finished pulling the boat and we do one more shot and John is over there and he's whispering to bogy when I hear John saying bogy I mean this wants you to go back into the water and you got these leeches they're going up your ass she's a mad he says look John cut out the crap I got three Expressions which one do you want when the African queen was shown to the Distributors after it was finished they hated it they said oh my God an unshaven Humphrey burot he looks awful and Catherine hatur looking her age and they just said we can't sell this they made certain suggestions to the Wolf brothers who basically told them to take a hike John Wolf said no I employed John Houston to do it this way and I'm not going to agree to any changes unless he wants to make them after that they uh there was no more to be said Sam Spiegel was so convinced about his movie that he was determined that it should qualify for Academy Awards in order to qualify for an Academy Award the film must be shown in a theater in America at least for one week and everybody thought that was just another piece of folly we're talking about a booking at the 21st of December at this one theater actually it was 2 days late they were as bewildered as anybody else by the size of the success not only commercial but also critical most of the reviews and most of the audience response was very positive do you remember the first time you saw the African yes yes at the Lowe's commodor in 6th Street Second Avenue my father took me Sunday afternoon audience loved it in Bogart's acting was there was all sorts of talk that there would be an Oscar nomination for him he was up against kind of tremendous odds there was Brando and street car Named Desire there was Frederick March and Death of a Salesman Montgomery cliffed for A Place in the Sun and he thought there's no way in this company that I'm going to win Bogart was happy enough I think to get the nomination but he hated the whole idea all of the stuff you had to do to kind of promote yourself during it and there they were on the night of the Oscars riding with Richard Brooks to the ceremonies Brook said to Bogie what are you going to say if you win he said I'm not going to win I don't have to say don't you know leave me alone and B said well just you know in case you win you know what would you say he still doesn't want to have anything to do with it and uh Richard Brook said let me tell you what to do if you do win he says you're going to walk down slowly you're going to get there you're going to take it you're going to look at it he says I want you to look at it for look at it for a minute it's going to seem like an hour take a whole minute looking at it and then look up and say it's about time we're says great I'll do it but he doesn't expect to win so they call out his name and Lauren Mall's voice could be heard throughout the Pantages Theater screaming you know you got it go up there and he went up and was apparently so flustered that he couldn't remember the remarks that he had planned to make he thanks everybody's life he starts to cry and he goes off and Brook said what happened he said I'll tell you what when you get yours you do it Peter verell had a sufficiently amazing experience on the African queen that he wrote his novel white Hunter black heart about pre-production on the African queen and about John Houston whom he calls John Wilson in the book the picture they were making was not the African queen in the novel but of course everybody who knew anything about this thought it's the African queen at the end of writing it verel showed the manuscript to Houston and said if there's anything that you don't like I'll take it out I'll change it Peter vertell is waiting wondering you know what is he going to say because it's not what you'd call a rapaic depiction of the Houston character Houston of course immediately read the book and then proceeded to make suggestions to verell on how to make him even less flattering I think was a pretty accurate portrayal of Houston of Houston's relationship with Spiegel and that became Peter vel's Masterpiece it's quite a wonderful novel and there was eventually a movie made of it where Clint East played John Wilson and also directed at White Hunter blackart why did I mean after such an incredible film why did Houston and Spiegel fall apart because it was over money when the reviews came out for um the African queen and they were sort of best film ever and and then they were on good terms when bogot won his Oscar for the African queen and then speaker kept on saying there's no money darling there's no money and everything Spiegel did some maneuverings with the finances and and John's manager told him that this could get tricky and you know and you could end up going to jail over this and John said I want nothing to do with it get me dissolve my company with him I want nothing to do with it I don't want any more you know whatever I'm getting paid get me get me out of this quickly and he did African queen goes on to make a ton of money and Spiegel gets it all and John regretted that he says I could have been a very wealthy man he says if that happened Houston was horrified and really angry to hear that uh Spiegel's then wife was wearing diamonds at Li Ambassador and second wife said oh it's all the African queen it's all the African queen I just finished a film called the magic box which was a high Prestige film we worked on it on the basis that we all got half salary and the rest we'd get from the box office receipts you know and as it happened it was a very nice film but it was a financial flop I don't know why so the next film was African queen when Sam said Sam Spiegel the producer said Jack how about taking a little less salary and get a piece of the film and I said uhuh no Sam no thanks very much much I've done all that and I turned it down I mean I would have been a millionaire because you know even one or 2% of the takings of that picture because it goes on year after year everybody loves African queen you know it's just one of those film just two people on a boat and yet it's done in such a way that you like these characters in the end you see how they could come together from completely different parts of the cultural World ain't nobody in Africa except yours truly can get up a good head of steam on the old African queen I'm looking at what almost 60 years later but it feels fresh in a new way and I think the the beauty of the film and the sense of how it was made craftsmanship has become even more impressive a great little film which became a masterpiece this is a compulsively watchable movie with two great great cinematic performances and a terrific story and you care deeply and passionately about what happens to Charlie and Rosie Rosie Rosie has a kind of a an aura about it and you don't really remember a particular event so much it's just the chemistry between these two stars and you wind up using words like magic which don't even mean that much but if you see the movie well they make sense ain't a thing I can do about it we know it worked in 1951 we know that people flock to see this and we're delighted but the fact that here we are now and it still works for people I think because the relationship of Bogart and the heurn the humor between the two of them the sexual attraction between the two and the fact that they're not M Idols you know this is something that will never date I know in my heart that the photography was pretty straight forward there was nothing very very artistic nothing creative nothing to say isn't that wonderful just ordinary photography but the fact that African queen is one of the most seen films it's one of the most popular films everyone loves African queen lipo facto you photograph the African queen wonderful they give me credit which I don't really deserve because it's an ordinary bit of Photography when my son was 6 years old this may have been the first Bogart movie he saw and there was a period of about two months where he just watched it cuz he loved the adventure he loved these characters and it's so interesting is that a six-year-old would take the same pleasure that I did watching these folks because the story is so great it doesn't pretend to be highbrow it's not a high futin movie it's a movie about two losers who get together and [Music] win [Music] [Music] la [Music] [Music]

Channel: thedivinemisshepburn

Views: 498,468

Keywords: the african queen, katharine hepburn, humphrey bogart, documentary

Id: _sv1OLW_8tQ

Length: 56min 55sec (3415 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 17 2016