The African Queen Rides Into Adventure with Bogart and Hepburn

Guest blogger Chris Cummins from MovieFanFare pays tribute to a Bogey-Hepburn classic:

Released on December 23, 1951, The African Queen (based on the C.S. Forester novel of the same name) is a cinematic masterpiece that is highlighted by unforgettable lead performances from Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. Directed by John Huston, this classic blend of drama, action, and romance stars Humphrey Bogart (who won his only Oscar for this role) as a hard-drinking boat captain who takes aboard prim British missionary Katharine Hepburn in WWI-era Africa. Determined to travel down a treacherous river to sink a German gunboat, the unlikely couple is drawn together as they set their seemingly impossible plan in motion. 

The African Queen features romantic tension, a supporting cast that includes Robert Morley and Theodore Bikel, and a stunning third act. It regularly makes top ten lists of the best films from the Golden Age of Hollywood. We’ve included the film’s original theatrical trailer below. If you’ve somehow missed seeing this film event over the years, we encourage you taking a voyage aboard The African Queen. It’s a trip that is always worth taking.

Henry Fonda Uses the Phone, John Huston Gets Confused, and Shelley Winters Sports a Giant Sombrero

Henry Fonda calling his agent after
appearing in Tentacles.

Kirk Douglas did it. Ditto for Walter Pidgeon. Even John Wayne and Ray Milland got into the act. Yes, we're talking about fighting giant octopuses and squids. So, there's nothing unusual about Henry Fonda, Shelley Winters, and John Huston appearing in a movie about a giant octopus harassing a seaside community. It's just a shame that they had to choose a low-budget, Italian-made horror opus called Tentacles.

Huston and Winters play brother and sister; he's an investigative reporter and she's a single mother. Huston's writer somehow connects a series of mysterious deaths around Solana Beach with an underground tunnel being built by an industrialist played by Henry Fonda. He's right, of course...Fonda's company's excavations have unleashed a giant octopus that likes to eat people. Have I mentioned that Tentacles was made two years after Jaws shattered box office records?

Shelley Winters makes hats popular again.

Despite its budget, Tentacles had the potential to be an entertaining popcorn movie; consider what John Sayles did with Piranha one year later (and his biggest stars were Kevin McCarthy and Bradford Dillman). Unfortunately, Tentacles is drenched with cliches, such as: the diving bell that can't be pulled from the water because the mechanism malfunctions (it always does in these movies); the first-person views of the creature (which lowers special effects costs); murky underwater photography (see SFX budget again); and the regatta that places a bunch of kids in peril (a blatant rip-off from Jaws). Add one of the worst music scores ever recorded and you've got a clunker.

Huston discussing the squid--no, I mean
octopus!--with Claude Akins.

Henry Fonda apparently filmed his scenes in one day and never appears onscreen with Huston nor Winters. Huston shows minimal interest in the proceedings and, at one point, calls the title creature a giant squid--after we have clearly established it's an octopus. Shelley Winters fares the best, essentially reprising her character from The Poseidon Adventure.

There are two reasons to watch Tentacles. The first is a Fritz Lang-worthy scene near the beginning in which a mother has parked her baby carriage near the shoreline as she crosses the street to talk with a friend. The camera frames the mother in the foreground and the baby carriage (with little Billy inside) in the background. It's a disturbing scene as the viewer waits for a slimy tentacle to snatch little Billy. Cars pass by between mother and child. Then, as a final car cruises by, we see that the baby carriage is now floating on the water. It's an effective sequence and gave me hope (false hope, as you know by now).

Hopkins gives his big speech...to
a killer whale.

The second memorable scene is a camp classic. Bo Hopkins, who plays a marine biologist whose wife was an octopus victim, prepares to send one of his captive killer whales to destroy the octopus. He gives it the following pep talk:

"I guess you know now why I brought you here. I wanted to tell you more about it, but there've been many people that died... I've lost a loved one. I need your help more now than ever. I remember the times when I was training you--people used to call you killers. They used to call me that on the streets. It doesn't mean nothing. You have more, more love in your heart, more affection than any human being I ever met. But now I...I can't ask anybody else, so I'm asking you to help me kill this octopus. I hope you understand that. I know I'm in your environment. I don't want it this way, but if I release you and you go away, I want you to know I'll understand. All right, enough said. I gotta go now. If you feel anything--you talk to me. Make some noises. I know people'll think we're crazy. Maybe we are...maybe we are...."

If there's a tear running down your cheek, I'm sorry I didn't warn you about the raw emotion of that passage.   Honestly, I don't know how Hopkins delivered it with a straight face, but--to his credit--he does. He also went on to carve out a solid acting career, mostly in television series like Dynasty.

As for Henry Fonda, he weathered follow-ups like The Swarm and Rollercoaster to win an Oscar in 1981 for On Golden Pond. As a director, John Huston was Oscar-nominated for Prizzi's Honor in 1985. Only Shelley Winters missed out on an opportunity for redemption. Ditto for the giant octopus, too, of course.

A Month of Mysteries: Who Is Murdering the People on "The List of Adrian Messenger"?

John Huston’s 1963 mystery is best known for its gimmick: several famous stars make cameos in heavy make-up. While trying to spot the stars is undeniably fun, the gimmick disguises the fact that The List of Adrian Messenger is a highly-entertaining, crafty film that starts as a mystery and evolves into a suspenseful cat-and-mouse game.

At the Gleneyre estate In England, author Adrian Messenger (John Merivale) provides a list of ten names to his friend Anthony Gethryn (George C. Scott), a former MI5 operative. Messenger, acting both concerned and mysterious, asks Gethryn to quietly find out if the ten people on the list are still alive. Gethryn agrees to undertake the assignment. A few days later, a bomb explodes aboard a plane carrying Adrian as a passenger. Everyone dies in the crash, except for a Frenchman called Raoul Le Borg (Jacques Roux), who hears Messenger’s final words as they drift together in the icy ocean.

When Gethryn learns that most of the men on Messenger’s list are dead, he surmises that the plane crash was designed to kill his friend. He interviews Le Borg, who recalls Adrian’s last words before dying...but they don’t make sense. Was Adrian trying to leave an important message in code with his final breath? What’s the connection between the men on Messenger’s list and why is someone murdering each of them?

Gethryn solves the mystery with a third of the film’s running time remaining. The action then shifts back to Gleneyre—home of the wealthy Bruttenholm (pronounced “broom”) family—as Gethryn tries to outfox the killer, who has now also arrived on the scene.

Based on a 1959 novel by mystery author and screenwriter Philip MacDonald, The List of Adrian Messenger borrows the killer’s motive from another famous detective novel (no spoilers here!). But the “why” is only part of the fun in The List of Adrian Messenger. It’s the “how” that differentiates it from other mysteries. Among his many skills, the murderer is also a master of disguises, which provides the opportunity for Kirk Douglas to don a number of incredible “looks” designed by make-up master Bud Westmore. Thus, the killer appears as a pointy-chinned priest, a short mousey man, a white-haired elderly villager, and others.

George C. Scott grounds the story with a finely-etched portrait of a man just past his prime professionally, who realizes he will only be friends with the woman he loves. One wonders if Gethryn’s zeal in solving Adrian’s murder can be partially attributed to the fact that it provides a mental challenge for the former espionage agent. Gethryn even notes his admiration for the killer’s cleverness at one point. It’s a shame that Scott didn’t appear in additional films as Gethryn (MacDonald wrote 12 novels with the character; The List of Adrian Messenger was the last one).

Though the film would have worked just fine on its own merits, there’s no denying that the guest star cameos are amusing. Look closely and see if you can spot the heavily-disguised Tony Curtis, Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster, and Robert Mitchum (an easy one…he looks like an old Bob Mitchum). After the closing credits, each actor removes his disguise. According to some sources, other actors played the disguised characters in one or two scenes. I’m not sure about that, but some of the voices are definitely dubbed. Allegedly, Elizabeth Taylor turned down the chance to do a cameo because the make-up was so time-consuming.

There are other pleasures to be gained from The List of Adrian Messenger. Director John Huston keeps the plot moving quickly and does a wonderful job of foreshadowing (e.g., watch carefully and you can guess how the killer will meet his end). Jerry Goldsmith’s terrific music score is both playful and disturbing. And the English country setting provides the ideal backdrop for a climax that culminates in a fox hunt.

So, while you may enjoy the gimmicky guest stars in The List of Adrian Messenger, you’ll remember it for being a smart, inventive mystery. Maybe that’s why it’s one of those films that’s fun to watch over and over.

Moulin Rouge - True Beauty in Film

I would not be able to write about Moulin Rouge without surrounding the words with the works of the great genius Henri de Toulouse Lautrec. His life needed little embellishing for John Huston to create a movie about the greatness and tragedy of this artist. Lautrec recorded his own life in watercolor, oils and sketches. In 1952, John Huston and cinematographer Oswald Morris created the life and art of Lautrec in magnificent smoky color, each scene looking exactly like a Lautrec painting. Huston had a vision that the film should look as if Lautrec himself had directed it. Huston was true to his vision. Another creative artist worked with Huston to bring Lautrec to life – the marvelous Jose Ferrer. His performance and dedication to the role is without equal.

Toulouse Lautrec took a fall down a flight of stairs as a boy, and that simple accident created an extreme deformity that marked his life forever. His broken legs would never mend, and he ended up only 4’10”, his adult sized torso supported by legs the length of a child’s. Jose Ferrer, in striving to be like Lautrec, had his legs strapped up behind him and used special pads to walk on his knees in what must have been an extremely painful way. Huston also used special camera angles and in long shots, doubles to portray Lautrec's physicality.  But besides these, plus the fact of Ferrer’s amazing resemblance to Lautrec, it was Ferrer’s superb acting that brought to life Lautrec in all of the anger, pathos and genius that were his life.

Lautrec loathed his body, longed for love that he felt he would never be given, and hid his pain beneath a caustic wit. He also dealt with the mental and physical pain by an addiction to absinthe which he drank from morning to night. In the 1952 movie, it is said that he drank cognac, probably because of absinthe’s reputation as an evil opiate used only by depraved people. We know that Lautrec found sympathy and release in the Paris brothels, where he was known for his virility. Many of his well-known paintings are of the women of the streets and brothels.

But his most famous works are of the bohemian café, the Moulin Rouge. It is there that the Can-Can was popularized, and the café was rough and inviting. It was there that Lautrec befriended Jane Avril (Zsa Zsa Gabor), the singer. He also came to know La Goulue, the wild, rough and tumble, unabashedly sexual dancer (Katherine Kath). His sketches of the Moulin were made into posters to advertise the café, and they became a part of the bohemian quarter. In a double performance, Ferrer also played his disapproving father, the Count of Toulouse, who was ashamed of his son’s life as a street artist

Women were always a big part of Lautrec’s life, particularly two. The first is the deceitful and manipulative Marie Charlet (Colette Marchand), a street whore who pushes her way into Lautrec’s life with promises of acceptance and affection. Her betrayal of him led him to want to take his own life. The second woman was Myriamme (Suzanne Flon), a beautiful woman who truly loved Lautrec, but by the time she came into his life, he was too embittered to believe her.

The incredible beauty of this film is only enhanced by the superb performances of the cast, showing La Goulue in her decline, Marie Charlet in her evil, Myriamme in her goodness. Not just a beautiful movie, the music for Moulin Rouge by Georges Auric is remarkable. It moves from the gaiety of the Can Can to the deepest tragedy to a soft lilt when the paintings of Lautrec are shown throughout the film. There are many wonderful movies that I love, but Moulin Rouge will always have a special place in my love of beauty and truth.  As the prologue of the film states, his brushes are dry, but this movie makes him live again in the Paris of the late 19th century which he loved.

Moby Dick, Ahab and I

From the first line -- "Call me Ishmael" -- to the last -- "I only am escaped, alone, to tell thee" -- Moby Dick haunted my imagination and my dreams.  Warner Brothers' 1956 production, directed by John Huston, with screenplay by Huston and Ray Bradbury, captures the soul of Herman Melville's 1851 novel about obsession and the demigod-complex that feeds it.  There are some differences between the movie and the book, but nothing that damages Melville's vision.  The poetically supernatural writing of Bradbury is evident in the screenplay and only adds to the power of the story.

Gregory Peck portrays Ahab, captain of the whaler Pequod, a surprising choice to many, including Peck himself.  John Huston's father, Walter, was the first choice to play Ahab, but died before the movie was made.  Peck was 40 years old at the time, younger than Melville's Ahab, but the marvelous makeup and costuming transformed the handsome, debonair Peck into the unforgiving, scarred Ahab.  Peck's acting reveals Ahab's scarred soul and rage against God and nature perfectly.  The cast includes a very young Richard Basehart as Ishmael, a wanderer who signs onto the Pequod with his south sea island friend, Queequeg (Friedrich von Ledebur).  The wonderful Leo Genn is the stalwart Starbuck, first mate, with Harry Andrews and Seamus Kelly as 2nd and 3rd mates Stubb and Flask.  Most famous of the supporting cast is Orson Welles, who appears a the unrelenting New Bedford minister, Father Mapple.  His cameo role preaching a thunderous sermon to the outgoing whalers is a powerful performance.

From the beginning, we see that even to his crewmen, Ahab is a god-like figure.  In answer to Ishmael's question about what Ahab is like, mate Stubb says simply "Ahab's Ahab", mirroring the Bible in which God describes himself to Moses -- "I am that I am."  Biblical references abound in Moby Dick.  The ragged man on the wharf who speaks to Ishmael as he goes to the ship calls himself Elijah, prophecying --

"A day will come at sea when you smell land where there be no land, and on that day Ahab will go to his grave, but he will rise again and beckon, and all save one shall follow."  This is one of Bradbury's contributions to the novel, in which Elijah only says something bad will happen.

Ahab's plan for this whaling voyage is not to hunt whales for their oil, but to hunt vengeance upon the white whale, Moby Dick, who took off his leg in an earlier encounter.  Ahab challenges the heavens in his quest, is obsessed with revenge and will take no refusal from anyone in his cause.  He wins the admiration and loyalty of the crew with his hypnotic speech and promises, convincing them with his own unrelenting leadership -- "You be the cogs that fit my wheel, the gunpowder that takes my torch."  Through storms and doldum, Ahab chases Moby Dick -- "I'll follow him around the Horn and around the Norway maelstrom and around perdition's flames before I give him up."

Starbuck is Ahab's conscience, endeavoring always to turn his captain away from his impious desire for vengeance, to no avail.  As Starbuck sees the men come under Ahab's spell, he is horrified -- "Where is the crew of the Pequod?  I see not one man I know among 30.  They are gloves, Ahab fills them, Ahab moves them. 

Moby Dick is so much more than a story of whaling in the early 1800's.  It is a portrait of obsession, vengeance, excitement and tragedy.  I have never forgotten the beautiful language, stirring music by Philip Sainton, and incredible ending of this great movie.

So go down to the sea, stand on the ship with Ahab and experience something very special.