NFR Project: 'The African Queen' (1951)

 

NFR Project: “The African Queen”

Dir: John Huston

Scr: James Agee, John Huston

Pho: Jack Cardiff

Ed: Ralph Kemplen

Premiere: Dec. 26, 1951

105 min.

Do you see how John Huston’s name keeps popping in the National Film Registry?

There’s a reason for that. He knew how to tell a story on film. A versatile artist, he changed his style from movie to movie. There are few distinctive Huston-isms in his movies; Huston is always taking a direct, clear path through whatever material he has decided to master. He gives the story what it needs.

He gives the actors what they need, too. Huston's characters define themselves through action, but Huston always gives the players time to work out their feelings on the screen. Thus, he garners many acting awards for his performers. For this film, Bogart won his only Oscar.

The tale is, on its surface, simple. Take two contrasting natures, put them in a life-or-death situation, and watch what happens. A man and a woman take a boat trip. She’s “respectable,” he a bit of a lout. They fall in love. Do they make it to their destination?

It is 1914. In German East Africa, a middle-aged brother (Robert Morley) and sister, Rose Sayer (Katherine Hepburn) run a mission. Bringing them their mail and supplies by his little steamboat The African Queen is Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart), one of those incessantly wearied by feeling put upon, washed with the genial glaze of the alcoholic. A long early scene shows the three interacting awkwardly together. Charlie’s lack of manners, and self-consciousness, contrast comically with the siblings’ genteel aspirations transplanted to the African bush.

World War I begins. The Germans attack, the village is burned, the brother is killed. Charlie returns to aid the situation. He buries the brother, and takes Rose with him on the boat.

They begin to travel down the Ulanga-Bora Rivers to freedom. That the two are a mismatched pair is to be expected. She is prim and proper, he is rough and coarse. Charlie explains that the Germans command a warship on the lake that is their destination. Rose has an inspired idea. Taking the supplies on the Queen, they could fashion torpedoes and ram into the side of the German warship.

Charlie reluctantly agrees, and down they go, shooting the rapids. Rose loves it. Charlie angrily refuses to continue, and berates Rose as he drinks heavily. She rebels, and pours out all his alcohol as he sleeps it off, leaving a trail of empty bottles in their wake. “A man takes a drop once in a while, it’s only human nature,” argues Charlie. “Nature,” replies Rose, “Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.”

Once again, Charlie gives in. They sail successfully past a German fort, and joyfully embrace – which turns into a clinch. It is implied that they sleep together. They go down a second set of rapids, more destructive than the first. They are forced to fix the ship’s drive shaft and propeller blade. The fight their way through mosquitoes, and pull the boat through a leech-infested swampy part of the river.

Finally, they make it to their destination, and prepare to ram the German ship. However, in a night storm the boat sinks. Charlie and Rose are picked up by the Germans, who are intent on hanging them. They ask to be married first. The captain of the German boat does so. Suddenly, the Queen surfaces and drfits into the German ship, exploding and  sinking it. Charlie and Rose survive, and swim off together.

This was Huston’s (and Bogart’s and Hepburn’s) first color film, but he keeps his colors muted, working in greens and grays. There is extensive location shooting in Africa, combined with some excellent in-studio tank work. A little miniature work and some dummy boat work complete the effort. Given the excellent script and the sheer watchability of Bogart and Hepburn, the result is a compulsively engaging film.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: An American in Paris.

NFR Project: 'Ace in the Hole' (1951)

 

NFR Project: “Ace in the Hole”

Dir: Billy Wilder

Scr: Billy Wilder, Lesser Samuels, Walter Newman

Pho: Charles Lang

Ed: Doane Harrison, Arthur P. Schmidt

Premiere: June 14, 1951

111 min.

In 1949, director/screenwriter Billy Wilder’s long and highly successful collaboration with screenwriter Charles Brackett ended. Together, they created classics such Ninotchka, Ball of Fire, The Lost Weekend, and Sunset Boulevard. His first project after the end of their partnership was this film, a corrosive and cynical examination of the American way of life. It failed at the box office; however, it stands up today as a great film – albeit one that’s relentlessly downbeat.

The film’s premise is based on the famous 1925 incident of Floyd Collins, whose fatal entrapment in a Kentucky cave prompted a media frenzy and won the reporter covering the event a Pulitzer Prize. Here the setting is New Mexico, and the reporter in question is Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas), a cynical and opportunistic newsman who’s been fired from 11 different papers and finds himself washed up with a job at the Albuquerque Sun-Bulletin.

Tatum prays for a story that will send him back into the limelight. He gets his prayer answered when pothunter Leo Minosa gets trapped in a cave-in at the site of an ancient cliff dwelling. Tatum sees the value in exploiting the story immediately. He befriends Leo, makes a deal with the crooked sheriff to cement a monopoly on the story, and begins to pump out copy.

Soon thousands of the curious are drawn to the site. Tatum deliberately delays the rescue operations so that he can make more of the story. He convinces Leo’s slatternly wife (Jan Sterling) to play the part of the bereaved spouse. Soon Leo’s roadside cantina and store starts raking in the bucks. Admission is charged to visit the site. A carnival sets up. Musicians make up songs about Leo, and people flock to buy the sheet music. The out-of-town papers struggle to get the story, but Tatum has a lock on it, quitting the Sun-Bulletin and making $1,000 a day. Everyone around poor Leo is on the take; Tatum is the ringleader. It is implied that he sleeps with Leo’s wife.

But then Leo sickens. The delayed rescue operation won’t get to him in time to save his life. Tatum gets into a fight with Leo’s wife, who stabs him with a pair of scissors. Tatum, wounded, fetches a priest, who administers the last rites to Leo. Tatum lets the story go and Leo dies. Everyone else gets the scoop but Tatum, and he is fired. The crowd disperses; all that is left is a trash-strewn roadside. Tatum goes back to the Sun-Bulletin, where he collapses and dies.

Wilder’s take on American society is blatantly caustic. Everyone is out for their own interests. Death and danger are merely ways to attract the gruesome public’s disgusting, vulturous attention. Everything is reduced to the simple equation – what will sell the most newspapers? Douglas is ruthlessly energetic as Tatum. Character actor Porter Hall has his greatest role as the publisher with a conscience.

Nobody liked Wilder’s blunt assessment of the behavior of the masses and the news game. Later decades would bring a reevaluation of the work, acknowledging it as an unvarnished pan of American culture.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: The African Queen.

NFR Project: 'Strangers on a Train' (1951)

 

NFR Project: “Strangers on a Train”

Dir: Alfred Hitchcock

Scr: Raymond Chandler, Czenzi Ormonde

Pho: Robert Burks

Ed: William Ziegler

Premiere: June 30, 1951

101 min.

Director Alfred Hitchcock continued his run as the Master of Suspense with this film, one of his most efficient entries in the genre.

The movie is adapted from the great crime writer Patricia Highsmith’s first novel of the same name. The idea is perfect: what if two individuals “traded” murders?

Tennis star Guy Haines (Farley Granger) is on a train where he randomly meets an attentive stranger, Bruno Antony (Robert Walker). Bruno, who gradually reveals himself to be mentally disturbed, eventually gets around to theorizing that two people could get away with murder if they each kill the other’s intended victim – giving both an alibi and no link to the commission of the crimes.

As Guy wants to be rid of his promiscuous wife Miriam (Kasey Rogers) in order to be with his beloved, senator’s daughter Anne (Ruth Roman), and Bruno wants to kill his hated father, Bruno thinks they should do each other’s dirty work. “Your wife. My father. Criss-cross!” he exclaims.

Guy nervously turns him down, thinking he is joking. He meets Miriam, who reveals she is pregnant by someone else. Guy wants a divorce, but Miriam won’t cooperate. In fact, she intends to claim that the baby is Guy’s.

Bruno then stalks Miriam at an amusement park and kills her –strangling her in a scene reflected dimly in Miriam’s shattered glasses on the ground – a difficult and masterful shot.

Guy immediately comes under suspicion, as he cannot prove his whereabouts at the time of the murder. Bruno then tries to blackmail Guy into killing Bruno’s father, using his possession of a distinctive lighter of Guy’s as evidence.

Bruno stalks Guy, crashing Anne’s father’s party. While there, he chats gaily about the best way to murder someone. Catching sight of Anne’s sister Barbara (Patricia Hitchcock, the director’s daughter), who resembles Miriam, he gets carried away and squeezes the neck of one of the guests until she cries out.

Bruno sends Guy a map of his house, a key, and a gun. Guy goes along, hoping to alert Bruno’s father about his intentions. However, Bruno is in his father’s bed, waiting for him. Bruno vows that he will make Guy fulfill his part of their supposed bargain.

Guy is trapped. Anne suspects the truth, and gets Guy to confess it to her. She tries warning Bruno’s mother about his insanity, to no avail. Bruno catches up with Anne and tells her that he intends to plant Guy’s lighter at the scene of the crime.

Now the race is on. Guy must compete in a championship tennis match before he can go to the amusement park to stop Bruno. Meanwhile, Bruno is busy getting to the scene first. Guy’s match goes long; he struggles for point after point as the clock ticks on. At the same time, Bruno loses the lighter down a grating and hysterically struggles to reach through it and grasp the incriminating object.

Both men succeed. Bruno gets there first, and is recognized by a witness to the murder. He leaps aboard a carousel; Guy follows him. A policeman shoots at Bruno, but kills the carousel operator instead, who falls onto the controls. The ride whirligigs out of control; the passengers scream (save for one delighted boy) as Bruno and Guy fight it out.

The carousel smashes up; Guy is flung free, but Bruno is crushed. Guy tries to get Bruno to confess before he dies, but Bruno refuses. As he dies, his clenched fist relaxes – and there is Guy’s lighter. Guy is exonerated.

Hitchcock has a marvelous time making this film. Bruno is Guy’s doppelganger, his shadow self. Guy wants to kill his wife – at one point, he cries out, “I could strangle her!” – but his civilized impulses restrain him. Not so for Bruno, a spoiled rich kid with a mother fixation and a father complex. Guy talks; Bruno, darkly, acts.

Everything is doubled in the film – the main characters, the glasses, the party guests, the detectives trailing Guy. The director keeps things bright around Guy, while Bruno operates in darkness. Hitchcock works his accustomed magic – ratcheting up the suspense as Guy toils to finish off his court opponent in tense silence, while simultaneously Bruno gropes for the lighter which could hang him.

Hitchcock was shortly to begin making color feature films. Strangers on a Train shows off his marvelous black-and-white technique, aided here ably by cinematographer Robert Burks.

In the novel, Guy commits the reciprocal murder. Hitchcock changes that to make it yet another one of his stories, like The 39 Steps and Saboteur, about an innocent man dragged into a disoriented world where death and calamity reign. Once again, Hitchcock’s hero stares into the abyss.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Ace in the Hole.