The latest film in the excellent STUDIOCANAL Vintage Classics series to be given the full 4K UHD treatment is the 1951 romantic adventure, The African Queen. Adapted from C. S. Forester’s 1935 novel of the same name, the film was directed by John Huston and starred Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn
Based in German East Africa shortly after the outbreak of World War I, the film tells the story of a grizzled, gin-soaked riverboat captain, Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart) and a puritanical Methodist missionary, Rose Sayer (Katherine Hepburn) making their way on the African Queen – a rickety, 30 foot vessel that gives the film its name – across a series of treacherous rapids and many other dangers in their quest to torpedo a German gunboat.
Many factors contribute to the greatness of The African Queen, not least the incisive script adapted by James Agee and John Huston from Forester’s novel, Huston’s taut direction, and the wonderfully restored Technicolour vibrancy of the African scenery shot in what was then the Belgian Congo and Uganda. But it is the effortless chemistry that exists between Bogart and Hepburn that elevates The African Queen to the status of a film classic. Remarkably it is the only film in which the two Hollywood legends played opposite each other.
Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn are naturally funny together. And given the fact that the movie is now 73 years old, the erotic nature of many of their interactions and the carefully understated sexual elements of the film are surprisingly well ahead of their time. Bogart rightly won the Academy Award for Best Actor (his only Oscar) for his inspired performance and whilst she was nominated in the Best Actress category, Hepburn at her lip-quivering best should surely have won that award too.
The African Queen will be available to own on 4K UHD for the very first time when it is released on October 21 in a Special Edition release that will include a booklet with an exclusive essay from Helen O’Hara.
