#65 ‘The African Queen’
Colonialism, Courting, and the Sanctification of Stubborn White People
The African Queen (1951) is often described as a charming adventure, a romance forged in fire, mud, and gin-soaked grime. But scratch the surface of this riverboat romp and you’ll find a colonial fantasy paddling furiously beneath: a story where imperialism is background noise, brown bodies are scenery, and the central tension is whether a missionary spinster can domesticate an alcoholic boatman before they both become symbols of Christian fortitude.
Katherine Hepburn plays Rose Sayer, a tightly wound English missionary stranded in German East Africa at the outbreak of World War I. After her brother dies (read: conveniently exits the narrative), she’s left in the care of Charlie Allnut, played by Humphrey Bogart, who slurs, sweats, and grumbles through every scene like he’s auditioning for Drunk History: The Empire Edition. Together, they set off on a perilous river journey with one goal: sink a German gunboat using torpedoes, God, and a makeshift flirtation.
The film sells this as heroic. What it is is a fever dream of white exceptionalism, where two bickering Brits repurpose a chunk of stolen Africa into their personal self-actualization cruise. The African continent? A backdrop. Its people? Largely invisible, except when they’re needed to row, threaten, or die offscreen. Colonialism? Not interrogated. Just there, like malaria and hippos.
And yet, The African Queen still manages to charm—largely because of Hepburn, who performs sanctimony like it’s an Olympic sport, and Bogart, whose Academy Award feels more like a lifetime achievement in playing lovable wrecks. Their chemistry is crackling in a weird, leathery, "please God don't kiss yet" kind of way. It’s less romance than war correspondence. She’s trying to purify him; he’s trying to keep her from dying of stubbornness.
Rose’s transformation from pious scold to wartime daredevil is supposed to be inspiring. In truth, it’s a case study in how women were historically permitted to be “strong” only if they weaponized it in service of men and Empire. And Charlie? He gets sober, shaves, and finds purpose in Rose’s belief in him—which would be touching if it weren’t unfolding against a backdrop of colonial violence and wild rivers conveniently emptied of native voices.
John Huston’s direction is rugged and reverent, the location shooting (on actual African rivers) still impressive. But The African Queen remains a film deeply uninterested in the world it uses as a stage. Africa is exotic, dangerous, and mute. The war is abstract. And the real drama lies in whether a woman can let her hair down just enough to make a man stop drinking long enough to blow something up.
3 out of 5 gin bottles overboard
(One for Hepburn’s steel spine. One for Bogart’s sweaty charisma. One for the muddy, method-shot authenticity. The missing stars? Lost somewhere in the reeds—along with any acknowledgment that this “adventure” rests entirely on a foundation of imperial delusion and cinematic myopia.)
