The African Queen (1951)

Meet Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart). Charlie's a happy man. He's got it all figured out. Charlie owns a small steam launch called the African Queen. Charlie and the Queen make a living ferrying passengers, freight and mail up and down the Ulanga River in German East Africa. Charlie is living the good life...or so he thinks. Then World War I breaks out and everything changes. Suddenly, all of the non-German residents are enemies. When the Germans raid a mission run by the Reverend Samuel Sayer (Robert Morely) and his sister Rose (Katherine Hepburn), Charlie comes to evacuate them. Unfortunately, he's too late to save the reverend, who dies of fever. When Charlie tries to take Rose back up river to safety, she comes up with a counter plan. She wants to sail downstream to Lake Tanganyika and destroy the Louisa, a German gunboat that plies the waters of the lake. Charlie tries to point out the impossibility of the trip: there's a German fort to get past; there are rapids; there's a dense swamp. Rose is adamant, though. They must do this for England. Reluctantly, Charlie agrees, and they argue their way down river. When Charlie gets drunk soon after they start out, Rose dumps all of his alcohol overboard. By the time they've made it past the fort and shot the rapids, both Charlie and Rose have changed. They begin to see each other in a new light. Yes, they fall in love. And the harder their journey becomes, the deeper in love they fall. By the time they finally - and miraculously - reach the lake, they are a committed pair. Charlie fashions crude torpedoes out of dynamite and oxygen cylinders, and they head out onto Lake Tanganyika to sink the Louisa. Unfortunately, a storm sinks the African Queen instead. Picked up by the Louisa, Charlie and Rose beg the ships captain to marry them before they are executed as spies. As the doomed couple say "I do," the Louisa strikes the half submerged hulk of the African Queen, detonating the torpedoes. The Louisa sinks, and Charlie and Rose swim off to safety.

Well, that - in a nut shell - is the story. It doesn't sound like much when you read it that way. You have to experience it. The African Queen is simply one of the finest movies ever made. Based on the novel by E. M. Forester, and directed by John Huston, it is the only movie for which Humphrey Bogart won an academy award during his long career. It is also a movie that nearly killed everyone involved in the making of it. The movie was shot largely on location in Africa, and dysentery, malaria, contaminated water and wild animals were a constant danger. The only members of the cast and crew who didn't get sick were Bogart and Huston who lived on a diet of baked beans, canned asparagus and Scotch whiskey. Bogart famously said, "Whenever a fly bit Huston or me, it dropped dead." Katherine Hepburn was so sick with dysentery during the filming that a bucket had to be kept just off camera for her to throw up in between takes. Now that's dedication. And that dedication brought forth a movie worth watching again and again. Bogart's portrayal of the lazy, drunken Allnut is one of the finest of his career, and his Oscar was well deserved. Hepburn is fantastic as the straight-laced Rose Sayer, who can't help but fall in love with her surly, pickled companion. It's fun to watch the relationship between the two characters grow and blossom into a deep abiding love. And the scenery and cinematography are amazing as well. It's just hard to imagine what Huston and his crew had to do in order to film this movie. They had to build a raft in order to float all of the camera equipment to get shots inside of the Queen when it was out on the water.

All in all, The African Queen is just a great visual feast, as well as being a whole lot of fun to watch. The movie is rated G, and it's filmed in Technicolor (it was, in fact, Katherine Hepburn's first color movie). Runtime is 105 minutes, and it's worth every second.

Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)

Violet Venable (Katherine Hepburn) has a problem. Several problems really. But the biggest one is her niece, Catherine Holly (Elizabeth Taylor). Catherine has gone mad. It happened during the previous summer. She was in Spain with Violet's son, Sebastian. Something happened. Sebastian died. Catherine began raving madly. The things she said were disturbing to say the least. The fact that she said them about Sebastian was unforgivable. Sebastian was Violet's darling. From the moment he was born, she doted on him. Nothing was too good for him. No one was good enough for him. Except Violet, that is. Mother and son were inseparable. They traveled the world over, always together, more like husband and wife than mother and son. Until, that is, last summer. Violet was sick and couldn't travel. So, Sebastian took Catherine with him. And that's when everything started to go south for her. Having been raped at her first Mardi Gras ball just a month or so prior to their trip, she was already in an unstable condition. Then came the trip last summer, when Sebastian suddenly died. Of a heart attack, they say. But, why then does Catherine rave? And why does Violet want her out of the way? For good? Enter Dr. Cukrowicz (Montgomery Clift). He's a Psychiatrist and brain surgeon at the state mental hospital, which is badly in need of cash. Violet promises to give them one million dollars, if the good doctor will perform a little surgery on Catherine, one that's guaranteed to cure her lunacy, to shut her up for good. Dr. Cukrowicz isn't so sure that Catherine really is insane. He gains Catherine's trust. Then he gets her to tell her secret. They went to sunny Spain. The beautiful and fine Sebastian was using Catherine as bait. She attracted lots of fine and beautiful young men. Well, just boys really. But Sebastian would find the ones whose proclivities swung in his direction, or the ones who were just so hungry that they'd do anything for a little money. But the boys got angry with Sebastian. Who knows why. Maybe they just got fed up with being used. At any rate, they took revenge on him. Let's just say, they satisfied their hunger. And poor Catherine saw it all. No wonder she broke down. No wonder Violet wouldn't listen.

Joseph L. Mankewicz's Suddenly, Last Summer is a film about insanity, about sexual deviancy, about twisted familial relationships and the lengths that some people will go to keep them a secret. It's a film about a woman who twists her son into a monster, and the monster who uses his mother - and later his cousin - to procure his victims. And it's a film about the way that people choose not to talk about things that are too unpleasant, about the way that people cover up the unpleasant things and let them fester into madness. And it's a story about appetites, and the ways - not always healthy - that we go about satisfying those appetites. Suddenly, Last Summer is a masterpiece, with one of the best casts assembled. Katherine Hepburn is wonderful as the wealthy, aloof and slightly disturbing Violet Venable. Elizabeth Taylor turns in a fine performance as the tragically disturbed and misunderstood Catherine Holly. And Montgomery Clift, with those intense eyes and that too-too fragile demeanor, is brilliant as young Dr. Cukrowicz, who's frustrated at the primitive conditions in the hospital he has to work in and the primitive mindset of the people who he works with, a mindset that says it's all right to lobotomize someone just because you don't like what she's saying. We see the treatment of the mentally ill only a few steps away from old Bedlam. Of course, even that may be better than the way we don't treat the mentally ill today. Makes you wonder how much things really have changed.

Suddenly, Last Summer is UNRATED and is filmed in glorious black and white. Running time is 114 minutes.