African Queen
January 2nd, 2009 From
>From: “John Forester”
>To:
>Subject: Re: African Queen
>Date: Wed, 17 Dec 1997 10:15:00 -0800
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>
> Well, the same old story. Read the book before seeing the > film, which has
>an incredible ending that horrified CSF. The Konigin Luise is described as
>a gunboat, “in appearance just like a white-painted Thames tug.” However,
>she is also described as “The Konigen Luise had not really been designed as
>a fighting ship; her engines and boilers were above water line instead of
>being far below under a protective deck.” In response to the initial
>attack, “The three-pounder shells began to burst about the Konigin Luise’s
>stern. At first they merely blew holes in the thin plating, … ” Much
>earlier, her building had been described. “She had been brought up from the
>coast, overland, in sections, eight years before. The country had been
>swept for bearers and workmen then as now, for there had been roads to hack
>through the forest, and enormous burdens to be carried. The Konigin Luise’s
>boiler needed to be transported in one piece, and every furlong of its
>transport had cost the life of a man in the forest.”
>
> I suggest that she did not look like a Thames tug, with its > engines deep
>inside, but more like an American river steamer, probably, than like a
>European river steamer, because the American design was better suited to
>shallow water. Probably, the Germans used as much locally available wood as
>possible in her construction, rather than steel plate carried overland,
>thin or not. Anybody know the facts about the actual gunboat that the
>Germans had on Lake Tanganyika?
>
> During the filming, CSF liked what he had seen. In my book I write:
>”Shooting was complete in 1951 and my father told me his reaction to the
>film as far as it had progressed. ‘I’ve seen some of the rushes of The
>African Queen and I’m as pleased as everybody else by Bogart’s acting.
>Seeing him so good has taken quite a load off my mind, for I was genuinely
>worried.’
>
> “His statement contrasts against his opinion of the film, > as written to
>Frances [Phillips, editor of William Morrow & Co., his mistress and
>literary advisor]. ‘Anyway I went down to Hollywood by the night train last
>Saturday and went to the preview of The African Queen on the night of the
>23rd. There was the hell of a party afterwards. It’s hard to be definite
>about the film. It’s a fine corpse, so to speak, except for the end, where
>corruption has already set in so that it stinks. Up to the end they
>followed the book quite slavishly, even in minute detail, so that it’s
>exactly like the book except that it it’s as dead as mutton, and I can’t
>think why — the humour is quite good, and the love story is quite
>convincing, and Bogart and Hepburn do real good jobs, but the soul of the
>thing just isn’t there — but other people may not notice its absence. …
>God knows why the picture is a decaying corpse, but I think it is.'”
>
> Of course, the part about Allnutt holding the ends of the > shot-through
>main steam line together with his hands wrapped in cloths, as the African
>Queen ran past the German fort, was not in the book, either. Even CSF must
>have been appalled at that, although he didn’t mention it.
>
> And, of course, CSF had told me, when the contract was > signed, that when
>the picture was over the boat was mine. That was in the contract, so he
>said. Later he told me that he was very sorry, but they had had to sink
>the African Queen, just like in the book, so she could not be given to me.
>When the film was released, I was in the USN and missed it, and I didn’t
>see it for quite some time (no video tapes in those days). Frankly, I was
>skeptical, but I still believed in him. When I first watched the film, I
>was more concerned about the sinking of the boat than anything else in it,
>and I decided that the sinking was miniature model stuff and that if I had
>been the director I would not have risked losing my prime prop just to have
>a piece of wreckage, that would be much easier faked, for the Konigin Luise
>to collide with. However, I had my own real-life difficulties to deal with
>at that time, rather than trying to pursue the question of whether or not
>my father had deliberately lied to me, which lay latent for decades.
>
>John Forester 408-734-9426
>forester@johnforester.com 726 Madrone Ave
>http://www.johnforester.com Sunnyvale, CA 94086-3041