BOOK/MOVIE: The African Queen (1935/1951)

 

                In 1935, C.S. Forester published his adventure novel The African Queen.  It is probably his most famous stand-alone novel.  He also wrote the Horatio Hornblower series.  The African Queen adds romance to adventure.  It is set in Africa during WWI and involves an odd couple who decide to try to sink a German warship that dominates a strategic lake.  The title refers to the small steamboat that they attempt the task with.  To get to their target, they must navigate a rapid-filled river and overcome numerous obstacles.  Their love develops as they conquer nature.  In 1951, John Huston made the classic film based on the novel.  It starred Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn.  The screenplay was written by Huston, James Agee, Peter Viertel, and John Collier.  The adapted screenplay was nominated for an Oscar.  The script was faithful to the novel until the end.  There were some significant changes made for the trek part of the story.  I am going to assume you have seen the movie, so be aware that the following comparison of the book to the movie will reveal details of the plot.  I will concentrate on the book and how the movie made changes.

 

                The book begins with Rose and her brother praying.  He is ill and dies that night.  The Germans have already come to their village and taken the villagers away.  They did not burn the village.  Rose blames the Germans for her brother’s death and this increases her hatred toward them.  She already had problems with their mistreatment of them and their villagers.  She dreams of revenge, but what can a woman do?  Then along comes Charlie.  In the book, Charlie is British and speaks with a heavy cockney accent.  (Since Bogart could not handle the accent, Charlie was changed to a Canadian.)  Rose is very patriotic and besides revenge, wants to strike a blow for the British Empire.  She convinces Charlie that the blow will be the sinking of the German warship Konigin Luise.  He gives in easy because he figures her first taste of rapids will douse her ardor.  Instead, Rose is transformed by the experience and is exhilarated by the action and adventure that is so different from her previous life as a proper woman.  This is made evident early on when she is not offended and does not evict him from her dry bed when Charlie crawls in during a rain storm.  When Charlie gets drunk and stands up to her, she does dump his liquor, but unlike the movie, she does it for revenge.  Similarly, the silent treatment is not to get him to reconsider, it just happens to work out that way. 

 

                As in the movie, they fall in love. However, although Forester does not go into detail, their love goes beyond chaste kissing.  She is more domineering than in the movie.  “He was a man made to be hen-pecked.”  The book covers in detail the running of the series of rapids, the repair of the shaft, passing by the fort.  It includes the mosquito attack and the leeches.   They get through the reeds mainly by rowing or pulling on the reed roots with a boat hook.  It takes weeks. They do not get stuck and get miraculously saved by rain raising the water level.   They contract malaria.  The preparation for the attack on the warship is basically replicated in the movie, but the aftermath is radically different.

 

                In the novel, Charlie is captured after the African Queen goes down in the storm.  He is accused of espionage for spying on the ship from the island and wanting to destroy the ship’s stores on shore.  He is going to be found guilty when Rose is brought in. She does not tell them anything about their plan.  She was found with the African Queen life buoy so they figure out who the couple is.  The Captain decides not to execute them because Rose is a remarkable woman and he admires what they accomplished.  He releases them to the British authorities.  Meanwhile, the British have moved two motor boats to the lake to confront the Konigin Luise.  These warships are fast and maneuverable and have three-inch guns.  They easily and anticlimactically sink the German ship.  The British commander makes arrangements to send Charlie and Rose to the coast where he expects Charlie to enlist and Rose to return to England.  Rose proposes marriage and they agree to get married as soon as they reach the British consul.

 

                Naturally, the book gives more details than the movie.  The running of the rapids is much more suspenseful.  Rose is an amazing steerswoman in the book.  The period in the reeds is more exhausting and has the malaria thrown in.  Fixing the shaft is more complicated and time consuming.  But other than more details, the journey to the lake is very similar to the book.  The characters are also very similar, other than Charlie being Canadian in the movie.  The book Charlie is meeker and less intelligent.  No surprise that character was given more testosterone.  Rose is a proto-feminist in the book.  She starts as a spinster and ends up an action hero.  She is much more interesting than Charlie and Forester has her dominating Charlie and the narrative.  She blooms as a result of the adventure.  She knows she is coming out of her cocoon.  For 1950s reasons the movie made her more traditional.  And obviously, she could not be having premarital sex, and enjoying it!

 

                The reason why the movie is better than the book is it keeps the basics and vastly improves the ending.  Forester flubbed the ending badly.  To have Charlie and Rose fail after all they went through may have been realistic, but it hardly was crowd-pleasing.  If Hollywood is anything, it is crowd-pleasing.  The scriptwriters deserve a lot of credit for improving the ending and it is genius.  The twist puts a cherry on top of a movie that was already perfect.

 

BOOK    =   B-

MOVIE  =   A