The African Queen - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The African Queen is a 1951 British adventure drama film adapted from the 1935 novel of the same name

The African Queen (novel)

The African Queen is a 1935 novel written by C. S. Forester, which was adapted to the 1951 film with the same name.-Plot summary:The story opens in mid-1914. Rose Sayer, a 33-year-old English woman, is the companion and housekeeper of her brother Samuel, an Anglican missionary in Central Africa...

by C. S. Forester

C. S. Forester

Cecil Scott "C.S." Forester was the pen name of Cecil Louis Troughton Smith , an English novelist who rose to fame with tales of naval warfare. His most notable works were the 11-book Horatio Hornblower series, depicting a Royal Navy officer during the Napoleonic era, and The African Queen...

. The film was directed by John Huston

John Huston

John Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...

and produced by Sam Spiegel

Sam Spiegel

Sam Spiegel was an Austrian-born American independent film producer.-Life and career:Spiegel was born in Jarosław, Galicia, Austria-Hungary as Samuel P. Spiegel to a German-Jewish father and Polish mother and educated at the University of Vienna. His brother was Shalom Spiegel, a professor of...

and John Woolf. The screenplay was adapted by James Agee

James Agee

James Rufus Agee was an American author, journalist, poet, screenwriter and film critic. In the 1940s, he was one of the most influential film critics in the U.S...

, John Huston, John Collier

John Collier (writer)

John Henry Noyes Collier was a British-born author and screenplay writer best known for his short stories, many of which appeared in The New Yorker from the 1930s to the 1950s. They were collected in a 1951 volume, Fancies and Goodnights, which won the International Fantasy Award and remains in...

and Peter Viertel

Peter Viertel

Peter Viertel was an author and screenwriter.-Biography:He was born to Jewish parents in Dresden, Germany, the writer and actress Salka Viertel and the writer Berthold Viertel. In 1928, his parents moved to Santa Monica, California where Viertel grew up with his brothers, Hans and Thomas...

. It was photographed in Technicolor

Technicolor

Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...

by Jack Cardiff

Jack Cardiff

Jack Cardiff, OBE, BSC was a British cinematographer, director and photographer.His career spanned the development of cinema, from silent film, through early experiments in Technicolor to filmmaking in the 21st century...

and had a music score by Allan Gray

Allan Gray (composer)

Allan Gray was a composer, noted for his film scores.He was born Józef Żmigrod in Tarnów, which was then in Austria-Hungary, but is now part of Poland. He studied under the renowned Austrian composer Arnold Schönberg during the 1920s, and later wrote music for Max Reinhardt's theatre productions...

. The film stars Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....

(who won the Academy Award for Best Actor

Academy Award for Best Actor

Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...

– his only Oscar), and Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...

with Robert Morley

Robert Morley

Robert Adolph Wilton Morley, CBE was an English actor who, often in supporting roles, was usually cast as a pompous English gentleman representing the Establishment...

, Peter Bull

Peter Bull

Peter Cecil Bull, DSC was a British character actor.- Biography :He was the fourth and youngest son of Hammersmith MP Sir William James Bull, 1st Bt..Bull was educated at Winchester College...

, Walter Gotell

Walter Gotell

Walter Gotell was a German actor, known for his role as General Gogol, head of the KGB, in the James Bond film series.Gotell was born in Bonn, Germany; his family emigrated to the United Kingdom after the Nazis came to power...

, Richard Marner

Richard Marner

Richard Marner, born Alexander Molchanoff was a Russian-born British actor. He was probably best known for his role as Colonel Kurt Von Strohm in the British sitcom Allo 'Allo!.-Early life:...

and Theodore Bikel

Theodore Bikel

Theodore Meir Bikel is a character actor, folk singer and musician. He made his film debut in The African Queen and was nominated for an Academy award for his supporting role as Sheriff Max Muller in The Defiant Ones ....

.

The African Queen has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry

National Film Registry

The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...

, with the Library of Congress

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

deeming it "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".

Robert Morley

Robert Morley

Robert Adolph Wilton Morley, CBE was an English actor who, often in supporting roles, was usually cast as a pompous English gentleman representing the Establishment...

and Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Hepburn

play Samuel and Rose Sayer, brother and sister British Methodist

Methodism

Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...

missionaries in the village of Kungdu in German East Africa

German East Africa

German East Africa was a German colony in East Africa, which included what are now :Burundi, :Rwanda and Tanganyika . Its area was , nearly three times the size of Germany today....

in 1914 during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...