Hollywood movies set in Africa in the decade or so before independence from European colonialism are remarkable for the lack of African characters. When the African Queen docks the first time, Humphrey Bogart has a "native" assistant who may have a line. There are Africans singing in church and African troops and sailors following orders from German commanders, but no African characters. There are assistants with lines in unidentified African languages in The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Hatari!, and Mogambo, but no credited parts. (The various versions of "King Solomon's Mine" have an African prince, and the exceedingly dull movie John Huston made of Romain Gary's Prix Goncourt-winning novel The Roots of Heaven include leaders of an independence movement. The credits to "Mogambo" list four whole tribes: Bahaya of Tanganyika, M'Beti Tribe of French Equatorial Africa, Samburu Tribe of Kenya Colony, Wagenia of Belgian Congo, though the main filming location was in Uganda.)

Like "Out of Africa" (1985's best picture according to Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences voters), the successful 1950s movie with African backdrops are romances (generally triangular) involving white visitors and white "old African hands." The Hollywood stars went on location (see Katharine Hepburn's memoir of The Making of the African Queen), but "backdrop" is apt, since many of the scenes in the various movies are process shots with the actors delivering their lines with African footage projected behind them. The alpha male gorilla charging the alpha male Hollywood star (Clark Gable) in "Mogambo" is especially obvious. Moreover, the film colors (and presumably film stock used) for showing animals and jungle do not match the colors of the scenes with Grace Kelly and/or Clark Gable supposedly in the jungle.

The pictures of flora and fauna and massed "natives" waving spears are striking and I can shrug off the lack of color continuity. The real problem (as also with "The African Queen" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro") is that the romances are hard to believe. There is a certain amount of chemistry between Ava Gardner and Clark Gable. Gardner plays Eloise Kelly, a "party girl" whose safari host, a playboy maharajah, stands her up. She adapts quickly to playing with Gable, the head of a safari/animal capturing enterprise, and then stands back with some grace to being usurped by a younger married woman (Grace Kelly).

It is the Gable/Kelly romance that is really hard to credit. I guess Gable was still the "King" of Hollywood and that was sufficient reason for every actress cast with him to rush into his arms. In the same role two decades earlier (in "Red Dust"), Mary Astor managed to look credible as the high society tag-along becoming enamored with Gable. Victor Marswell (Gable) does not seem very interested in Linda Nordley (Kelly), but somehow flips a switch that transforms her from dutiful wife of an enthusiastic young husband into being madly in love with the aging Great White Hunter. Although they are obviously incompatible, and one would assume that Marswell has been around the block in romances a few times, he is totally smitten almost as instantly and decides to take the Nordleys into gorilla country.

It is obvious to the audience that if there is a mate for Gable herein, it is Gardner, the wisecracking realist (seemingly on loan from the Howard Hawks universe). Also, the Motion Picture Production Code forbade adultery leading to happiness. Anyone who has seen more than a few Hollywood movies of the 1940s and 50s knows that the marriage is going to be shored up and that the right pairing will prevail in the end.

It takes 115 minutes to reach the end, with lots of animals (ranging from cute to menacing), chanting natives, and relationship jockeying. Clark Gable goes through the motions of being a leading man with some irony (but less charm than back in "Red Dust" ion 1932). Grace Kelly seems false to me in nearly every scene and in hurtling through a wide gamut of emotions, but won a Golden Globe and received an Oscar nomination as best supporting actress.

Although totally unbelievable to me as an anthropologist or a primatologist, Donald Nordley as played by Donald Sinden, is convincing as the husband who is the only person who does not see the romance of his wife and his contract employee, and whom in the end no one can bear to disillusion.

Ava Gardner had the best lines (along with some stupid ones), the best lighting (the nights were very brightly lit!), and some subtle nonverbal communication. (Jean Harlow is even more fun in the part in the precensorship version with the younger Gable.) Gardner and the African extras are the best reason to watch "Mogambo." The visual compositions (including the second-unit work as well as what John Ford shot) are excellent and there is no background musical score. (There is a player piano, several renditions of "Coming Through the Rye," chanting natives, fighting hippos, roaring felines, and no lack of ambient sounds.)




Recommended:
Yes

Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age