We knew Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart separately (and younger) from other films and were anxious to see them together in this highly acclaimed one.
Specs:
1 hour and 45 minutes; color. We watched on dvd from the library
Set in 1914
Our family's average rating:
8.0
More about the film and our reaction to it:
This movie is amazing. And so unexpected. I mean, of course, I'd heard of it and figured it had to be good, but it's not the type of film that succeeds in the way you are expecting it to. You really just don't see it sneaking up on you until you are already deep within its grasp.
So, the film starts out with a middle-aged missionary and his sister (Katherine Hepburn) in Africa -- then enters an ugly, disheveled Humphrey Bogart looking worse than you can imagine. The missionary dies (not really a spoiler since it happens right away in the film) and Hepburn and Bogart are left travelling together for the rest of the film. Getting to know each other as they float down a river may not sound like compelling film making. But it is so stunningly well made and well acted that it's all that is needed to carry the film.
We were all impressed. And that is really saying something when a teenage and preteen boy 50 years later can watch what is basically as much a romance between two middle-aged people as it is an adventure film, and LOVE it. Their story is so believably done that it still engages. But, when I stopped to think about it, our whole family taking to this movie makes total sense because it is much like It Happened One Night. It's a simple, well-written, well-acted, believable, fantasy adventure between two people and the countryside.
Iconic image:
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