The African Queen Filming Locations: A Revisit to the Preserved Adventure Film

Released on December 26, 1952, The African Queen is based on a novel of the same name, written by CS Forester in the year 1935. This adventure film follows the journey of Charlie Allnut and Rose Sayer toward destroying the German ship Queen Luise in their boat, which was named The African Queen, to stop World War I between Germany and Britain. In the article ahead, we will be talking about the filming locations of African Queen.

John Huston was the director, and Sam Spiegel and John Woolf were the producers of The African Queen. The film was produced by the production companies like Horizon Picture, and Romulus Films. The movie was released in three different languages, which include English, German, and Swahili. In 1994, The African Queen was preserved in the US National Film Registry. One can watch The African Queen on Amazon. Let us start our discussion about the filming locations of The African Queen.

Filming Locations of The African Queen

the name Queen Luise is based on a German steam ferry that was first operated from Hamburg. There are several scenes in the movie that got shot in Uganda and Congo. Both of these places are located in Africa.

The places where the production crew was shooting were not hygienic, due to which, except for Huston and Bogart, all the crew members got sick. You must have remembered the scene where Hepburn was playing the organ, during shooting, she was continuously vomiting due to the water available there.

The scenes where Hepburn and Bograt had decided to destroy the German ship, and after that, they set to travel in water, were all shot in the United Kingdom as the shooting of these scenes in Africa was very challenging and dangerous.

The water scenes were shot in the studio tanks at Isleworth Studios, located in Middlesex.

Also, read – Teletubbies Filming Locations: Where is the Famous Kids Show Shot?

The African Queen Summary

The African Queen was a boat whose owner was Charlie. He used to deliver food items to Sawyer and his sister Rose in it. The village where Sayers was living got attacked by the Germans during World War I.

Samuel Sayer died while protesting the war. Taking his sister Rose, Charlie flew from there. They were in The African Queen when Charle told her that Britain could not fight until Konigin Luise was there.

Listening to this, Rose made a plan to destroy Queen Luise. After some argument between Rose and Charlie, Charlie finally got ready to destroy the German ship. For that, they had to pass the three sets of rapids.

When they passed the German fortress, the soldiers started firing on them, but due to their temporary blindness (because of sunlight), they were unable to cause any damage. In the middle of the scene, Charlie and Rose fall in love and kiss each other.

At the end of The African Queen, they got caught by the crew members of Konigin Luise while they were drowning. Charlie told everything about their mission, unaware of the fact that Rose was not dead.

Later they came up with Rose and started interrogating her. She answered all their questions fearlessly and said yes, they were set to damage Konigin Luise. The Captain then ordered the death sentence for both of them. Charlie then presented his last wish to marry Rose to which the Captain got ready.

Eventually, Konigin Luise faced a series of explosions, which made the ship quickly overturn from its initial position. Rose and Charlie then swim to a safe place together.

Cast and Character of The African Queen

The list of casts that were involved in the filming of The African Queen and their character goes as given. Humphrey Bogart played the character of Charlie Allnut, Katherine Hepburn played the character of Rose Sayer, and Robert Morley played the role of Reverend Samuel Sayer, who was the brother of Rose Sayer.

Then comes Peter Bull, who played the character of Captain of Queen Luise. Theodore played the character of the first officer of Konigin Luise, Walter Gotell was the second officer of the Konigin Luise, Richard Marner was the second officer of the Shona (fort), and Peter Swanwick played the character of the fort Shona’s first officer.