A little over a year since last time I traveled to Black Africa. And for a few days, I sailed on an old ferry, the "Liemba", on the eastern shores of Lake Tanganyika, one of the largest in Africa; a surface lake filled with stories and legends. Waters says in his living Gustav, the largest crocodile in the world and fierce, that seems to have gobbled a hundred people over the last three decades. And Tanganyika, John Huston shot a memorable film starred Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn: "The African Queen", based on the novel by Foster, the author of "A Passage to India". I will not have the argument because we all know about memory. But if a few things about shooting a lot of people do not know.
Apparently, a John Huston film lost interest the moment they arrive to Africa and deployed all the feverish activity in what would become their main target: elephant hunting. Producer Sam Spiegel was desperate to delays and, to the point reached by the obsession of director that one of the writers, Peter Viertel, Deborah Kerr's husband, decided to leave the work half of the shooting after fight with Huston. Years later, write a book about it between fiction and reality: "White Hunter, black heart ", which in turn lead to the movies with the same title Clint Eastwood.
Why Africa will eventually turn into myth, it touches?
A Bogart did not like too much the idea of working three months in Africa. New York-blooded, ie: urbanite to the core, spent his days locked in his shop giving whiskey and snuff, consoled his suffering for his young wife Lauren Bacall, who accompanied him throughout the filming. But Katharine Hepburn enjoyed as a child in the shooting. Huston hunt accompanied by more than one occasion and, if it did not happen a romance between them was not because they will not try Huston, but by the Hepburn fidelity to her husband kept, el actor Spencer Tracy. As the writer Viertel, She also left a written text about the experience, A booklet titled "The Making of The African Queen or How I went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall and Huston and almost lost the right ".
His text is a little sappy, but it is funny sometimes. For example, when talking about the African nature. "A crocodile-type ¬- animal is devoid of any charm. You see a slide down the bank and give you a sinister look before disappearing ... "I'll try that leg, seems to be saying,, is only a matter of time ". And they will not believe this: sometimes left lying on the shore with his mouth open wide. And birds come and Le Monde teeth. There is also a white bird that takes away the elephants back ticks. It's the give and take of the jungle ".
This concludes the actress: "This book will explain what it meant for my first meet with Huston, Bogart and Bacall in Africa and work with them without rest and they also explain why, against all odds, in calm and storm, for better or for worse, but not quite until death do us part, we had so well ".
The movie came out beautifully, as we all know. But Huston could not kill his elephant.
Another day tell mythical stories about other shootings in Africa: “Mogambo”, "King Solomon's Mines"... Why Africa will eventually turn into myth, it touches?
Javier Reverte
