December 26, 1951: "The African Queen" Premieres

Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart

December 26, 1951: The African Queen premieres, based on the 1935 novel by C.S. Forester, and directed by John Huston. It stars Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn.

The film is set in August 1914, in German East Africa (now the nations of Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania). Samuel Sayer (Robert Morley) and his sister Rose (Hepburn) are British missionaries. They are occasionally supplied by the steamboat African Queen, piloted by Charlie Allnut, not exactly a missionary's kind of guy. (He was a Cockney in the book, but Bogart didn't think he could do the accent, so the character was rewritten as a Canadian, so he was still a citizen of the British Empire.)

Charlie tells them that war has broken out (the one that would later be known as World War I), and that they should get out of German territory. They refuse, but German colonial troops burn down the village, and Samuel is killed. Charlie helps Rose bury him, and takes her upriver.

Charlie says the British are unable to attack the Germans because of the presence of a large gunboat, the Königin Luise (Queen Louise, named for the wife of King Frederick William III of Prussia), patrolling a large lake downriver. Rose comes up with a plan to convert the African Queen into a torpedo boat, and sink the Königin Luise. After first thinking that she's nuts, Charlie goes along with the plan.

The Königin Luise returns, and Charlie and Rose steam the African Queen out onto the lake in darkness, intending to set her on a collision course. A strong storm strikes, causing water to pour into the African Queen through the torpedo holes. Eventually the boat capsizes, throwing Charlie and Rose into the water. Charlie loses sight of Rose in the storm.

Charlie is captured and taken aboard the Königin Luise, where he is interrogated by German officers. Believing that Rose has drowned, he makes no attempt to defend himself against accusations of spying, and the German captain sentences him to death by hanging. Rose is brought aboard the ship just after Charlie's sentence is pronounced. The captain questions her, and Rose proudly confesses the plot to sink the Königin Luise, deciding that they have nothing to lose. The captain sentences her to be executed with Charlie, both as British spies.

Charlie asks the German captain to marry them before they are executed, as is allowed by the law of most countries. The captain agrees, and after conducting the briefest of marriage ceremonies, is about to carry out the execution when the Königin Luise is rocked by a series of explosions, quickly capsizing. The ship has struck the overturned submerged hull of the African Queen and detonated the torpedoes. The newly married couple is able to escape the sinking ship and swim to safety together.

Much of the film was shot on location in Uganda and the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). This was unusual for that era, especially for a color film that used large, cumbersome "Three-Strip" cameras. The cast and crew endured sickness and spartan living conditions during their time on location, and Huston used his off-time to do a lot of hunting. This led to Clint Eastwood directing and starring in the thinly-disguised 1990 film White Hunter Black Heart.

Hepburn got sick. Bogart later said that he and Huston were the only members of the cast and crew who didn't, because they were drinking whiskey, not the local water. Given Bogie's well-known proclivities, I believe him.

The film was nominated for 4 Academy Awards: Bogart for Best Actor, Hepburn for Best Actress, Huston for Best Director, and Huston and James Agee for Best Screenplay. Only Bogart won. It was his only win.

The small steamboat used to depict the African Queen was contemporary to the time, built in 1912 in Britain, for service in Africa. At one time it was owned by actor Fess Parker, best known for playing Davy Crockett. The boat was restored, and is now on display in another location connected with Bogart: Key Largo, Florida.

In 1977, CBS aired a TV-movie with the same title, but as a sequel to the original film, with Warren Oates as Charlie and Mariette Hartley as Rose. The film was meant as the pilot for a series, but it was not picked up.

In 1999, Shakespeare in Love won the Academy Award for Best Picture. In that film, Judi Dench played Queen Elizabeth I. The ceremony was hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, who came out in costume as Elizabeth I, complete with whiteface makeup, and said, "I am the African Queen!"

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December 26, 1951 was a Wednesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. There were 3 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Milwaukee Hawks, 78-76 at the Baltimore Coliseum. This was the 1st half of a doubleheader. The Knicks had reached the NBA Finals the previous year, and would again, while the Hawks were a lousy team, and moved to St. Louis in 1955, and then to Atlanta in 1968. Nevertheless, the Hawks won this game.

* In the nightcap, the Baltimore Bullets beat the Philadelphia Warriors, 103-99 in triple overtime. So fans could pay for 48 minutes of basketball, and ended up getting 111 minutes.

* And the Fort Wayne Pistons beat the Boston Celtics, 94-86 at North Side High School in Fort Wayne, Indiana. As late as 1952, an NBA team was playing its home games in a high school gymnasium.

There were 2 games played in the NHL. The New York Rangers beat the Detroit Red Wings, 1-0 at the old Madison Square Garden. And the Montreal Canadiens beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 3-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. The Boston Bruins and the Chicago Black Hawks were not scheduled.

And in English soccer, at a time when teams played back-to-back, home-and-home games on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, North London team Arsenal had beaten Hampshire team Portsmouth 4-1 the day before, but Portsmouth gained a 1-1 draw on this day, at Fratton Park.

October 3, 1941: "The Maltese Falcon" Premieres

October 3, 1941: The Maltese Falcon premieres, starring Humphrey Bogart as San Francisco private investigator Sam Spade. It was the 3rd film version of Dashiell Hammett's mystery novel, following the 1931 film of the same title (with Ricardo Cortez as Spade) and the 1936 film Satan Met a Lady (Warren William).

It is also the 1st film directed by John Huston, and the 1st time Bogart worked with Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre, who would co-star with him in other films, especially the next year's Casablanca. Mary Astor plays Brigid O'Shaughnessy, a.k.a. Ruth Wonderly, who manipulates Sam, until he utters the line, "I won't play the sap for you!"

Brigid and Greenstreet's Kasper Gutman are both after the Maltese Falcon, a jewel-encrusted bird that was intended as a tribute from the Knights Templar of Malta to King Charles V of Spain, who was the Holy Roman Emperor from 1519 to 1566. But it was stolen by pirates and covered with black tar. The artifact's fate remains a mystery, as the only one shown in the film turns out to be a fake, not worth dying for, or killing for -- even if Spade tells San Francisco Police Lieutenant Dundy, played by Barton MacLane, that the real thing is "the stuff that dreams are made of."

Hammett died in 1941, Greenstreet in 1954, Bogart in 1957, Lorre in 1964, MacLane in 1969, and Huston and Astor with a month of each other in 1987. The last surviving actor from the film was Elisha Cook Jr., who played Wilmer Cook, who worked for Gutman. He lived until 1995.

As it is arguably the most popular "film noir" of all time, there have been many parodies, including a 1969 episode of the British spy series The Avengers, a 2001 episode of Charmed, and a 2012 episode of Castle, "the Blue Butterfly."

In 1988, Star Trek: The Next Generation showed Captain Jean-Luc Picard, played by Patrick Stewart, being a fan of hard-boiled detective novels of the mid-20th Century, in particular stories about a character created for the show, San Francisco private eye Dixon Hill. A Holodeck simulation goes wrong, and he and 3 other crewmembers are stuck with 1941 technology and no safety protocols, a problem which comes into play when one of them gets shot. Laurence Tierney, who had appeared in some film noirs as a young man, played Cyrus Redblock, a tribute to Sydney Greenstreet. The title of the episode was a combination of 2 of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe novels: "The Big Goodbye."

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October 3, 1941 was a Friday. On this day, Ernest Evans (no middle name) is born in Spring Gully, South Carolina, and grows up in Philadelphia. Because he did a great impression of rock and roll pioneer Fats Domino, and was fat himself, his friends nicknamed him Chubby Checker. Ironically, his real voice is so distinctive, and his biggest hit song so iconic, that his own voice became one of the most imitated in music history.

This was an off-day in the World Series between the Brooklyn Dodgers, Bogart's favorite team, and the New York Yankees. The Yankees would win the Series in 5 games. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. The NHL season didn't start until November 1. And the NFL played no games. But there were 8 college football games played that night:

* Manhattan College beat George Washington University, 23-0 at the Polo Grounds. Manhattan dropped their football team after the 1942 season, due to the manpower drain of World War II. GWU dropped theirs after 1966, since not having an on-campus stadium meant either building one or renting another stadium, neither of which was deemed cost-effective. Neither has ever resumed play.

* The University of Miami beat Elon University, 38-0 at Burdine Stadium in Miami. In 1959, that stadium would be renamed the Orange Bowl. Elon, of Elon, North Carolina, dropped to NCAA Division II in 1975, but rose to Division I FCS (formerly known as Division I-AA) in 1999.

* The University of Detroit beat crosstown Wayne State University, 54-0 at Titan Stadium on the UD campus. UD was founded as an all-male school by the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) in 1877. They dropped their football program after the 1964 season. Also in 1941, the Sisters of Mercy founded Mercy College of Detroit, for women. In 1990, the schools merged, to become the coeducational University of Detroit Mercy. Wayne State have played in NCAA Division II since 1975.

* Creighton University beat Saint Louis University, 18-8 at Creighton Stadium in Omaha, Nebraska. After the 1942 season, like Manhattan due to World War II, Creighton dropped its football program. SLU dropped theirs in 1949. Neither has ever resumed.

* Texas Tech beat Oklahoma A&M, 16-6 at Taft Stadium in Oklahoma City. A&M became Oklahoma State in 1958.

* Brigham Young University played Colorado State College of Education at Greeley, beating them 26-0 at what was known as "Y Stadium" on the BYU campus, in Provo, Utah. CSC became the University of Northern Colorado in 1970, but everybody outside of Colorado thinks of the Chapel Hill Tar Heels when they hear "UNC."

* Oregon beat Idaho, 21-7 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.

* And Gonzaga University beat Albertson College, 14-0 at a stadium known as the Lettuce Bowl (I am not making that up) in Nampa, Idaho. Gonzaga, based in Spokane, Washington, dropped their football program after the 1941 season, due to World War II, and have never resumed it. Albertson renamed itself the College of Idaho in 2007. They suspended their football program in 1977, and resumed play in the NAIA in 2014.