The African Queen

Posted on December 7, 2019 by jaycluitt

This review was originally written for Blueprint: Review.

Rose Sayer and her brother Samuel (Hepburn and Morley) are prim and proper British missionaries attempting to bring Methodist sensibilities to the village of Kungdu in German East Africa in 1914. They receive occasional supplies, mail and news from coarse, slovenly Canadian engineer-turned-boat captain Charlie Allnut (Bogart), who informs the pair about the outbreak of World War I. Shortly afterwards the village is ransacked, the church is burned down and the villagers are conscripted into the German ranks. When Samuel passes away from fever-induced delirium, Rose has no choice but to attempt to flee Africa aboard Charlie’s boat, The African Queen. The unlikely duo initially do not take too kindly to their polar opposites in such confined quarters, but soon learn to not just rely on one another, but that maybe opposites really do attract. the african queen 1 Continue reading →

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Posted on November 26, 2016 by jaycluitt

It looks like just another day at the detective agency for Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) when Miss Wonderly (Mary Astor) walks in requesting his assistance in tailing a man believed to have run off with her sister, but when Spade’s partner Miles Archer (Jerome Cowan) is shot and another body shows up later that night, Sam soon finds himself under question by the police. His gift of the gab can only talk himself out of so many predicaments, as he becomes entwined in a desperate search for a priceless artefact that everyone seems to crave.
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Chinatown

Posted on November 4, 2015 by jaycluitt

Los Angeles, 1937. Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is a private detective specialising in domestic cases. One day a woman (Diane Ladd) shows up at Jake’s office and hires him to follow her husband, Hollis Mulwray (Darrell Zwerling) who she suspects is having an affair. Jake tracks Mulwray and does indeed photograph him embracing a much younger woman. He gives the photos to Mrs. Mulwray, and soon sees them printed on the front page of the newspaper, only to discover that the woman who hired him wasn’t Mrs. Mulwray, and the real one (Faye Dunaway) is somewhat irked that her husband has been publicly humiliated and has now disappeared, and all this is just the start of a web on intrigue that leads further than Jake could have imagined.
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The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Posted on May 4, 2015 by jaycluitt

Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) is a down on his luck American trying to make ends meet in Mexico. He can’t get a job, and lives day to day by begging for handouts from other working Americans he sees around town. After a particularly bad stroke of luck, he and his friend Curtin (Tim Holt), who is in a similar state of fiscal disarray, hatch the idea to go prospecting in search for gold. They convince Howard (Walter Huston), a former prospector, to come with them and offer advice, and he warns the pair of the dangers of too much gold amongst friends, but Hobbs in particular is adamant that wealth won’t change him. That is, until they find some, and discover other people might be after it too.

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