Mogambo

Ava Gardner could hardly be considered anyone's second choice, but this is what director John Ford and screenwriter John Lee Mahin would have you believe in this overripe 1952 safari melodrama. Yet, she is the primary reason why this film is still worth a look 56 years later. Far more intuitively than Angelina Jolie these days, Gardner epitomized a primal sensuality and a hidden vulnerability, the combination of which was intoxicating in her prime. Ford captures this, as well as her dark beauty and sharp comedy sense, by casting her as smart-mouthed, carefree playgirl Eloise "Honey Bear" Kelly, who has come to a remote African outpost to meet up with a wealthy maharajah. Finding herself stood up, she is greeted by no-nonsense big game hunter Victor Marswell as she conveniently takes a shower al fresco. Before sparks can truly fly, a young British anthropologist and his prudish wife, Donald and Linda Nordley, arrive naively drawn to the flora and fauna.

Then a rather preposterous story turn occurs in which Marswell becomes smitten with Mrs. Nordley, and she with him since she swoons over the manly hunter over her milquetoast husband. Looking the patrician beauty that served her well during her brief movie career, a 24-year-old Grace Kelly plays Linda in typical melodramatic fashion. Her English accent is a bit overdone, and her character's motivations too simplistically presented for Kelly to shine, especially next to Gardner. As Marswell, the 52-year-old Clark Gable doesn't have quite the swagger he displayed so easily in his youth when he first played this role in 1932's "Red Dust" with Jean Harlow and Mary Astor in the Gardner and Kelly parts. However, it is a testament to his enduring appeal that he is at all convincing as a magnet for two much younger women.

But make no mistake that Gable, who has to maintain a stoic, man-of-mystery demeanor as Marswell, really hands the picture to Gardner. In particular, she has a fetching couple of scenes where she sings Robert Burns' "Comin' Through the Rye" and seems truly to enjoy interacting with the wild animals. It's all a hoot, and the location filming in Kenya and Uganda really brings the story to vibrant life. Ford handles the exotic background as well as he does Monument Valley in his classic westerns, and he makes sure to keep goosing the story with action elements so that the focus is not completely on the love triangle. Industry veteran Robert Surtees and David Lean's favorite cameraman Freddie Young shared cinematography responsibilities, and the look of the film is sumptuous even by MGM's high standards. The only extra with the 2006 DVD is the original theatrical trailer.

'Mogambo' is not one of the greatest of John Ford's films, but it is still a solid piece of work. Clark Gable is at his manliest, and Grace Kelly is cast perfectly (though her performance is not so perfect). However, Ava Gardner steals the show. Scenes without her seem dead. Scenes with her are charged with sexy movement and funny double-talk. Of course, Ford himself makes great use of the African landscape, applying his brilliant American West photography to the jungles and rivers of Africa. A good piece of entertainment and recommended for John Ford fans.

I think Mogambo may be John Ford's best film technically. The cinematography is simply sumptuous. The colors and the compositions are some of the most beautiful you'll ever see in a film. Too bad it's not in Cinemascope. I would have loved to see those African landscapes in widescreen. The sound is equally deserving of praise. Rare for a classical Hollywood film, Mogambo contains absolutely no extra-diagetic music, i.e., a musical score. The only music comes from a player piano, or African tribes' singing. That singing is just amazing. Most of the background sounds, however, come from African beasts and insects. It provides a threatening mood to the entire film. This experiment pays off wonderfully.

Unfortunately, the narrative aspects of the film are lacking. The story, about an adventurer (Clark Gable) who takes a married couple on a safari to study gorillas, is passable. Actually, the meat of the story lies in the budding relationship between Gable and the wife, played by Grace Kelly (perhaps her role in Rear Window, which came out a year later, was inspired by this film). Ava Gardener plays a second love interest, a society girl from NYC, brazen and witty. The problems don't really arise from the plot, but from the characters. They are two-dimensional. Ava Gardener's role is the best, but the script begins to keep her away from the other relationship, which is treated more romantically. Gable's role is too cliche. It's paper thin, and I just never cared much what happened to him. But I think the real problem is with Kelly and her role. Her character changes in wildly unbelievable ways. It's almost as if she falls in love with Gable because, well, that's what women do when Clark Gable's in a movie! It doesn't matter that she's the second one to do so in the first half hour of the film.

The film also fails because of the vast amounts of stock footage used to show the wildlife of Africa. Often, this is acceptable. It's obvious that that footage was taken at some other time and with some other type of film than the main footage, but I can suspend my imagination up to a point. However, one particular sequence involving gorillas is rather awful. The party has a face-off with a group of them, and there is a lot of cross-cutting to create suspense. It never works. Especially silly are the shots of Gable standing in front of back-projected stock footage of a bull gorilla charging. I suppose these kinds of shots were impossible to fake anywhere near as well as we can do now. But I still find fault in it. It snapped my suspension bridge.

This is a strange, but good picture coming from John Ford. It's not about the usual themes he normally tackles, it lacks the usual supporting cast from a Ford film. Yet it is a good piece of movie making.

In a biography of John Ford by his grandson he said that Gable and Ford were friends for years, not particularly close, but friends nonetheless. Whenever they were together Ford and Gable talked about working together. Finally Gable got MGM to get Ford for his next film and it was Mogambo.

I like Mogambo because it was the start of a trend in Hollywood to show some realism when dealing with Africa. To this day there are people in the United States whose knowledge about things African were gained from Tarzan movies. African Queen, King Solomon's Mines, and Mogambo were all shot on location and all show the native Africans in reality. I was a kid at this time and my first bit of education about Africa came from Ramar of the Jungle. This is light years better.

Gable was criticized for reprising a role he did 20 years earlier in Red Dust. The plot line stays the same, but in Red Dust, Gable is the hard-nosed manager of a rubber plantation in Malaya. Gable as Vic Marswell here is a world weary and cynical game hunter and safari guide. Both portrayals are very good and very different.

By all accounts it was not a happy set. The usual problems with location in Africa presented themselves. In addition Frank Sinatra was on the set. He was waiting on word whether he would get the part he sought in From Here To Eternity. At the time he was married to Ava Gardner and there's was one of the most tempestuous marriages in Hollywood history. He was jealous of Gable as he was of all Gardner's leading men. To be just Ava kind of encouraged the jealous. When Harry Cohn gave him the word about From Here To Eternity he left with the gratitude of Ford, Gable, Gardner and everyone else, he'd become a royal pain in the neck.

Ava Gardner was one of the most beautiful women God ever created and a lot of times she could get by with that. But when called on to act she could. As Eloise "honeybear" Kelly she's as cynical in her own way as Gable was. They were a perfect fit. This was the last of three films she and Gable made.

I don't think Grace Kelly is shown to best advantage here. Her British accent was a bit affected. I'm not sure why MGM just didn't cast a British actress like Deborah Kerr in the part. Of course she also was involved with From Here To Eternity if I remember.

Mogambo because of the location shooting and much bigger budget is better than its predecessor Red Dust. For all the unhappiness on the set, the stars and its director did some good work.

Some stunning Technicolor photography of African footage and beautiful AVA GARDNER are the sole reasons for watching John Ford's MOGAMBO, a remake of "Red Dust" that starred Jean Harlow twenty years before this was made.

Harlow's co-star, CLARK GABLE, is back reprising his role as the great white hunter (what happened to STEWART GRANGER???), but Gable has mellowed quite a bit and looks a bit too tired to be the love interest of both AVA GARDNER and GRACE KELLY--which is what the plot really boils down to. However, he is more than able to tame both of them.

GRACE KELLY still has the affected way of reciting her lines in a prim and princess-like way and is the less interesting of the two females. AVA GARDNER, on the other hand, livens up the story with her sarcastic one-liners and her ability to size up any situation and call a spade a spade. She's honest, frank and completely charming in her own way and walks off with every scene she's in, fully deserving her sole Oscar nomination.

But if you're looking for a real good story, MOGAMBO is not it. It has all the realism of a picture postcard despite the fact that much of it was filmed in colorful Africa. But the use of stock footage is also apparent as are shots of Gable and others before a process screen.

Fans of the stars should enjoy this one, but be warned--it's not without some serious flaws, mostly due to a weak script.