Steamboats in the Movies

16 frames from the much beloved classic with Bogart and Hepburn in a romantic comedy/adventure/drama. About half of the film was shot on location on the Congo in Africa. A long way from the Mississippi but a sure 'nuff steamboat played an essential part in the story. The African Queen (1951) Romulus Films Horizon Pictures released by United Artists Story in brief: In Africa during WW1, diamond-in-the-rough Charlie Allnut runs the AFRICAN QUEEN (a 30 foot long steam launch built in 1912) in the commercial trade on the Congo River. After some resistance, Charlie is persuaded by spinster missionary Rose Saver to rig his boat with a torpedo in order to sink a German warship. Bogart won the Academy Award in '51 for his portrayal of Charlie which was a richly nuanced character role rather than that a conventional heroic Hollywood leading man type. directed by John Huston based on a novel by C.S. Forester adapted for the screen by James Agee and John Huston starring: Humphrey Bogart... Charlie Allnut Katharine Hepburn... Rose Sayer

Banjo on My Knee (1936) 20th Century Fox 95 min - Comedy | Drama | Romance Ernie Holley runs away on his wedding night because he thinks he has killed a man on his wedding night. His father Newt and bride Pearl travel to New Orleans to find him and persuade him to come home. However, they end up starting a successful Vaudville act instead. Banjo on My Knee,' a Shantyboat Musical, Opens at the Roxy By FRANK S. NUGENT TIME MAGAZINE December 12, 1936 If we are to believe the Roxy's "Banjo on My Knee"—and there isn't an earthly reason why we should—the picturesque shanty-boaters of the Mississippi are nothing more than song-and-dance men in the rough, homegrown crooners, players of one-man bands or torch-singers of limited range and a tendency to grow moist-eyed whenever they hear that old American folksong, "The St. Louis Blues." It is an unsettling premise, disillusioning and unthinkable, and it impels us to scowl fiercely at the ballyhoo artists who have been telling us that the new Twentieth Century-Fox picture "combines the setting of 'Tobacco Road' with the mood of 'Steamboat 'Round the Bend.'" It ain't no such thing. There are, we suppose, a few traces of the Harry Hamilton folk novel in Nunnally Johnson's script. Old Newt Holley, under Walter Brennan's disarming portrayal, comes closest to realizing our conception of the shantyboater. "Looks like Judge Tops is fixing to fall into the river," he says, with a careless eye upon the nodding figure of the judge, precariously slumbering underneath the taffrail. His guests turn casually and wait for the sleeper to sway too far. "Wa'al, guess you'd better fish him out, Buddy," says Newt, a placid interval after the splash. Old Newt does much to restore our faith in our fellow men along the Mississippi's banks. But "Banjo on My Knee" leans far more on the side of musical comedy, with biological implications, than it does to an honest tale of the stepsons of Old Man River. Its theme, bluntly, is Newt's desire for a grandchild—a hunger thwarted, beyond audience endurance, by the coincidences, quarrels and misunderstandings which separate his son, Ernie, and his wife, Pearl on their wedding night and keep them apart until a barroom brawl, a rising river and a boarded door force them to bow to Newt's ambition. This being an issue of less than major importance, we found ourselves singularly unmoved by Barbara Stanwyck's tragic demeanor as Pearl and thoroughly irritated by the stupidity of Joel McCrea's Ernie. Only Mr. Brennan's Newt, the sporadic hoofing of Buddy Ebsen, the Hall Johnson choir's collaboration with an anonymous soloist on "The St. Louis Blues," Anthony Martin's singing of "There's Some-thin' in the Air" and a sound comedy performance by Walter Catlett as an abused photographer emerge as definite entertainment factors. Fortunately, they are in attendance constantly enough to keep us from brooding too much upon the inadequacy of the story. BANJO ON MY KNEE, based on the novel by Harry Hamilton; screen play by Nunnally Johnson; music and lyrics by Jimmy McHugh and Harold Adamson; directed by John Cromwell; a Twentieth Century-Fox production. At the Roxy. Pearl . . . . . Barbara Stanwyck Ernie Holley . . . . . Joel McCrea Grandma . . . . . Helen Westley Buddy . . . . . Buddy Ebsen Newt Holicy . . . . . Walter Brennan Warfield Scott . . . . . Walter Catiett Chick Bean . . . . . Anthony Martin Leota Long . . . . . Katherine de Mille Slade . . . . . Victor Kilian Ruby . . . . . Minna Gombell Judge Tops . . . . . Spencer Charters Jules . . . . . George Humbert Gurtha . . . . . Hilda Vaughn Hattie . . . . . Cecil Weston Eph . . . . . Louis Mason And the Hall Johnson Choir. This movie is available instantly at Netflix.

THE HEART'S ETERNAL VOW A Review of LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA By Gabriel Garcia Marquez Translated by Edith Grossman April 10, 1988, Sunday New York Times / BOOKS http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/06/15/reviews/marquez-cholera.html 348 pp. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. $18.95 Reviewed by Thomas Pynchon . . . The story takes place between about 1880 and 1930, in a Caribbean seaport city, unnamed but said to be a composite of Cartagena and Barranquilla - as well, perhaps, as cities of the spirit less officially mapped. Three major characters form a triangle whose hypotenuse is Florentino Ariza, a poet dedicated to love both carnal and transcendent, though his secular fate is with the River Company of the Caribbean and its small fleet of paddle-wheel steamboats. As a young apprentice telegrapher he meets and falls forever in love with Fermina Daza, a "beautiful adolescent with . . . almond-shaped eyes," who walks with a "natural haughtiness . . . her doe's gait making her seem immune to gravity." Though they exchange hardly a hundred words face to face, they carry on a passionate and secret affair entirely by way of letters and telegrams, even after the girl's father has found out and taken her away on an extended "journey of forgetting." But when she returns, Fermina rejects the lovesick young man after all, and eventually meets and marries instead Dr. Juvenal Urbino who, like the hero of a 19th-century novel, is well born, a sharp dresser, somewhat stuck on himself but a terrific catch nonetheless. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ . . . There comes a moment, early in his career at the River Company of the Caribbean when Florentino Ariza, unable to write even a simple commercial letter without some kind of romantic poetry creeping in, is discussing the problem with his uncle Leo XII, who owns the company. It's no use, the young man protests - "Love is the only thing that interests me." "The trouble," his uncle replies, "is that without river navigation, there is no love." For Florentino this happens to be literally true: the shape of his life is defined by two momentous river voyages, half a century apart. On the first he made his decision to return and live forever in the city of Fermina Daza, to persevere in his love for as long as it might take. On the second, through a desolate landscape, he journeys into love and against time, with Fermina, at last, by his side. There is nothing I have read quite like this astonishing final chapter, symphonic, sure in its dynamics and tempo, moving like a riverboat too, its author and pilot, with a lifetime's experience steering us unerringly among hazards of skepticism and mercy, on this river we all know, without whose navigation there is no love and against whose flow the effort to return is never worth a less honorable name than remembrance—at the very best it results in works that can even return our worn souls to us, among which most certainly belongs "Love in the Time of Cholera," this shining and heartbreaking novel.

In the fall of 1926 the last Kate Adams became "La Belle Riviere"for a silent film version of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Filming was done on theOuachita and Black rivers in Louisiana. In January of 1927 the Kate Adams burned at Memphis. That may have been the reason this set of the forward section of the Kate was built on a back lot in California. A lot of the action took place here and they may not have completed filming before the Kate was destroyed. The rubber stamp on the back of this photo post card said ROSSLYN PHOTO STUDIO / LOS ANGELES, CALIF. It was pretty amazing to find this at a post card show. Had never heard that a recreation of the boat had been built during any phase of the production of the movie.

Warner Bros. 1955 "Duke" Wayne adventure movie Blood Alley filmed on the Sacramento River aboard the old snag boat PUTAH which was called the "Chicu San" in the movie. John Wayne was not the first choice for Captain Wilder. Ahead of him in line were Robert Mitchum, Humphrey Bogart and Gregory Peck who dropped out for various reasons. synopsis "A merchant marine captain, rescued from the Chinese Communists by locals is shanghaied by them into transporting the whole village to Hong Kong on an ancient paddle steamer." John Wayne as Capt. Tom Wilder Lauren Bacall as Cathy Grainger

Pilot house scene from the 1952 Universal Western Bend of the River. Filmed on the Columbia River aboard the towboat HENDERSON as the "River Queen." It marked the return of Stepin Fetchit to another steamboat on location (he had played "Noah" in Steamboat Round the Bend on the Sacramento River seventeen years earlier. James Stewart as Glyn McLyntock (left) Chubby Johnson as Cap'n Mello (in uniform at the pilot wheel) Stepin Fetchit as Adam (far right in nautical cap) As a footnote to this photo here is mention of a steamboat race held after the completion of Bend of the River from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamboats_of_the_Columbia_River The last steamboat race on the Columbia was held in 1952, between the HENDERSON and the new steel-hulled PORTLAND, both towboats. This was actually more of an exhibition than a race. The famous actor James Stewart and other members of the cast of the recently-filmed movie Bend of the River were on-board the Henderson. The race was witnessed by Capt. Homer T. Shaver, who stated that as both were running fast for their design, as towboats, the speeds were not much compared to what he'd seen as a young man on the river. Again, the results were summed up by McCurdy: "It was, however, a stirring sight as the two paddlers, smoke pouring from their stacks and stately waterfalls at their sterns, re-enacted the glory days of steamboating on the Columbia. And this time the sentimental favorite, the old wooden Henderson, beat the new steel Portland."

Back on March 5th I saw the wonderful and charming 1954 Ealing Studios movie called THE MAGGIE for the first time. In the USA the movie was first released under the title HIGH AND DRY. The DVD of THE MAGGIE is available to rent from NETFLIX or can be purchased at MOVIES UNLIMITED: http://www.moviesunlimited.com/musite/product.asp?sku=D53038 THE MAGGIE was inspired by the stories of Neil Munro whose Captain Para Handy steered the Clyde puffer VITAL SPARK: "The smertest boat in the coastin' tred." (Scottish pronounciation of "The smartest boat in the coasting trade.") This following brief excerpt off Wikipedia gives a description of "the puffers" for the uninitiated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_puffer The Clyde puffer is essentially a type of stumpy little cargo steamboat which provided a vital supply link around the west coast and Hebrides islands of Scotland. Characteristically these boats had bluff bows, crew's quarters with table and cooking stove in the foc'sle, and a single mast with derrick in front of the large hold, aft of which the funnel and ship's wheel stood above the engine room while the captain had a small cabin in the stern. When publication of the Vital Spark stories began in 1905 the ship's wheel was still in the open, but later a wheelhouse was added aft of the funnel giving the puffers their distinctive image. Their flat bottom allowed them to beach and unload at low tide, essential to supply remote settlements without suitable piers. Typical cargoes could include coal and furniture, with farm produce and gravel sometimes being brought back. Alex Mackenzie who plays Captain MacTaggert in THE MAGGIE was a Glasgow native and for years taught school before becoming a professional actor His performance is artless, as if they had pulled him man right off a puffer. Tommy Kearins as cabin boy referred to as "The Wee Lad" steals the show in both comedy and drama, with an unscrubbed Huck Finn quality. I pulled the attached 12 favorite frames off the DVD which evoke the flavor or the shabby boat with Cap'n and crew to match. Only online video from the movie sets up the story with a case of mistaken identity when the man in the bowler hat goes to see the MAGGIE, which MacTaggart has volunteered to haul valuable cargo for an American tycoon. This film is one of my all time favorites now and I'm just amazed that I had never seen or heard of it until two months ago. An totally entertaining treasure of nautical humor and adventure for the steamboat lover. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBrFVpwjGm8 Dave Movie Review NEW YORK TIMES The Maggie (1954) http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9E05EEDE1538E23BBC4950DFBE66838F649EDE By BOSLEY CROWTHER August 31, 1954 EVER since "Tight Little Island" came along five years ago with a warm and delightful commentary on the single-mindedness and shrewdness of the Scots, We have been waiting for that film's director, Alexander Mackendrick, to cut loose again with another appreciation of the people he knows and loves so well. Blessed be Mr. Mackendrick and the canniness of the Scots. Blessed be Michael Balcon and his Ealing Studios. For the smooth combination of all these factors that is represented in this film has resulted in a jolly entertainment that is as bracing as the Hebridean air. This time, Mr. Mackendrick, working from a story of his own that has been put together into a screenplay by William Rose , is concerned with a mighty contention between a bang-bang American business man and the crew of a wheezy Scottish "puffer" that fetches cargoes among the Hebrides. If this sounds a cheerless complication, you should make the acquaintance of Captain MacTaggert, the skipper of the Maggie, and his two-man-and-one-boy crew. And you should contemplate Calvin B. Marshall, the loud-mouthed Yankee tycoon, who makes the mistake of presuming that he can outsmart these single-minded Scots. The blather and bluster of this gentleman when he finds a particularly precious load of his household furnishings consigned to the Maggie's uncertain hold crashes in a spray of salty humor against the craggy and saturnine Scots, who are determined to deliver the cargo and collect the freightage that will save their beloved tub. And the devilish devices of the captain to outwit the brash American have a nippy and cheerful Scottish flavor. He must make Bellabegwinnie or bust! When he is stranding the Maggie atop the subway in the River Clyde or jailing a character for poaching along the banks of an inland waterway, he is gushing unbeatable comedy. And his tap on the heart strings at the end, is sufficient to round off his characters. Alex Mackenzie as the skipper is a wonderfully shrewd and stringy sort—a thoroughly unbeatable old pirate—a Scottish Barry Fitzgerald. Paul Douglas as the blustering Yankee is the perfectly full-blown buffoon. James Copeland, Abe Barker and Tommy Kearins are gorgeous as the Maggie's roguish crew especially that little Tommy Kearins with his Scots burr and soup-bowl hair-do. Hubert Gregg does some lovely clowning as a breathless, befuddled British "Clark." Also, we cannot fail to mention the tangy atmosphere of Scottish seaports, canals and white stone hamlets that hang at the edge of heathered moors. As in "Tight Little Island," Mr. Mackendrick has stuck to the real outdoors for the better part of his picture, and you can feel it, all the way through. It is downright intoxicating. And "The Maggie" is a hearty, wholesome film. THE MAGGIE, screen play by William Rose; from an original story by Alexander Mackendrick; directed by Mr. Mackendrick; produced by Michael Truman; an Ealing studios-Michael Balcon production presented by the J. Arthur Rank Organization and released by Universal-International. At the Sutton. Marshall . . . . . . Paul Douglas The skipper . . . . . Alex Mackenzie The Mate . . . . . . James Copeland The Engineer . . . . Abe Barker The Wee Boy . . . . . Tommy Kearins Pusey . . . . . . . . Hubert Gregg Campbell . . . . . . Geoffrey Keen Miss Peters . . . . . Dorothy Alison The Reporter . . . . Andrew Keir Sarah . . . . . . . . Meg Buchanan The Laird . . . . . . Mark Dignam Dirty Dan . . . . . . Jameson Clark C. S. S. Skipper . . . Moultrie Kelsall Sheena . . . . . . . . Fiona Clyne Barmaid . . . . . . . Sheila Shand Gibbs

Francis Parkinson Keyes used research Fred Way provided on I believe it was the RICHMOND so she could describe a steamboat inside and out with accuracy in her novel Steamboat Gothic. I think Fred said he was invited to a party given my Ms. Keyes' at the old Beauregard house in the French Quarter which she owned and where she lived, to thank people who had helped her with the historic research etc. on the book. Disney's PRINCESS and the FROG, new animated feature is set in New Orleans in the early 1900's (I guess) and uses some steamboats but from the scenes I've seen in the trailers and ads you can tell they didn't do much research on the boats . . . on of 'em didn't have a pilot house (lots of artists lop them off since they have no idea what they are for) or they leave off the 'scape pipes and generally make them look like modern excursion replicas which are so obviously inaccurate to people like us. At least in CATS DON'T DANCE (an animated feature that I worked on) the art directors asked me for research and I loaned them blueprints and videos of the JULIA BELLE for reference and the result is reasonable. Attached screen capture of Scott Bakula's "credit" in the Main Title attached to the steamboat. To watch a clip from this movie that includes the still image capture above, click here.

Publicity still of Darren McGavin as Captain Grey Holden in the pilot house set of the ENTERPRISE for the Universal TV series RIVERBOAT

COTTON BLOSSOM full sized prop boat built for MGM's 1951 SHOW BOAT on their man-made lake on one of the Culver City back lots. The color scheme is relatively subdued in this photo, not the overly gaudy "peppermint candy" red trim against white that looked a bit over the top in the Technicolor SHOW BOAT. There is no name board on the pilot house and no name painted an the port side stern either so the boat was probably being kept "neutral" until she needed to be rechristened for use in another movie. Photo courtesy of well-known, much accomplished steamboat model maker John Fryant.

MGM's 1962 Cinerama Western spectacular HOW THE WEST WAS WON included several steamboat sequences. Top frame is in the cabin of the Sacramento Queen in which MGM used it appears that MGM's art director may have used some of the interior details - (arches and skylights) from the cabin set which they had built for their 1951 musical SHOW BOAT. Note a model of a sidewheeler secured to the bulkhead above the bartender, far right. In the second frame MGM's COTTON BLOSSOM is visible as an atmospheric backdrop on the right outside the window in a night time scene where Gregory Peck stands indoors in the foreground with a carpet bag. In the third frame is reused footage from MGM's 1957 Civil War epic RAINTREE COUNTY of the Delta Queen, apparently on the Ohio River somewhere with a boxy contrivance behind the pilot house to conceal her single smokestack and to provide housing for the rig that diverted her smoke into twin stacks.

Dudley Early is credited with doing the "Titles" which I assume were dialogue cards. It's not clear if the "sound version" of this contained anything more than music and sound effects. This film was probably the basis for a remake by Universal under the same title starring Tyrone Power in 1953 when the gambler's name was "Mark Fallon." None of the names of the characters in the '53 version were the same as the '20 version. The most fun thing in this movie still, beside the Gambler being almost as pretty as the two admiring girls is the head of his can which is a skull. The skull/death motif probably implied that Jack Morgan was a deadly duelist with sword or pistol. The characters are obviously on the boiler deck of a steamboat but it can't be determined if this was a set or a real boat on the Sacramento River where it was probably filmed. The movie was a few minutes under an hour long so apparently wasn't an "epic" by anyone's standards. The Mississippi Gambler 1929 Notes from IMDB: Joseph Schildkraut was (improbably) cast as a Southern gambler in this film to capitalize on his equally improbable casting as Gaylord Ravenal in the part-talkie version of Show Boat. Actor Otis Harlan, who portrayed Captain Andy in the 1929 "Show Boat", was reunited with Schildkraut for this film. A print of the silent version of this film survives in the UCLA Film and Television Archives. The picture portion of the sound version survives in 16mm. The soundtrack discs are evidently lost. Directed by Reginald Barker Written by Edward T. Lowe Jr. Story: Karl Brown, Leonard Fields Dialogue: Winifred Reeve, H.H. Van Loan Titles: Dudley Early Cast Joseph Schildkraut Jack Morgan Joan Bennett Lucy Blackburn Carmelita Geraghty Suzette Richards Alec B. Francis Junius Blackburn Otis Harlan Tiny Beardsley William Welsh Captain Weathers Music by David Broekman Cinematography Gilbert Warrenton Editing by Robert B. Wilcox Distributed by Universal Pictures Release date 3 November 1929 Running time 57 minutes More movie stills Dave Thomson Museum Wing Index