Director John Huston loved to shoot on location, no matter how far flung that location was, not only making The African Queen in Uganda but also The Barbarian and the Geisha with John Wayne in Japan. It gives them a sense of authenticity absent from many of the films of the era. How much of Huston’s desire to go to Africa was down to The African Queen and how much to his wanting to hunt big game is open to speculation (check out Clint Eastwood’s White Hunter, Black Heart for a fictionalised take on the production) but whatever the reason, it resulted in an amazing visual experience brilliantly captured by ace cinematographer Jack Cardiff.
With the exception of Huston and Bogart everyone in the cast and crew fell ill during the production and Hepburn didn’t fully recover until some months after her return to America. The experience made such an impact on the actress that years later she wrote a book about it — The Making of The African Queen: Or, How I Went to Africa With Bogart, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind. Incidentally the director and leading man avoided ill health in true Hollywood hellraiser fashion by never drinking the water, Bogart later commenting, "All I ate was baked beans, canned asparagus and Scotch whiskey. Whenever a fly bit Huston or me, it dropped dead."
The film was worth such hardships however and it remains a firm favourite of movie lovers. On 12 May, the centenary of Hepburn’s birth, IMDb ran a poll asking users to pick their favourite from 15 of the actress’s best films and The African Queen came out on top with over 20% of the 11442 votes.
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