Movie Kisses Series 3/13/2024 African Queen #prairierosepubs #moviekisses

 

Here we are at the third installment of my year-long look at The Kiss in historically-set movies.

January Kiss –The Phantom of the Opera 
February Kiss – The Princess Bride 

This month, let’s look at three kisses from the Humphrey Bogart | Katharine Hepburn classic movie, The African Queen.

What I really like about the first kiss between the scruffy, grouchy, curmudgeon Charlie Allnut and the prim and proper, yet desperate to be free of her brother’s and society’s hold over her independence in order for her true self to blossom Rose Sayer is that their first kiss:

1) is awkward
2) is spontaneous
3) and blindsides both Charles and Rosie for how it opens up feelings they had no idea they had for each other. It’s adorable, and we love it.

First Kiss Set-up: They have just survived going by the German stronghold on the river. Watch from the beginning of the clip through 1:06.

This first awkward kiss sets emotions in motion for the real kiss that happens after they’d had time to share laughs and become comfortable with each other.

Second Kiss Set-up: This is The Kiss. They are sharing a few moments of admiring the beauty of where they are, and Charlie casually puts his hand on Rosie’s shoulder. Rosie can’t look at him as she puts her hand over his. She’s a conflicted mess of a puritanical upbringing that is telling her feelings for Charlie are inappropriate, but her woman’s heart is in love with him. The Kiss is at 1:28 and fades to black in the movie (and in the clip). If you’ve read the book, there is more intimacy in this scene. After the fade to black in the movie, we are left to surmise what that intimacy was, but we figure it out from the subtle hints.

 

I just love this kiss. They are an older couple who have gone through life not only alone, but lonely, and love has found them as equals in their desperate flight down a river during which they have to depend upon each other for survival.

Third Kiss Set-up: Rosie and Charlie are facing execution by hanging, and Charlie asks the ship’s captain to marry them,  “Because it would mean so much to the lady”, and then Rosie’s shy, but absolutely delighted and touched, gaze-lowered expression is too wonderful. The kiss is at 1:08 in this clip. If you've read the book, you know there is an amusing twist about this marriage that is left out of the movie due to what was deemed acceptable at the time in history this movie was made (1951).

 

I simply love this movie and the romance between Rosie and Charlie.

See you next month for more kisses from the big screen.

Kaye Spencer
www.kayespencer.com