Charlie Allnut is a rough-and-ready Canadian who operates a steamboat in German East Africa in August 1914 at the start of World War 1.
He was portrayed by Humphrey Bogart in the 1951 film The African Queen directed by John Huston with screenplay by James Agee and Huston based on the 1935 novel of the same name by C. S. Forester. Bogart also played Rick Blaine in Casablanca and Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon.
Background[]
Using his boat, the African Queen, Charlie Allnut delivers post and supply packages to two missionaries in the village of Kungdu in German East Africa.
The missionaries - middle-aged siblings Samuel and Rose Sayer - stiffly tolerate his coarse behavior each time he makes his deliveries when he passes through. When Charlie warns the Sayers that war has broken out between Germany and Britain, they choose to remain in Kungdu, only to witness German colonial troops burn down the village and herd the villagers away to be forcibly recruited.
When Samuel protests, he is struck by an officer and soon becomes delirious with fever and dies shortly afterwards. Charlie returns later the same day after finding his mine destroyed by the Germans and is being pursued for his supplies, which include gelatin explosives. He helps Rose bury her brother, and they set off in The African Queen.
While planning their escape, Charlie mentions to Rose that the British are unable to attack the Germans due to the presence of a large gunboat, the Königin Luise, patrolling a large lake downriver. Rose comes up with a plan to convert the African Queen into a torpedo boat and sink the Königin Luise. Charlie points out that navigating the Ulanga River to get to the lake would be suicidal: they would have to pass a German fort and negotiate several dangerous rapids. But Rose is insistent and eventually persuades him to go along with the plan. Later, Charlie becomes inebriated and drunkenly insults Rose and her plan; she retaliates by dumping his supply of gin into the river.
Charlie allows Rose to navigate the river by rudder while he tends the engine, and she is emboldened after they get through the first set of rapids with minimal flooding in the boat. When they pass the German fortress, the soldiers begin shooting at them, damaging the boiler. Fortunately, the soldiers are unable to cause more severe damage to the boat due to having the sun in their eyes. Charlie manages to reattach a pressure hose just as they are about to enter the second set of rapids. The boat rolls and pitches as it goes down the rapids, leading to more severe flooding on the deck. However, they manage to make it through.
While celebrating their success, the two find themselves in an embrace and kiss. Embarrassed, they break off, but eventually succumb to their feelings and fall in love. The third set of rapids damages the propeller shaft. Rigging up a primitive forge on shore, Charlie straightens the shaft, welds a new blade onto the prop, and they are off again.
All appears lost when the boat becomes mired in the mud and dense reeds near the mouth of the river. They try to tow the boat through the muck, only to have Charlie come out of the water covered with leeches. With no supplies left and short of potable water, Rose and a feverish Charlie pass out, both accepting they will soon die. Rose says a quiet prayer. As they sleep, exhausted and beaten, torrential rains far upstream gently raise the river's level and float the African Queen off of the mud and into the lake. Once on the lake, they narrowly avoid being spotted by the Königin Luise.
Over the next two days, Charlie and Rose convert some oxygen cylinders into torpedoes using gelatin explosives and improvised detonators. They push the torpedoes through holes cut in the bow of the African Queen as improvised spar torpedoes. The Königin Luise returns, and Charlie and Rose steam the African Queen out onto the lake in darkness, intending to set her on a collision course. A strong storm strikes which causes water to pour into the African Queen through the torpedo holes. Eventually the African Queen capsizes, throwing them both into the water. Charlie loses sight of Rose in the storm.
Charlie is captured and taken aboard the Königin Luise, where he is interrogated. Believing that Rose has drowned, he makes no attempt to defend himself against accusations of spying, and the German captain sentences him to death by hanging. However, Rose is found and captured and brought aboard the ship just after Charlie's sentence is pronounced. The captain questions her, and Rose proudly confesses the plot to sink the Königin Luise, deciding they have nothing to lose. The captain sentences her to be executed with Charlie, both as British spies. Charlie asks the German captain to marry them before they are executed. The captain agrees, and after a brief marriage ceremony, there is an explosion, and the Königin Luise quickly capsizes. The ship has struck the overturned submerged hull of the African Queen and detonated the torpedoes. The newly married couple happily swim to safety.
Katharine Hepburn as Rose and Humphrey Bogart as Charlie in The African Queen.
External Links[]
- The African Queen at Wikipedia
- The African Queen at IMDb