The legend of the making of John Huston’s The African Queen is one often told. Huston brought together Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart for the adventure-turned-love story, with production taking place partially on location in Uganda and the Congo, with sickness running rife and causing all manner of chaos. Unlike that other Hollywood-in-the-jungle epic, Apocalypse Now, the behind the scenes problems don’t really translate on to the screen, with the film ultimately playing rather straight. It’s a beautiful, epic picture, make no mistake, but the off-screen problems are not truly apparent to the unassuming viewer.
The second movie I took in was Samuel Fuller’s majestic House Of Bamboo. The preamble to the picture opening proudly boasts, in typical Fuller fashion, of the films on-location shooting, but such declarations are unnecessary, with the opening moments of the picture showing in complete the unmistakable site of Mount Fiji,the backdrop of which plays host to a snippy heist and a murder most foul. Later, Fuller’s eye for the esoteric has never been more present than in the unusual location in which the film’s final shootout takes place, with the decision for the finale to take place in an amusement park that sits atop of a gigantic Tokyo department store. It’s also worth remembering that Fuller was a humanist and is here very respectful in his telling of this story.
The Glass Family 