Mogambo

Movie Review: Mogambo

Year of Release: 1953
Country of Origin: USA
Director: John Ford
Cast: Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly

Plot outline: Victor Marswell, the owner of a big game trapping company in Kenya, becomes involved with the new wife of his guest (IMDb).

All your favorite African animals make cameo appearances. Lions, elephants, leopards, giraffes, zebras, hippos, rhinos, crocodiles, impalas. Even the secretary bird is a bit player, so Gardner can crack a joke about a female secretary ducking the advances of a male executive. Clark Gable is too old for the role, Victor Marswell, even though he was the lead in the successful original version, Red Dust (1932). But they say that power attracts, and certainly Gable is the big man on campus. For the crime of letting a panther escape, rather than tear off his limbs, Gable punches his less reliable white assistant, who naturally goes down for the count. Assault is less likely to solve his greater problem, whether to go blonde or brunette. In this case, the brunette is more fun, but the blonde burns with an intense heat. Through it all, the odd man out isn't really Gardner, who gets to spar with all concerned while playing the role of heartbroken but chin up second choice lover. The sap is Kelly's husband, Nordley, who chalks up her refusal to sleep with him as a disinclination for African camp life. When he's out of the way, Kelly exchanges torrid glances with Gable, but doesn't go much further because she's a good girl at heart, and there were no "R" rated movies in 1953. Even in Africa, it's a white man's world. Blacks are servants, scouts, laborers, hunters, and warriors. But they certainly aren't equals, and none appear to speak even broken English. However, Gable and his two fellow white trappers speak any native language fluently, regardless of which tribe they are obliged to exploit. A good script, a famous cast, a legendary director. All the ingredients are there, but the recipe for greatness proves elusive once again. It's not just the use of animals as props and atmosphere, or Gardner's ceaseless badgering of whatever living being is closest to her (she needs a dog!) The problem comes back to the premise. This 1953 version of Clark Gable isn't such a great catch. Couldn't Ford have cast his buddy John Wayne instead? (BK)

My judgement: **1/2 out of 4 stars