Watch Mogambo For Free

Too much of everything

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Mogambo (1953)Clark Gable plays Vic Marswell, an owner of a big game trapping company in Kenya. Eloise "Honey Bear" Kelly (played by Eva Gardner) is a globe trotting party girl who was stood-up by a visiting guest. It doesn't take long before they hit it off. Although Honey Bear is a city slicker, she eventually learns to like the various animals being sent to zoos. Then a young couple, Mr. and Mrs. Nordley show up for a gorilla documentary safari. Donald Nordley has an adverse reaction to some tsetse fly shots that he had, and drops into a fever. While Vic helps nursing him back to health, Linda Nordley (played by beautiful Grace Kelly) and Vic fall in love with each other to the disappointment of Honey Bear, who is sort of the third wheel.If this movie sounds familiar, it's because it is a remake of the 1935 movie, "Red Dust" that Clark Gable also starred in. This remake was still very well done. It was directed by John Ford and filmed in color on location in many parts of Africa. This was another movie that was part of the "Clark Gable - The Signature Collection" box set. After seeing the younger Gable version, it's kind of cool to see him as the older, 52 year old, but still very handsome and built like a brick outhouse version.

There sure are Enough Spicy Ingredients in this Romantic Adventure Stew to Make it a Tasty Dish. Speaking of Tasty Dishes, Ava Gardner Steals the Show from the African Animals and Landscape as She Tries to Steal Clark Gable back from the Demure and Somewhat Snooty Grace Kelly.African Locations are not Only Naturally Beautiful, Like Ava and Grace, but are Sure to Release Pheromones and that can be a Good and Bad Thing Depending. Certainly Grace Kelly's Caged Libido is Released into the Wild and just being there Made Her Mad and Unbridled for the First Time.A Remake of Red Dust (1932) this is an Adequate Film with Chirpy Dialog and Sexual Innuendos and Director John Ford is Pleasurably Restrained as He is No Longer in America and His Heavy Patriotic Hand does not Overwhelm the Beauty of the Landscape.The Uneven Director just Lets the Mega-Stars and the Charming Animals Say it All and He Even Gives the Native Tribes some Dignity for a Change.

Mogambo, 1953, is bound to be compared with Red Dust, 1932. The two films are based on the same stage play by Wilson Collison; the same man, John Lee Mahin, wrote both screenplays, some of the lines are even the same; the three main characters and the love triangle (or quadrangle) they form is the same; the leading man is played by the same actor, Clark Gable; and if you saw the first film, then you already know the "bang-up" ending.Many people will find the later film the weaker of the two, but I believe that if it is viewed for what it is, instead of for what it is not, it is not bad value for money. What made Red Dust a winner was Jean Harlow, her snappy witty lines, and the sweaty sensuality of the screen chemistry between her and Gable. That is what Mogambo is not; but it has a number of other things to offer instead. While most of the secondary characters in Red Dust, including the character of the adulterous wife (originally played by Mary Astor), are cast into the shadows by the sizzling repartee between Harlow and Gable, Mogambo allows the corresponding characters to develop and show some depth. In Mogambo, the motivations and inner conflicts of the adulterous wife (now played by Grace Kelly) are explored. The sappy jilted husband is given a great deal more depth in the later film than in the earlier one. And Gable's right-hand man, Brownie, is given a more substantial part as well. This makes the later film more rounded and the characters more believable, whereas the earlier film was basically a stage duel between the barbarian and the hooker. Red Dust has a sort of Who's-Afraid-of-Virginia-Woolf claustrophobia about it; it could have been entirely played out on a single indoor stage set. Mogambo features John Ford's typical outdoorsy-ness, some pretty spectacular wildlife photography (for 1950), and a rather tense confrontation with a tribe of angry, bare-breasted, spear-wielding natives (real Africans!). Not Ford's or Gable's best by any means, but a good solid show, worth 7 out of 10.Gable plays the same boorish, over-confident, God's-gift-to-women type in both films, but mellowed a bit (like wine, I mean). Whether you like that kind of man or not, you have to admit that he played it with grace and poise, and he showed that he could still do it 20 years on. The Gable character has been criticized by other reviewers for being incoherent or sappy. I disagree: he shows himself to be a man of raw courage, facing down wild animals, a savage tribe, a storm, etc., but finds he has lost his nerve when it comes to confronting the wimpy clueless husband. It takes Gardner to show him it wasn't cowardice, but that he did the decent thing after all.Grace Kelly takes over the role of the adulterous wife, a mere 27 years old (so we are told) and very naive; it takes Gable's experience, wisdom, and bluntness to make her see that she does not love her husband, whom she has known since she was five. Her performance has been criticized as confused and incoherent, and Gable too old to be attractive to her; but I can well believe that a sheltered girl who married her childhood-love would be pretty confused and dotty after the first 'real man' she had ever met had heroically saved her life twice in one week. Her distress and confusion are well played, and she screams well when confronted by a panther.Ava Gardner--well, what can one say that hasn't been already? The scene in which Gardner darts into the tribal missionary church and genuflects while the rest of the safari party go on about their business, gives her character an unexpected dimension the Harlow character lacked. I think it shows grand professionalism on Gable's part that he apparently quite happily let Gardner steal scene after scene. I guess Gable didn't have to prove anything to anyone anymore.

Mogambo (1953)I can't look at a movie like this without asking who is in control, who is being abused, who is plundering, and why does the movie not talk about these discrepancies of power? African Queen, made just two years earlier, faces the same problem from a different direction, narrowing our view to the changing of two archetypes toward mutual understanding, largely avoiding the cultural problem. In Mogambo, the movie expands outward, with decreasing interest and believability. Yes, it has to be said, there are some stunning wildlife scenes, and some genuine (and valuable) indigenous singing and shots of tribal Africans on location. The film was largely shot in Africa, and it feels authentic in that way, a long way from earlier versions shot on a Hollywood lot.But Mogambo, a remake of the better "Red Dust," is a kind of embarrassingly bad movie in other ways. There's just no getting around the poorly developed characters, the almost non-existent "plot" (nothing much happens) and even the unconvincing romances, which should have won me over since I'm a sucker. John Ford is famously a masculine director, just as was John Huston ("African Queen"), and Ford became famous for making movies about the changing of one world order for another--the American Western. In a weird, simplistic way, this is another Western, with outsiders improbably facing strange territory and hostility, and with everyone misunderstanding at least something that leads them astray. The starring actor makes it worthwhile, for those of us who admire him, Clark Gable. Grace Kelly also appears, but as usual is largely ornamental and too ivory to advance the plot.Ava Gardner is whole other problem. She's full of life but has a miserable script to read from, and is made to be a caricature of a ditzy New York woman in wild Africa. Well, Ford "fleshes" her out in his own way, but Gable is more respectful, as usual. Either way, her performance ends up crippling some of the authenticity of the rest of it. She does have a fearless and quaint way with the animals (and the baby elephants in particular are super cute). In fact, if animal rights concern you, you might have trouble with all the trapped, hunted, and caged wildlife. Seen from 2010, this is a revealing and disturbing and frivolous, white colonialist's view of Africa. If you aren't distracted by the glib Gardner and the artificial Kelly, or by the attempts to be humorous, and to set the two woman against each other (one proper, in a dress, the other less so, in pants), you'll see some interesting footage. Intermittent footage is not my idea of a good movie.