ScoobyMint Disappointment for a huge fan!

Dotbankey A lot of fun.

Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

ma-cortes Although the original trailer for the film explains that "Mogambo" means "the Greatest," in fact, the word "Mogambo" has no meaning at all . It concerns Victor Marswell (Clark Gable but this lead role was originally intended for Stewart Granger ; Gable also starred in the 1933 original Red Dust by Victor Fleming) runs a big game trapping company in Kenya . Eloise Kelly (glorious charm from Ava Gardner who replaces Jean Harlow , though Deborah Kerr and Lana Turner were sought for the female leads and Maureen O'Hara was the first choice for Honey Bear Kelly) is ditched there , and an immediate attraction happens between them . Victor dallies with the attractive as well as jaded lady Eloise and must let her stay till the next boat arrives . But Victor, initially uninterested, soon succumbs to Eloise's ostentatious charms until the arrival of a marriage , a husband (Donald Sinden) , ill with fevers , and his refined but sensuous wife (Grace Kelly who has Mary Astor's part , though Gene Tierney was first choice for the role of Linda , she dropped out due to emotional problems which were now interfering with her work) . Then , Victor falls to the arms of the sophisticated married woman .This lusty remake deals with classic loving triangle set in Africa and combines love , drama , thrills , action and adventure . Interesting script by John Lee Mahin who reworks his 1932 screenplay for ¨Red Dust¨ . Here we are seeing several African animals though the most turn out to be taken from an excessive utilization of stock-shots , thus : Gnus, Elephants, Impalas , Wild Boar , Gazelle Thomson , lions , Buffalos and Gorillas especially . The film was really censored in some countries , as the censors in Spain did not allow adultery to be shown on the screen. For that reason, MGM changed the relationship of the characters of Linda Nordley (Grace Kelly) and Donald Nordley (Donald Sinden) from wife and husband to sister and brother in the dubbed version released in Spain . However, they did not delete a scene in which both share a bed together. Nice acting by Clark Gable who repeats his character from 1932 , he becomes involved with the new wife of one of his employers . Clark Gable was unimpressed by the script and was wary of reprising his Red Dust (1932) role after 21 years . He only agreed to make the movie after Across the wide Missouri (1951) and Lone Star (1952) both flopped at the box office . Clark Gable and Grace Kelly began an affair on the set that lasted for several months . After filming had ended, they resumed the affair while Kelly was filming The country girl (1954). Ava Gardner steals the show , she is frankly wonderful in the role of the woman with a past . During filming Ava Gardner flew to London to have an abortion after she became pregnant with Frank Sinatra's child . Secondary cast is quite good such as Donald Sinden , Eric Pohlmann , Laurence Naismith and Denis O'Dea .Marvelously shot by two excellent cameramen , Robert Surtees and Freddie Young . Being filmed on location in Mount Kenya, Mount Kilimanjaro, Kenya , Okalataka, Democratic Republic Of Congo , Tanganjika, Tanzania , Serengeti Plain, Tanzania ,Hell's Gate National Park, Kenya , Kagera River ,Uganda ,Thika, Kenya . Despite the high budget, most of the movie was actually filmed in the MGM studio in Hollywood, and especially in MGM British Studios, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, England, UK . Lavishly produced by the great producer Sam Zimbalist , he came up with the title by altering the name of the Mocambo, a famous Hollywood nightclub . The motion picture was compellingly directed by John Ford , though he did not get along with Clark Gable during filming, and at one point walked off the set in protest at Ford's treatment of Ava Gardner . It's not great John Ford film but results to be worthwhile and enticing .

LeonLouisRicci 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.

museumofdave Western director John Ford was more or less asleep at the wheel on this jungle epic, with the stars given a tepid script rife with fifties clichés about the roles men and women play in the moral scheme of things. Gable had done the same role some 20 years earlier in the hugely entertaining, zippy precode Red Dust with sassy Jean Harlow and salty Mary Astor, but Grace Kelly and Ava Gardner, while holding their own in the beauty department, are given next to nothing to work with, except perhaps for Ava's tussle in the mud with a baby elephant. Gable goes through the motions of being The Great White Hunter with his customary professionalism, but looks fairly bored. The idea of hunting down and killing gorillas is certainly as outmoded today as the romantic clichés--but there is some excellent footage of native African dances and some nice scenery,though nothing one can't see to more advantage in a National Geographicspecial. Recommended only for star fans as Saturday matinée material.

moonbus-982-519398 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.