Subject: Re: Sandwich Thrower Fired
One of my favorite movies - i still watch to this day.

One of mine, too- at least in terms of times watched. I must have seen it 3 or 4 times, though not in the past 20 years. Exceeded in number of times watched only by 2 other movies, both starring Humphrey Bogart- “Casablanca” and “The African Queen”.

“Casablanca” was especially appropriate for the time in which it came out. I’m thinking even more-so today.

“The African Queen” was a standout”, if only for marveling at the character played by Kathryn Hepburn- a prim, but iron willed missionary in Africa.

Reciting the dialogue with a little help from the internet, in one scene, Hepburn comes down into the hold of Bogart’s rickety river steamer and finds Bogart drunk on a hot African night. He’s dirty, completely wasted and filthy. The disgust literally oozes out of Hepburn’s character:

Hepburn:
Charlie, you’re drunk.

Bogart(Charlie Allnut):
What are you being so mean for, Miss? A man takes a drop too much once in a while, it's only human nature.

Hepburn (Rose Sayer):
Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.


Now I can just hear some folks on my side objecting to the dialogue as indicative of the bifurcation of nature by Western thought… a bifurcation that has led to the attempted domination of nature by human enterprise and will… and they’d be right. I agree with that analysis….. but this scene is not about that.

It’s about a woman finding her would be rescuer drunk and lying in his own puke, who offers only a lame excuse when confronted.

It’s a movie about summoning our better angels to confront a crisis, and Bogart eventually summons his.

Which again, makes it a movie for our time.