Bogart climbs back into the boat squealing like a girl and Katharine Hepburn frantically pulls the leeches off him. Ah, the venerable leech scene. The only jungle movie tradition more sacred is the quicksand scene.
The best line is delivered by the Russian ambassador from Dr. Strangelove, who turns up here as the German ship captain. Bogie and Hepburn are sentenced to hang, and Bogie's last request is that they be married:
By the authority vested in me by Kaiser William II, I pronounce you man and wife. Proceed with the execution.I had to track this old girl down on VHS. It's a John Huston classic, for which Bogie was awarded his only Oscar, and it has yet to receive an authorized region 1 DVD release. The Onion AV Club helpfully provides a list of 22 other great movies that are shamefully unavailable on DVD.
The jungle adventure romance was revived briefly in the mid-80s by the likes of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Romancing the Stone and Crocodile Dundee. Obviously the less romance and the more chilled monkey brains, the better.
Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?
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