Mogambo is a remake of the 1932 drama Red Dust. In 1932, Clark Gable was torn between Jean Harlow and Mary Astor. In 1953, he reprised his role and found himself torn between Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly. Watch the original.While in the original, a high-class married couple travel to China to hunt big game, the remake is set in Africa. Elephants and apes are shown, since in 1953, the company filmed on location rather than in a studio, but that doesn't make up for the lackluster script and terrible casting. No one can compete with Jean Harlow, and Ava Gardner just comes across as overheated and sloppy. Grace Kelly plays the icy, sophisticated married woman, and while she was typecast in that type of role, I always thought she was very insincere in her love scenes.In the story she's drawn to Clark Gable's ruggedness, but she doesn't know he's already become involved with the very loose Ava. Hence the love triangle. The original was made before the Hays Code, so Jean Harlow's character was a prostitute, but in the 50s, Hollywood censorship didn't allow Ava's character to be sullied that much.Clark Gable seems old and tired, which makes sense, since he's already made this exact movie before. And although you can find ample information about why the cast and crew were not happy while filming Mogambo, I can't help but consider the sad memories Clark must have felt while remaking a film he made with Jean Harlow, his real-life friend who died tragically during the shooting of another movie they made together. It makes sense that he didn't give a very enthusiastic performance. Unless you're an Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly fan, which I am not, I can't recommend you watch this movie.

In John Ford's "Mogambo", a remake of Victor Fleming's "Red Dust" from 1932, Clark Gable (who also starred in the Fleming film) plays a "great white hunter" – his character even uses the term, minus the adjective "great", in a disparaging self-description – who has a thing first for Kelly, a worldly young woman (Ava Gardner) stranded at his safari camp and then, shortly after, falls hard for Mrs. Nordley(Grace Kelly), the wife of one of his safari clients (Donald Sinden).It's rather unusual to find a remake of a film in which the lead is the same as in the original – Sean Connery in "Thunderball" and "Never Say Never Again" springs to mind, thanks in part to the memorable clue that is the title of the remake - but when it does happen, it's an interesting situation for the viewer. Obviously, comparisons will inevitably occur, so let's clear the big plate off the table right away and agree that "Mogambo", much like "Never Say Never Again", is not as good a film as its original version. At all. The secondary characters are, in general, underdeveloped – Eric Pohlmann and Philip Stainton are simply clichés – and, as his would-be primary love interest, Grace Kelly is weak. On the other hand, it is worth watching, particularly if you've seen the earlier film, and not only to see how the legend of Gable, accrued over his career, weighs on that same actor's shoulders in this updated African take on the classic love triangle. Ava Gardner is distracting and light, not the incredible sexual force that Jean Harlow was in the first film, and there's a wonderful sequence involving gorillas that makes all of the rest of the stock footage from wildlife shots look Tarzan-amateur; in fact, the quasi-Tarzan feel that runs through most of the film carries its own irony, given that Gable had apparently been in the running for the role of the Ape Man that Weissmuller landed in 1932.For me, this film is a special treat because of a terrific back-story that my Galician friend told me about it. During the Franco years in Spain, there was heavy censorship of film themes and content, which was often made easier by the practice of dubbing rather than using subtitles. When this film was distributed into Spain, because the idea of adultery was unacceptable to the dictatorship, the theme of "Mogambo" was changed, just a little, in the dubbing. Mrs Nordley, the wife, was quietly and quickly changed, thanks to a few alterations in the dialogue, into Mr. Nordley's sister. Apparently, it was less uncomfortable for the powers in charge to watch scenes ostensibly between a brother and sister that were therefore fraught with incestuous tension than to imagine for a moment that a wife might stray from her marital path.

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.