The African Queen

The African Queen is a 1951 British–American adventure film adapted from the 1935 novel of the same name by C. S. Forester. In this classic Hollywood film, a British missionary and an American boat captain travel the Ulanga River to escape the onset of World War I. After the Germans destroy her mission, Sister Rose (Katharine Hepburn) leaves a remote village in German East Africa, which included present-day Burundi, Rwanda, and the Tanzania mainland. She convinces Charlie (Humphrey Bogart) to turn the African Queen, a small steamboat, into a mobile torpedo to fight the Germans, who are blocking access to the main waterways. Through their adventures, the two fall in love. The African Queen was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1994, with the Library of Congress deeming it "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant."