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Mogambo Movie Review

Mogambo is a 1953 romantic adventure film directed by John Ford and starring Clark Gable, Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly. It is a wildly entertaining, charming flick.

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“Buster, don’t you get overstimulated with me!“

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On a Kenyan safari, white hunter Victor Marswell has a love triangle with seductive American socialite Eloise Kelly and anthropologist Donald Nordley’s cheating wife Linda. This is one of those classic old-fashioned movies where even though the protagonists are in an exotic location, they and their human drama are the focal point of the story instead of the nature and animals themselves.

This is the main point of contention for most people about this particular picture, but I have to somewhat disagree. Yes, the human drama is at the center of this story, but we also get a ton of adventurous elements with the most thrilling sequence being the one with the gorillas. I loved all the natural landscapes and a high number of animals being depicted here. My issue is that the film promoted animal hunting and collecting animals for zoos, but this is an older film, so I ultimately have to forgive them for that.

But simply seeing a film that was actually shot on location with real places, live animals and sequences of genuine African landscapes was just so authentic and gorgeous to behold. This is what movies once were and unfortunately nowadays the practice of CGI ruined this unique experience of seeing a travelogue on the big screen.

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The score is also beautiful and the cinematography effortlessly captured every animal and human on screen perfectly. The pacing is solid and the movie was hugely entertaining throughout for me personally. The directing from John Ford is only okay, but the dialogue is both very sophisticated and highly witty, a treat for those of us who favor movies with strong conversations.

Mogambo is a romance with excellent adventurous elements, but a romance it is first and foremost. Although obviously predictable and standard in its love triangle setup, the eventual conclusion was still pretty good as I got the pairing that I personally rooted for throughout. Again, this entire plot is extremely familiar, but when love triangles are concerned, this one did not make me annoyed to no end, which is obviously a huge plus.

Clark Gable clearly was superbly cast as this big game hunter and womanizer. He played himself basically and he expectedly excelled at it. He is effortlessly cool and charming here while also being quite funny. Of the two ladies, Grace Kelly played an unfortunate role of a stuck up woman who is unhappy in her marriage. It’s the more boring role of the two female roles. She was fine here, but that subplot was not as interesting and her husband was way too clueless to me personally.

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But Ava Gardner stole Mogambo undoubtedly. This is one of her finest performances as she wasn’t just endearing and fun but also incredibly funny with a great sense of humor. She received the film’s best lines and her dynamic with Gable was infectiously entertaining. Whenever she was on screen, the movie shined brightest.