Good start, but then it gets ruined

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Spoilers. Observations. Opinions.Female conflict. Hot, flashy Ava. Cold, repressed Grace. You can see Grace eyeing Ava's curvy costume at the first meeting. Grace is dressed up like some ladylike spinster complete with sensible thick-heeled walking shoes. She almost ogles Ava, in a way, almost jealous that Ava looks like a real woman.Gable with the exposed knees. Hubba-hubba. Ava goes out of her way to compliment him. She evens commands him to throw her robe into her shower, while knowing it's his property and his soap. She takes a lot of license.Ava is so loving with the animals. She wants to feed them and play with them. She is comfortable walking outdoors in the pouring rain. Meanwhile, Grace, the uptight fuddy-duddy who she is, is so naïve that she wants to get in those clunky walking shoes and explore the countryside. Lo and behold, after seeing some wild animals fighting and devouring each other, she falls into a large hole after a scary gigantic black cat tells her to stop acting so stupid. Ava would have charmed the little feline darling.

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.

Western director John Ford was more or less asleep at the wheel on this jungle epic, with the stars given a tepid script rife with fifties clichés about the roles men and women play in the moral scheme of things. Gable had done the same role some 20 years earlier in the hugely entertaining, zippy precode Red Dust with sassy Jean Harlow and salty Mary Astor, but Grace Kelly and Ava Gardner, while holding their own in the beauty department, are given next to nothing to work with, except perhaps for Ava's tussle in the mud with a baby elephant. Gable goes through the motions of being The Great White Hunter with his customary professionalism, but looks fairly bored. The idea of hunting down and killing gorillas is certainly as outmoded today as the romantic clichés--but there is some excellent footage of native African dances and some nice scenery,though nothing one can't see to more advantage in a National Geographicspecial. Recommended only for star fans as Saturday matinée material.

In Africa, a hunter (Clark Gable) who catches animals for zoos has two women come for safari; one is a worldly, nightclubbing dame (Ava Gardner) and the other a demure, Bostonian wife (Grace Kelly). Both find the macho man irresistible.I like the three stars a lot, but I didn't care much for this movie. Gable's character is a silly caricature of rugged manliness; he growls orders, drinks a lot, and grabs women too roughly. He was only 52, but looked much older and was past his Rhett Butler glory days. Kelly is good but seems to be trying oh-so-hard to be stern and matronly with much lip-pouting and overdoing the accent. Gardner plays her usual sexy, sadder-but-wiser part, but her dialogue is phony and stagy, her character overblown and never believable.While the animal-catching and scenes of marginalized natives are terribly out of fashion and off-putting, the location scenery is beautiful, especially filmed in brilliant Technicolor. With two gorgeous women fighting for Clark Gable, I imagine the movie was quite sensational when it came out in 1953, but now I found it corny and silly.