A Remake By Another Name

---

---

Most movie remakes are, to borrow from Yogi Berra, like deja vu all over again.

And "Mogambo," which was released 60 years ago today, was no exception.

Many years ago, I was watching a movie from the early 1930s on the late, late show called "Red Dust." I had never heard of it before, but I saw it in the listings, noticed that Clark Gable was in it, and decided to watch it.

When I did, I had the feeling that I had seen and heard the story before — and I had. It was, essentially, the same story with only a few deviations. The first movie was set in Indochina, the second was set in Africa, but darn near everything else was the same.

Well, except for one big thing. "Red Dust" had more energy, more sizzle. In spite of the improvements in filmmaking that had occurred in a couple of decades, "Mogambo" lacked something. "Red Dust" made "Mogambo" seem tame.

In "Red Dust," Gable was the overseer of a rubber plantation. In "Mogambo," he was a safari leader.

In both, he was the center of attention from two women, a primary love interest (Jean Harlow in the first, Ava Gardner in the second) and a married woman as a secondary love interest (Mary Astor in the first, Grace Kelly in the second).

---

---

Frankly, it was kind of disappointing. I mean, I would have expected this kind of setting with Gable, Gardner and Kelly — and director John Ford behind the camera — to be a cinematic slam dunk, but it really wasn't. Not compared to what it could have been.

Everything turned out the way viewers probably secretly hoped they would — Gable wound up with Gardner, and Kelly remained with her husband. The movie might have been made in Africa, but it was a Hollywood production.

In real life, I've been told, Gable and Kelly had an off–screen relationship that fizzled when their age difference (Gable was more than 28 years older) became too great to ignore.

On screen, though, the sparks — such as they were — were between Gable and Gardner, not Kelly.

I've often wondered if the so–called Hays Code was the reason "Mogambo" was so uninspiring, at least when compared to "Red Dust." The Hays Code imposed restrictions that would seem prudish compared to modern movie standards. "Red Dust" was made in the early days of the Hays Code, when movies could still get away with things they wouldn't be able to get away with for decades.

Perhaps that isn't fair. "Mogambo" did have some things going for it — it was shot on location, for one thing. "Red Dust" wasn't filmed in Indochina — it was filmed on a studio backlot in Hollywood, as I understand it — but Americans wouldn't be familiar with Indochina for another 35 years so it really didn't matter. I'm sure the studio heads figured no one would know the difference, and they were probably right.

Most Americans probably weren't too familiar with Africa, either, in 1953, but they likely had more of an idea of what Africa should look like than they did of Indochina.

Whether they did or not, what they got in "Mogambo" was the real thing, and the cinematography really was remarkable for its time. At the Academy Awards, though, Gardner and Kelly were rewarded with nominations, but the technical aspects were entirely overlooked.

And that, I think, is a shame. Gardner (nominated for Best Actress) and Kelly (nominated for Best Supporting Actress) were good, but I've seen both perform better. Gable wasn't nominated at all, and I have no problem with that. His role in "Mogambo" wasn't one of his best performances.

The material in "Mogambo" wasn't terrible — but neither was it great, and, while I have heard some people describe Gardner's performance as the best of her career, I'm inclined to think that several other performances were better.

I've always felt that Kelly was a rare mix of beauty and talent. There was a vulnerability to her performances that was very appealing, and I thought that vulnerability may never have been so striking as it was when Kelly played the young and lusty Linda of "Mogambo." Her character projected a cool reserve, but there was a smoldering sensuality beneath it.

I guess you could say that about all the roles she played — especially her roles in Hitchcock movies, which always seemed to bring out that quality in her performances.

It was still early in her career, though, and Kelly played a character that was a lot like the one she played a year earlier in "High Noon." She didn't begin to show her range as an actress until a year later, when she made "The Country Girl," for which she received her only Oscar.

I guess the biggest problem I had with "Mogambo" was that it never really made up its mind whether it was going to be a love story or an adventure movie. Ford seemed to want to make "Mogambo" a story worthy of Hemingway — and there were plenty of jungle scenes — but the star power of the cast seemed to pull him back to the love triangle.

In the end, I guess you could say the love triangle won. Again, this is a Hollywood production we're talking about.

But sometimes I think it was more of an adventure story. That's the real problem with remakes.

The Roots of an American Family

---

"When you clench your fist, no one can put anything in your hand, nor can your hand pick up anything."

Alex Haley
"Roots" (1976)

---

On this day in 1976, the publishing world was changed by the publication of a once–in–a–generation kind of book ...

Alex Haley's "Roots."

There had been other books that had come before that had been about the black experience in America. And there were certainly books that came along later that spoke of it in greater detail.

But "Roots" seemed to be unique. Never before (to my knowledge, at least) had a novel told the story of a young black man — captured in 18th–century Africa and sold into slavery in the North American colonies — and his descendants, both slave and free, and the generational struggle to find their way back to their point of origin.

As it turned out, the story wasn't unique. Someone had told it — or something remarkably similar — before Haley did. But I'll get back to that in a minute.

Ostensibly, it was the tale of Haley's own family, his attempt to put a little meat on the bare–bones stories that he said had been handed down in his family from one generation to the next. Initially, it was presented to the public as nonfiction, but, ultimately, Haley had to acknowledge that parts of the story were fiction — if not borrowed fiction.

Haley reportedly said, "Roots is not just a saga of my family. It is the symbolic saga of a people."

In that respect, I suppose, it was really a writer's story — and that is the kind of thing that the writer in me has never been able to resist.

I think, too, that one of the things about it that attracted me was the similarity — in concept if not in actual writing style — to the works of James Michener, a writer I greatly admired.

Michener wrote books that told the stories of places through the generations that lived there. He did it so well, in fact, that my father, who taught religion and philosophy on the college level when I was growing up, used a book Michener wrote on the Middle East ("The Source") as a textbook.

In "Roots," the locales changed — and so did the people, for that matter — but the roots that linked them to one another went back hundreds of years and extended for thousands of miles. Even when you read the more modern stories of his descendants, you were always aware of Kunta Kinte and the influence he continued to have through the oral legacy he handed down to his daughter and was kept alive by succeeding generations.

It is important to remember, after all, that "Roots" wasn't a literal history — even though it was initially promoted as nonfiction. That, at least, is what is on the old paperback copy on my bookshelf — and that edition was printed in 1977.

Haley said it was his family's oral history that inspired the book, and that was logical. Because of the circumstances behind the arrival of most black people in America, there is little documentation that can prove where they were born, when they left their homes or what became of them after that.

Slaves wouldn't have been treated as people. They would have been treated as cargo. If one got sick and died while the ship was crossing the Atlantic, the body would have been thrown overboard, but it is doubtful that much note would have been made of it in the ship's log.

Haley apparently learned all he could and filled in the gaps based largely on educated guesses. Given the circumstances, what else could be done?

I remember reading the book as a teenager, and I found it enthralling. I couldn't pinpoint the sections where Haley had made educated guesses or where he wrote of documented events and/or conversations. I found the reading experience to be smooth and logical, seamless.

But it may not have been as original as it seemed.

Haley (who would have turned 90 last week if he was still living) originally claimed that the inspiration for the book and his own research had been the stories he had been told as a child.

But genealogists challenged his research, and so did a man named Harold Courlander, who published a book in 1967 called "The African." It was the story of an African who was captured by slave traders and brought to America, where he tried to hold on to his African heritage as much as possible.

If you ever read "Roots," you will recognize the premise.

In 1978, Courlander filed suit against Haley, whose dizzyingly best–selling book, by that time, had been turned into an extremely successful TV miniseries as well. Courlander alleged that Haley could not have written "Roots" without the material that had been lifted from "The African."

The parties settled the case five weeks after it was brought to court. The settlement included a financial payment and a statement that read "Alex Haley acknowledges and regrets that various materials from The African by Harold Courlander found their way into his book."

I have never read "The African." Perhaps, in the interest of fairness, I should. But I can say, from having read "Roots," that Haley's work was rich and rewarding — whether it was mostly fact or mostly fiction.

Whatever the truth may be, it was worth reading in 1976. It is still worth reading today.