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| Gable is just gonna take a peek right there on the poster |
Watched: 03/15/2026
Format: TCM on DVR
Viewing: First
Director: John Ford
This is a movie where Clark Gable's dilemma is choosing between Grace Kelly and Ava Gardner and I have never felt less sympathy toward any man in a predicament.
Mogambo (1953) is a lavish spectacle of a picture, shot on location in multiple African countries, and probably John Ford's answer to The African Queen, which was released in 1951 and won all sorts of Oscars. Clark Gable plays a 1950's Great White Hunter, now catching live animals for zoos, circuses, etc... He lives in deep bush country and rarely ventures out (he must really stock up on Brylcream during those trips). He works with an Englishman he calls "Brownie", and a thug of a Russian, as well as a large coterie of local labor.
Ava Gardner is a nice enough girl from the New York club scene who has come to Gable's jungle headquarters to join a maharajah on safari - but her suitor has already left by the time she arrives. And they're so far out, the next boat isn't due for a week.
Gardner and Gable spar a little, but it's also obvious they start having sex.
She's due to leave on the next boat when a British couple arrives, the husband a well-heeled anthropologist, and Grace Kelly his proper wife. They want to go into the lowlands and find some gorillas and record audio.*
