The Queen's captain on the Desiderios' outing was Wayne Marquardt, who looks more like Hemingway than he does Bogie with his white beard. "We even threw in ‘Casablanca.' I don't know why we watched that one." "We saw ‘Key Largo.' ‘The African Queen,'" he says. "We went through every film," Beth Desiderio begins, before Frank jumps in. The result is an attraction that draws movie buffs from around the globe.īeth and Frank Desiderio came from Cape Coral specifically to ride the famous boat, and prepared for their visit with a mini-Bogart film festival. "I'd say 79 percent of it is original," Lance says. They made a deal with the family, installed a new boiler, refinished and repainted the boat's floor, hull and deck, replaced nearly a fifth of the Queen's rusted steel plating and got the 1896 Sissons steam engine working again. In 2011, Lance convinced Suzanne that the historic boat could be a going business. But, after Hendricks died, the boat fell into disrepair, the property of his estate. In 1982, attorney Jim Hendricks, Sr., found her in an Ocala cow pasture, bought her, and brought her to Key Largo.Ī decade later, the African Queen was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The boat passed through several hands after that, and moved to the United States in the late 1960s. When filming ended, it was back to work for the African Queen, plying the rivers of the Congo just as she had before. Huston renamed the boat for the movie he was making, and sent her sailing, along with Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, into Hollywood history. There was a big kind of business shuttling everything: cargo, mercenaries, missionaries. "There were lots of them made in those days. "It was just a shuttle boat," Suzanne says. She was a true African river boat when he found her, built in an English shipyard in 1912, named the S/L Livingstone, and sent directly to the Belgian Congo. The Queen was already pushing 40 when director John Huston picked her for the title part in his movie. The rust at the bottom of it actually let the water out. It would fill up with water from hurricanes or in the rainy season. "Because the bottom literally had holes in it. "Every time I would walk by, people were just standing there saying, ‘That's the African Queen. She was also just a year shy of her 100th birthday. When Lance and Suzanne Holmquist stepped in, though, the Queen was a rotting hulk with a busted boiler, and about as seaworthy as a sack of hammers. And, thanks to a husband-and-wife team of boat- and movie-lovers, the steam-powered Queen is merrily clak-clak-clakking her way to sea and back again, on as many as five tours a day. Or, at least, to the same mud-spattered and weather-battered glory she was in in 1951, when the movie was made. The African Queen - yes, the African Queen, the one on which Bogie drank his way to his only Oscar - has been rescued from ruin and restored to her silver screen luster. Certainly she's the only one still reprising her most famous role on a daily basis. All rights reserved.KEY LARGO | She may be the only real movie star residing in Key Largo. Unauthorized use of this material is strictly prohibited. This Tribute is not officially endorsed or authorized by Humphrey Bogart. Humphrey Bogart pictured (left) in Casablanca Clitterhouse, Invisible Stripes, High Sierra, They Drive by Night, Maltese Falcon, Across the Pacific, All Through the Night, Brother Orchid, Action in the North Atlantic, Passage to Marseilles, To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, Dark Passage, Key Largo, Casablanca and Treasure of the Sierra Madre.ĭestination Hollywood Suggests this Tribute dedicated to a Humphrey Bogart movie. movies on 12 discs: Petrified Forest, Marked Woman, Kid Galahad, Black Legion, San Quentin, The Roaring Twenties, Dark Victory, Virginia City, Amazing Dr. This must-have DVD set includes 24 timeless Humphrey Bogart Warner Bros. Humphrey Bogart: The Essential Collection Destination Hollywood dedicates this Tribute to Humphrey Bogart. Many of his movies are classics of their genres and they're as entertaining to watch today as they were when they were made over fifty years ago. We can't picture anyone else saying the words, "Here's looking at you kid." His on screen pairing with his wife made Bogey and Bacall one of the most famous romantic couples in the world. We agree except we wonder if the movie would have been as great without Humphrey Bogart. There's a screenwriting guru in town who preaches that Casablanca is the perfect screenplay. Humphrey Bogart | Destination Hollywood Tribute
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