The African Queen / Bogart's Irish Whiskey

0:00 Robots radio presents in 1951 director John Huston and stars Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn braved the African Wilderness to find true love in 2020. We visit the Irish aisle with the man himself. The film is the African queen. The whiskey is Bogaerts Irish, whiskey and will review them both. This is the film and whiskey podcast.

0:43 Welcome to the film and whiskey podcast for each week. We review a classic movie and a glass of whiskey. I'm Bob book. I'm Brad G and this week. We are looking at the 1951 film The African Queen. Do you Charles take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife? life Yes, sir. Do you love take this man to be your lawful wedded husband I do. By the authority vested in Me by kinds of William II I pronounce you man and wife proceed with the execution Brad. How you doing today? Man, man, I am doing wonderful. I just got done watching some Bayern Munich vs. Some other German team that I don't remember the name of that is a good time.

1:33 Nice. I had no idea you were a soccer fan. Um, I actually told this to my friends. I don't think you could classify me as a soccer fan because I Don't follow it. But I played the sport for like nine or ten years is a little kid. I know the basics of like formations and you know, if they said the numbers to me like a four four two or a four three two one. I'm like, oh, yeah. I kind of know what that is. So, you know, I know enough to be competent at watching soccer. Wow, I had no idea the things we're learning about each other over this podcast. I'll top. I am a man of many Mysteries. Well today. We are looking at The African Queen We know a movie that was not originally in our lineup for season three Brad.

2:16 We had reached out to this company called Bogart Spirits, which has been on my radar for a while because it seems right up our alley, they make a bunch of different Spirits under the Humphrey Bogart name in collaboration with his estate and they basically agreed to send us a couple bottles to review as long as we would feature their product on a regular weekly episode and you know Brad, I like to think that we are men of principle that we try to stick to our Guns on our weekly episodes. We try to review whiskies that are widely available that you can walk into any liquor store and purchase. And so when I went to write them back, I stood my ground and I said, yes, we will absolutely change everything about our podcast if you send us free whiskey, that's because that's the kind of guy.

2:59 I am Brad. Yeah, man free whiskey who literally get me to do a lot of things. So we ended up rearranging season 3's format a little bit to include the African queen. I really wish that we had. Been able to feature this whiskey back in season one when we did both Casablanca and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre which are in my opinion Humphrey Bogart's to best movies and my favorite to Bogart movies. So we kind of we brainstormed a little bit about what Bogart movie should we feature? Should it be the Maltese falcon or should it be the African queen and we came down on the side of the African queen. This is the second John Huston movie that we've done on the podcast as I've just said is the third Humphrey Bogart movie Brad had you heard of the African queen prior.

3:42 You watching it for this podcast? Oh, yeah. This is you know, this is one of those movies that like has like Hollywood Legend just surrounding it. You know, like John Huston takes Katherine and bogey out to Africa and the the shoot was terrible and I think Katherine Hepburn was like really really sick throughout a lot of the the shooting and it was just one of those things where it was a grind and it was just grueling Lee difficult to get this food movie. Filmed but I had never actually seen it myself but you know aside from just hearing about it. So this was my first time doing it. Oh, that's really interesting. I'm glad you've heard of it before and you're right Brad. I think that the story of the making of the African queen is just as legendary as the movie itself and honestly, I think it probably feeds into the movies reputation because it was such a grueling shoot because John Huston was known for being that kind of guy that would just rough it and you know in between takes he was going out and hunting wild. Game and things like that.

4:44 So it really adds to the overall Mystique of this movie. They took two of the biggest stars of all time out into you know, the African jungle essentially on the river Lauren Bacall Humphrey Bogart's wife goes along with the crew. She ends up basically playing nursemaid to the whole crew because they all come down with malaria and dysentery and everything else. So it was a crazy production and we're going to get into talking about that production a little bit. But before we get any further It is time for our favorite segment, which we call Brad explains. This is where Brad breaks down the plot of the movie that he has just seen many times. It's Brad's first time watching the movie and that is the case today. So Brad, can you break down a spoiler filled synopsis of the movie The African Queen for our listeners. So yeah.

5:32 So Humphrey Bogart is a ship captain that kind of Trades supplies up and down a large trade River in Africa and Visiting a Methodist Outpost. There's these two Methodist missionaries that are British and they live there and they're ministering to the to the native African population there and while they're there World War One breaks out and they burn down the village and the the guy who's a missionary there goes crazy and dies. Somehow his brain just snaps and so Katherine Hepburn decides to travel with Humphrey Bogart so that They can go to this big old Lake and Destroy This German ship and if that sounds absurd to you don't worry when you watch the movie, it will still seem very absurd but they decide to travel down the river and try to blow up this ship.

6:27 And while they are traveling there. They face all sorts of problems the boat, you know, the rudder gets destroyed and they have to like fix things and there's storms and there's the ship gets beached at one point and you know, but lo and behold by the end of the movie they have Fallen in love and they destroy the ship and they get off scot-free and they're really they're really happy about it, man. They get married. Yeah this movie is it's a really interesting kind of Adventure movie and I don't make to make light of world war one but the way that it's presented as kind of a like a peripheral thing in this movie. This is a very light-hearted movie. I mean, it's a movie about two people who are a little bit older than your conventional movie stars falling in love. It's an unconventional Romance.

7:12 It's an adventure movie. It's these two people sailing down this treacherous River and encountering all sorts of natural obstacles as well as trying to avoid detection, you know, it has the same sort of DNA as your favorite adventure movies of kind of like an Indiana Jones things like that. But Brad, I mean do you think it's wrong for me to characterize this as a very light-hearted movie? No, it definitely is I think I think there's a few notes that the start that make you feel like it's going to be serious, but once they get onto the river you We realize that this movie is just going to be full of banter back and forth between Bogey and Hepburn and that the movie is really just them, you know, we just reviewed Life of Pi a little bit ago.

7:54 And that movie is about a tiger and a young Indian boy on a boat together. This movie is just about Humphrey Bogart hanging out with Katharine Hepburn and seeing what kind of shenanigans they can get into. Yeah. I mean, I'm looking at the Wikipedia page right now and they only have eight people listed in the whole cast as having speaking roles and five of those. Are people on the German warship that they end up on the last ten minutes of the movie? So honestly, the only three real individuals in this film are Humphrey Bogart Katharine Hepburn and Robert Morley who plays Katharine Hepburn's brother the missionary and he's out of the movie in the first I'd say 15 minutes. So this really is a film that almost completely solely features Bogey and Katharine Hepburn and I will say Bob you brought up her brother the Methodist missionary I'm just going to start this episode off his his performance was horrendously bad. So interesting, I didn't think this I didn't think so. Oh my gosh, his eyes are always just blatantly wide open like oh what is happening here?

9:00 I cannot understand its I'm a poor British man in Africa. I absolutely despised him. I really like bogie. I really like Katharine Hepburn, but what do you said his name was Robert Moore? Ali yeah, he was really one of the worst performances I've seen in a movie in a long time. It kind of reminds me of Awakenings when they got the actual like real life psychiatrist, dr. To play a role in the film you remember him talking about? Yeah, like it reminded me of that. It felt that overacted and forced I could not so interesting. So I was glad that he died like 10 minutes into the movie. But it was painful to watch him act. Well Brad, I'll say this.

9:46 I don't I don't really agree with you but I agree with kind of the spirit behind what you're saying because I think that the screenplay for this movie which was written by John Huston as well as Pulitzer Prize winner James Agee this screenplay really Paints in Broad Strokes everyone. Who's not Bogey and Hepburn is a caricature and that includes the native Africans in the movie, which I'm sure we're going to get around to talking about but Think for as far as Robert Morley goes in his performance as Hepburn's brother. I don't know that it's necessarily the he's giving a bad performance as much as he's written as this one-dimensional cartoonishly Pious and offended straight-laced British, man, and he's constantly reacting to the things around him.

10:32 He looks like he belongs in like a Marx Brothers movie and I think you know, if you're going to fall his performance for that you could say that he goes over the top with it a little bit, but I honestly think that the biggest flaw With this film is that the script doesn't really treat anybody except the two leads as human beings. Yeah. I mean, I think I look back though. And I look at Double Indemnity, which we would just reviewed a week ago and none of the characters in that movie came across as caricatures all the characters have their own smart witty dialogue and I get that you have Billy Wilder writing for you, but I just think the movie could have been much better off if this Methodist Missionary didn't come off as such a buffoon. Like I really think that the movie was done a disservice by how cartoonish his performance was. Yeah.

11:22 I think that's that's probably fair. And before we get any further into the performances Brad, I just want to make a couple quick points about the movie itself. You know when this movie came on. I watched it on Amazon Prime last night. It has been restored. I think in 2010, they restored the film and I have to say like from a cinematography standpoint the movie looks pristine. It is just a beautiful. A shot film and one thing that I really love about John Huston is that you can't quite pin him down by a certain style of filmmaking. We saw The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and I think this movie has some similarities to that in the way that it's filmed in the sort of thematic things going on, but then you have other movies that he made like The Maltese Falcon, which is completely different than this looks different than this. It's like an early film Noir, but one thing that I loved about what Houston does in this movie with his Director of Photography Jack Cardiff, they Make you feel the heat and the humidity of Africa in this movie.

12:17 I think from the beginning they really really utilize the color palette Well, everybody's always sweaty. Everybody is always dirty and I felt like you really could get the sense of like the sights the smells the feel of what it would be like to be on this River in Africa. I was going to say if there's a redeeming quality to this movie, it's how raw the movie is right when you just have shots. Of the African Wilderness and a giraffe and hippos and all these things it almost feels like it should be a documentary and you have like a soft British Voice come over and say the wild hippopotamus is looking for his midday meal, but will the giraffe Escape its wrath like like I feel like you should have had that happen halfway through this movie.

13:04 And and I think that's a good thing. I think the movie is Redeemed by the fact that it's just very honest about how difficult it would be. To take a small steam boat down a river in the middle of the heart of Africa. So I think that that's definitely a strong redeeming quality of the movie, but that doesn't have anything to do with the acting with the script with any of those elements. And I think that that's where this movie really struggles. So it's not that I don't like this movie. It's just that there's a lot of things where I'm kind of like, I don't know if a lot of time and effort was put into what normally would Would be considered important movie elements as much as it was John Huston going. Yeah, let's get raw and real and dirty and just see what we can get out here in Africa.

13:52 Yeah brat and that's exactly the point that I was thinking as you were talking at some point. I had to start wondering I wonder how much of this movie was. Just an excuse for John Huston to get financial backing to give himself a trip to Africa so that he could go see the sights and hunt wild game in a really sketchy way if you know what I mean like, oh, yeah, I think Part of it with this movie too. Is that the word that kept coming up for me? As I watched this movie was trifle. It's a very inoffensive movie in terms of the effect. It has on you. It's a very pleasant movie to watch it's rousing. It's fun and yet nothing in. It really seems to have any weight to it. It doesn't really say anything about the world around us.

14:34 It doesn't really leave you with any sort of overarching message. It's just like a fun Saturday afternoon movie that I feel like it, you know, it could be Beyond in between Westerns on AMC and I'd watch it and I'd enjoy it and I don't really know that it goes any further than that you mean you want to go on? At all Habibi, what's this now that I've had a taste of it.

15:17 I don't wonder you love voted. Mr. All right. Yeah, I think if you view it in that lens there is a beauty to the movie. I just I don't know like isn't this commonly considered like one of the 100 best movies of all time and that or am I off base in that know you're absolutely not and again, I think this is where the reputation of the movie comes into play. I really do think and I don't have any like Hard evidence for this but I really do think that the story behind the movie has fed the legend of the movie. You know, this was one of the first movies to be shot on location in such dangerous circumstances and the fact that they got back alive at all kind of a thing was like, that's the big story.

15:58 This is the movie that Humphrey Bogart finally wins his one and only Oscar for so there's a lot of things that prop up the mythology of this film when the American Film Institute came out with their list of the 100 greatest films in 1998 the African It was actually ranked number 17 of all time. Yeah, when and so 10 years later when they redid the list as a 10th anniversary special. It had fallen all the way to number 65, which makes me think. I don't know what it even be included today. But I think people are kind of starting to wake up to the fact that the legend of this film is bigger than maybe the film itself is and I think people are starting to re-evaluate the movie on its own terms and not just that it's this classic legendary.

16:42 Story about how movies got made. Yeah. I mean there is an admiration of man Bogart and Hepburn and the crew went through a lot to make this movie. But in the end, I think I would respect it a lot more if it had a good script and if it wasn't it didn't feel like even Bogart. I feel like he's overacting through a lot of the movie. I just I really struggle with a lot of aspects of this movie and this might sound harsh. I don't really care what they went through to make the movie. I just want to see a good product and in my mind I saw a really average 1950s movie. It wasn't anything impressive to me.

17:23 Yeah, and we keep coming back to this idea of the script and part of the script. It isn't just the dialogue or the Direction behind it. But it's the overall story and I feel like this is one of those stories that you know, I've talked a few times about the screen writing tips that I heard once about you always want each scene to lead into the next. Next with a this happened. So this happens or this happens, but this happens and it creates a really natural progression of each story beat influencing the next and they said you always want to avoid a story that goes this happens and this happens and this happens because nothing's connected. There's no there's no momentum. There's no Arc being told and this is one of those movies that I kind of feel like that's the case. It's like a poor man's sort of Indiana Jones where they get on this boat after the village has And burned and they have to face these natural obstacles and it's like okay, you know now they're facing mosquitoes.

18:18 Well, we got out of the mosquito. So now they're facing leeches. Well, we got away from the leeches. Well now there's some Rapids and they got out of the Rapids. Well now they have to go by this German Fort that's shooting at them all they get by that and then every time they're not getting sucked up by Rapids. Well now we need to see more they're falling in love so that something's happening and it just kind of seems like after the fourth or fifth kind of perilous situation that they get in it just kind of seems Repetitive and you know that there really isn't any Stakes because you know, both of them are going to get to the destination that they're supposed to get to by the end of the film. Yeah. I mean, it's the sense that if you took each and every obstacle and love scene that happens in between them leaving on the African queen to them blowing up the German boat. You could just you honestly could just piecemeal it and go. Yeah, let's just put this one here and that one there and you could have done the German fort First at the start of the at the start is the first obstacle or you could have done it as the last obstacle and it wouldn't have mattered you so you jump into that and you go.

19:20 Well, you're just throwing a bunch of random stuff together. I could do that. Like I could just write you like yeah this bad thing could happen and that bad things can happen and and there's no sense of movement and I think one of the things that reinforces the lack of movement is how suddenly Hepburn and bogey fall in love with each other. One minute, they're like not at each other's throats, but they're not real happy with each other and then all of a sudden Bogaerts shaves and Hepburn is calling him Charlie Charlie dear. How are you? And they're just deeply madly in love and I'm just like what is going on in this script? It doesn't have any sense of nuance. It doesn't have any sense of subtlety. It's just everything is very obvious and put in your face. And man, I found myself halfway through the movie going like okay, I get it.

20:16 Just shove the romance of my face. That's fine, but it gets really tiresome after a while. So I don't think that I'm going to be as as down on this movie as you are like just listening to the language you're using to describe it. I don't disagree with you, but I do think that it's a little bit more effective than maybe you're letting on and I think part of the reason for that Brad is the two leads that we have if it wasn't Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn in the lead, and I'm Not even talking about their chemistry, which is something we can get into in the second half but just their ability to take words written on a page and make them at least seem plausible. I think this would be an actively bad movie if it wasn't for them because you're right like the romance aspect is very rushed. There is not a lot of characterization going on. You really don't find out very much about either of these two people at all.

21:06 You don't learn anything about their backstories and yet I think that especially Katharine Hepburn like her ability to emote her ability to that. You can see what's going on under the surface in her eyes. And the way she's she's angry or she's tearing up because she's hurt. I think they can convey so much more than what they were even given on the page that it does elevate the script at to at least making a good movie in my opinion. Yeah, Baba, I don't disagree. I liked Bogart's performance less than Hepburn's because it felt like Bogart was he was Subway or in between? Tween being Rick from Casablanca and being Dobbs and Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

21:49 Like he's kind of smooth and Suave and yet he's also kind of a dirty Tramp like homeless guy. I don't know exactly what he's going for in this movie. And it does it. It feels like by splitting himself between being this this kind of weird guy that roams the African river and the smooth Suave character. It feels like you get a lesser performance from And because of that I really I must say if there is a redeeming quality to this movie. It's Katherine Hepburn, but even her performance, I just think some of the lines that she was given to deliver are just kind of ridiculous and unbelievable and especially like Bogart points it out. And so it's almost like a funny part of the script or Bogaerts like listen now for everyone funny idea. I've had you've had funny ideas that are 10 steps from my kind of funny.

22:40 Yes. Mr. Obama. All this foolish talk about the Louisa going down the river. What do you mean? I mean, we ain't gonna do nothing of the sort. Of course. We all wouldn't have said idea. What an absurd idea what a lady you got said absurd ideas for y1. And I kind of agree that the entire plot to destroy this German boat just feels so so force that I feel bad that Kathryn had to deliver those lines. But in general when she's able to just kind of sit back and stop worrying about the plot and just worry about The Love Story between her and Humphrey. I really do think that she turns in a spectacular performance. Yeah.

23:25 Well and Brad, I want to get into talking about these performances a little bit more in the second half because I took tons of notes, especially on Katharine Hepburn. I really was blown away with her performance in this movie. But for now, I think maybe it's time for us to hit pause and to try this Bogaerts Irish whiskey. Alright.

24:25 So today we are reviewing Bogaerts Irish whiskey now, this is a brand Bogaerts. That is a partnership between the Humphrey Bogart estate, which is run by his son Stephen Bogart and a corporation called Rock drinks, which is owned by a billionaire who is also the founder of Patron tequila. And so they came up with this idea to kind of brand a bunch of different Spirits with the Humphrey Bogart name. They make a gin they make a vodka. I think they make a rum and they make this Irish whiskey. Now this Irish whiskey is a blend of single malt Irish, whiskey and grain whisky. So it is a blended whiskey one of the big things about Irish. Whiskey's that it has to be aged for three years in Ireland. It has to be produced distilled an aged in Ireland. And so they actually do they Source this whiskey from Ireland, but it's aged there for three years and then they bring it over to California where they finish it in X bourbon barrels for an unspecified amount of time before they put it in the bottles now Bob.

25:23 I have a question. Yeah, go ahead. Who makes these rules is this like an American rule that to call it an Irish whiskey? It has to be bottled in Ireland. Is that a rule in Ireland? Like who decides that great question? So this is actually an Irish rule just like America has dictated what it means to be a bourbon. Ireland is dictated what it means to be an Irish whiskey, so there's all kinds of rules for like the the alcohol by volume that it has to be distilled to and how long it has to be aged. And what kind of Barrels have to be used things like that. I Say with Irish whiskey, they don't have to use new barrels if they don't want to and there's different varieties just like with scotches. We know we talked about the difference between malt scotch and grain Scotch between single malt and Blended malt things like that. Those are all true as well of Irish whiskey. So realistically though could some American Distillery say that they're distilling and Irish whiskey because it tastes kind of like an Irish whiskey because like if I like who enforces the rules does America also in Forced back now. You can't call that an Irish whiskey because it doesn't conform to these standards.

26:29 There's some regulating body. It looks like it's the Irish Department of Agriculture, but they do have a rule that says you cannot label package sell or advertise or promote in any way to suggest that your whiskey as an Irish whiskey unless it meets all of the relevant requirements of Irish whiskey, so it sounds like if you start marketing your product as an Irish whiskey and you're not at least getting the stuff from Ireland and selling it over here. You're going to get sued by Ireland's Department of Agriculture. Okay. No, I'm down with that. It's just stuff like that is always curious to me. Yeah, for sure. And these are the things that they don't tell you on the bottle probably because it would cost a lot to put that on a label but you know the smallest like riding on a label ever. So yeah, this this Bogaerts Irish whiskey is Blended. It's three years old.

27:13 It's got some some aging and bourbon casks as well. I'm really excited to get into trying it Brad. You're a huge fan of Irish whiskey. I like some Irish whiskeys others. I'm cooler on so let's let's get into it. And what are you picking up on the nose of this Bogaerts Irish, whiskey, honestly, it's a beautiful nose. There's a little bit of hint of like honey. Almost it almost reminds me of like a graham cracker type nose and along with it. There are a few deeper notes. I feel like I get a little bit of Plum on it. Something's kind of a deeper fruity nose to it. It's a really refreshing nose, and I'm going to give it an an 8 out of 10 on the nose when I was nosing this Brad it took me probably three. Three solid minutes to try to figure out what this prominent note was that I was getting because it was it was fruity but in an almost like an artificial way and I don't mean that in a bad way, but I could tell that it was like a candy fruit sent as opposed to like are you know an actual picking a peach off the tree or something like that?

28:12 And I was racking my brain and going back through all the memories of eating candy that I've ever had. I'm gonna go like real obscure with you. All right when I was a kid and I would go through the bank teller line with my mom like the Em and if they'd see that there was a kid in the car. They would always send out these lollipops these suckers and it was the suckers that have the little safety thing on the end like the loop for the popsicle for the sucker stick that you put in there so that you don't choke as a kid. Yeah. It's it's that sent Brad. It's the scent of an orange safety lollipop it took me forever to figure it out. But as soon as I did I was like, oh my gosh, it's this wonderful sugary almost like an orange popsicle kind of Scent to it and and it is just this beautiful sort of syrupy Aroma on top of everything you're talking about. You do get some of that the multigrain e sort of thing that you get from it.

29:06 You do have a little bit of that honey sweet that you're talking about as well. But for me, there was also this candy syrupy orange scent as well. I love this knows I'm going to give it a seven and a half out of ten on the nose. Yeah, and and when you move into the taste, I think that you just have this beautiful mixture. Of that those sweet notes mixed with those fruity notes. It's not spicy. It's not in any way going to be harsh this in my mind is the epitome of what an Irish whiskey should be it's smooth. It's refreshing its skippable. I just really really love this palette. There's a little bit of that depth with that Plum flavor that I was thinking of earlier, Bob. What are you picking up on the taste? So I'm having a different experience on The Taste than you are.

29:54 Rad I actually think that all of the sweetness on the nose is not present at all in the taste and I'm not saying that's a bad thing but it is a very drastic difference between the nose and the taste for me. I get a ton of The Malt on this I get a lot of barley. It's almost kind of scotchy in a way, you know, we talked about how sometimes Irish whiskey and like a blended Scotch kind of had those same flavors that they share in common with each other. This definitely has that I'm not saying it's our it's definitely not sour. It's Italy not bitter it's just unsweet and you get this really great kind of dark grain body to it on the tongue that has a really good mouth feel like it's definitely not super thin.

30:35 I do think you can tell that it's 80 proof. It's not a lot of alcohol but it is an enjoyable taste even though it's not super sweet. I'm going to give it a 6 on the taste. Well, I'm gonna stick it an eight on the taste. I really enjoyed this palette and for me the finishes where I picked up more of those grainy notes that you were talking about. Out I feel like you just get some beautiful notes of malted barley and Grains and that's where I feel like the smoothness kind of Peters out into getting what those raw grains are offering but it doesn't it doesn't sit on your on your palate for a long time afterwards. It finishes smooth. I think I'm going to give it a 7 on the Finish. Yeah, so I think a lot of what's on the taste carries through to the finish for me.

31:21 It's definitely darker. It's definitely less sweet I do. Like a really really Pleasant burn going down. It's not like what we would call a Kentucky hug with bourbon. It doesn't feel like there's alcohol stuck in my esophagus, but it definitely makes itself known and I really like that because again, this is an 80 proof whiskey so it's on the lowest possible end of what it would take to be called an Irish whiskey and it doesn't really make itself known from an alcohol point of view until after you swallow and that finish the Finish is fairly lasting. It's definitely a mouth-watering finish. It's not super dry. I really We appreciate this finish. I'm gonna give it a six and a half on the finish. I think this is a solid whiskey all around so far Brad I do too. And when I when I come to balance to kind of finish off our scores for the tasting part of it, I think this is a really well-balanced whiskey you are right Bob and saying that the nose promises a little more sweetness than you get but I don't really consider that a flaw in this whiskey the balance isn't the place where this whiskey shines but Still going to give it a 7 out of 10 on balance. Yeah, I think that we a few weeks ago. We defined our definitions of what balance is and you were actually a little bit more bullish on saying that you think it has to do with consistency that if you pick up a note in the knows that it better be there on the taste. I've never been that guy I will say that it is pretty drastic the difference between the nose and The Taste very few of the notes that I got on the nose actually carried over to The Taste.

32:52 However, I think this was a solid. See all the way through the nose was spectacular The Taste was was pretty good and the Finish was good. And so because of that I'm going to give it a I'm gonna give it a 6 on balance and that takes us to overall value. And this is where things get a little bit tricky Brad because Bogart Spirits is based out of California. It's not sold in the state of Ohio. I actually reached out to their rep that we've been working with and I haven't heard back as far as what their distribution is. So I don't know what states in the union you can walk into a liquor. Store and find a bottle of Bogaerts on the Shelf. They sell it on their website. But you know for now I think we have to go off of the assumption that maybe it's not for sale in any state on the shelf and we're just directing people to the Bogaerts Spirits website on their website this bottle cost $34.99, which I think is a really reasonable price for an Irish whiskey, especially one that's been aged in Ireland imported and then finished in Bourbon barrels. They've clearly done their work on this. I think it's a good solid whiskey. And I want to hear before I give a score Brad. What would you give this on value at a 3499 price tag? Honestly Bob.

34:03 I think that if this was just $5 cheaper, I would probably give it a 10 out of 10. Like this was a $30 whiskey I would go holy cow. This is like perfect value as it is $35 is just on that edge of well, I'd buy it every once in a while, but honestly Bob, I think this is really good value I am I said really good. I mean nine out of ten. This is a great value whiskey, I think it's eminently drinkable smooth and delicious. So I'm going to give it a 9 out of 10. Yeah. So this is where I really struggle Brad because if you're buying it online, you know, we're saying that it's $35, but that also means that you're going to have to pay for shipping at $35. I think I would give this like an 8 out of 10 on value. I think it's a really really solid Irish whiskey at $45 including shipping things change really quickly for Me so I want to say I'm going to score this based off of the actual price tag the $34.99.

35:00 I'm going to give it an 8 out of 10, but buyer beware if this is not sold on the Shelf near you you're going to have to pay the shipping cost and you have to factor that in for yourself. As far as is this worth forty five dollars or whatever else more it might be as opposed to the $34.99 price tag. Yeah, Bob. I'm not going to disagree with you if you can buy this in store for $35. It's a 9 out of 10 if this A $45 whiskey my score would honestly drop to about a six and a half or a 7 out of 10 $45. You're starting to get to that point where like yeah this I might buy this once and go in with two or three friends and we'll share it but $35 is a good price.

35:42 So Brad, what's that bringing you out to as far as your final score? Well, if you're buying it in store, then my final score comes to a 39 out of 50. Yeah. I figured this would be pretty high for you Brad. I know how How much you love your Irish whiskey this is bringing me out to a 34 out of 50. I do think this was a really really good a solid whiskey. We really appreciate Bogaerts for sending this to us that's been really fun to pair it up with an actor for a movie. So we appreciate the opportunity that brings us to a seventy three out of a hundred or a 36.5 out of 50. I would wholeheartedly recommend this Brad are you recommending? Oh 100% It's a really delicious whiskey if you can get your hands on it by all means go for it. All right, well You say we carry this Goodwill into the second half of our episode on the African queen. Let's get to it.

37:13 Alright, so that was Bogaerts Irish, whiskey a whiskey that we both really enjoyed and heartily recommended. We're getting back into talking about the African queen. And before we left off Brad, it sounded like your true feelings about this movie. We're really starting to come out. So I tried to rein us in a little bit and get us to focus on the acting in this movie you talked about the performance of the brother in this movie II don't disagree with you on that, but I will say that I think both of the lead performances in this film are fantastic and especially Hepburn I've seen this movie probably between five and ten times and it's always been a fun watch for me. It's one of those movies I can kind of throw on and if I want to pay attention like grade and if not, it's still entertaining this time watching Katharine Hepburn react to What Bogart is doing to her in the scene where they've burned down the village her brother has just died in Bogart as it, you know, this drunk slob comes wandering in and she has to break the news to him that her brother has died and he just kind of like well, sorry. Sorry, you got a spade.

38:14 I'll bury him for you. The absolute contempt that this woman has for Bogart is so obvious in her eyes. And this is one of the great things about Hepburn is just how expressive her face can be and how she can use it so subtly like she doesn't have to do these big over-the-top reactions when they're on the boat and he gets drunk and he calls her a skinny old maid and you see her start to break down and internalized these insults because you know that this is something she's insecure. About her brother had been kind of rambling as he was disoriented on his deathbed about how his sister's not very pretty but she could be a missionary to so, you know, this is something that her character feels really really deeply and then the moment where they finally have a breakthrough where he comes over and puts his hand on her shoulder and she decides to hold his hand you can see that she's almost crying and she does it that she's finally found a place of forgiveness that she's finally found it in herself to love this man. That she's finally found a romance that her character is clearly been longing for in her life. I think she's able to portray things about this character that aren't even there on the page.

39:24 I don't disagree with you. I think that Hepburn really is a spectacular actress and Beyond The Spectacular actress. I think she's one of the best we've ever had the problem for me. Is that like even in the scene where her brother is? Well, she's not a very calmly woman, but she might be good for the missions. Hold the lines that he speaks and the way he delivers them are so unbelievable to real life that for me. It almost took me out of the movie. So deeply that like you almost Miss what a good performance that she is giving and unfortunately, I kind of feel the same way about Bogart. I just when I watch Bogart in this movie his lines that he gets her just so ridiculous in out there that you're not Bogart delivers them.

40:14 Well, the the script is so ridiculous that I think it draws me away from what an amazing performance Hepburn is giving and so I struggle to see is she just giving a great performance or his is her performance just good and despite of a terrible script. Yeah, and I honestly I think that's true of both the leads because this would not be the movie that I would have picked for Humphrey Bogart to win an Oscar for oh, dude. Got it all and a lot of people at the time even thought that this was kind of a makeup Oscar for the one that he wasn't even nominated for four Treasure of the Sierra Madre in 1948. He made a couple films in the interim. He was still one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. I think the he got a lot of the popular vote at this time. So in 1951 Marlon Brando burst on the scene, he had been in just one or two movies and then he comes out with A Streetcar Named Desire.

41:09 He's just super buff muscular method actor. It's a pletely new thing in Hollywood. He's you know, he's on the street screaming Stella. It's an iconic moment. But a lot of people in Hollywood the the sort of Old Guard in Hollywood were not prepared to vote for Marlon Brando as best actor and I think that Humphrey Bogart really reaped the benefits of that. I always like to play this sort of mental game of what would have been because if he had just gotten the Oscar for Treasure of the Sierra Madre like he should have gotten or even for Casablanca back in 1942. Like he should have gotten I think Marlon Brando probably would have taken home the Oscar in This year and this is the game that the Oscar play is they always kind of give awards for Lifetime Achievement over what's actually happening in the moment and that's not to say that Bogart is bad in this movie. I think he's actually quite good but to some degree, he's just playing the Humphrey Bogart character that you were referencing earlier.

42:00 It's like somewhere in between the hard Edge sort of gangster roles that he played earlier his career and the sort of sloppy loud aggressive type that he played in Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Honestly bobbed it. The problem with this performance is that it just it's a caricature of a real person. I think that Hepburn was the only one who received a script that was somewhat realistic but like, you know one of both of our favorite films of all time, it's a wonderful life you have this one character in that movie who continually comes back to Jimmy Stewart. And you know, do you remember him talking about where he goes? Hee-Haw Hee-Haw? Yeah.

42:40 It's a what's up. How you doing? That's who I thought. of what when bogie is like trying to imitate these hippopotamuses and he's jumping up and down and I just thought is this what we're reducing one of the greatest stars in Hollywood history to it just felt so ridiculous like it's fine and it's a wonderful life for a minor character to be ridiculous and makes strange child like noises out of his mouth, but it's another other thing to make one of the greatest actors of all time to do it in a movie where like you said, he and Hepburn are the only real people in the movie Baba. I'm just going to sum it up.

43:24 I hate this script. Yeah. I really really hate it and it causes me it causes me conniptions to no end to think about what could have been with this movie if it had a good script. Yeah, and and I think it's kind of surprising. I think the degree that this script does At work because it has some incredible screenwriters behind it. It's adapted from a novel like this should this should work better than it does and I think that the key to this movie in terms of like how I would sum it up Brad is good enough like it's a good enough movie. It's enjoyable. It's got serviceable performances from two of the best actors of all time. Then them turning in their be game is the a game of anyone else but kind of to break it down here Brad. I think I'm going to give my final score on this movie. I don't dislike this.

44:13 Gee, I think I probably like it more than you. Do. I find it enjoyable. I think it's worth seeing I think it's worth. You know, if you're a classic movie person. It's definitely worth owning but I don't think it's any more than a seven and a half. This is like a three out of four star kind of movie. It's held up. Okay over the last almost 70 years now, but it just doesn't have any depth to it and I use that word earlier trifle to describe it and I think this is just a fun enjoyable trifle of a movie. I would never put it anywhere near a hundred best films of all time. List, I don't even know this would be like a top-five bogart for me. But you know, I'm anxious to hear what you think Brad, but I would give it a seven and a half out of ten. Yeah, you know going into this.

44:53 I was thinking I would give it anywhere from a 6 to a 7 but honestly, you know as an external processor. I reserve the right to change my opinion after I've talked about my opinion. So honestly Bob the the more I look at this movie and the more I consider just how genuinely A awful this script is you know, we didn't get into it. But I think that the racial profiling and treatment of native Africans is beyond that it's actually really offensive and really horrendous. I just really struggle with this movie. I'm going to give it a 5 out of 10 and I honestly I think that Bogart and Hepburn Turnin Great Performances for what they were given and the only reason this movie is a 5 out of 10 for me is because their performances We had up to that like you said, it's just kind of a fun romp of a movie but there's a lot of problems with it and I'm not going to recommend it. Wow.

45:54 So we're divided on a movie for the first time this season Brad's not recommending I am recommending but we want to know what you have to say. This is a classic film. I imagine that a lot of people listening Brad are going to be fans of this movie. So if you'd like to respond to what either of us think of this film you can find us on social media were on Facebook Twitter or Instagram. Instagram at film whiskey or you can give us a call leave us a voice message with your thoughts on the African queen. Our phone number is two one six eight hundred 5923. Once again, that number is two one six eight hundred 5923 or check us out on our anchor dot f m-- page leave us a voicemail right there online and we'll put you on the air next week.

46:36 We're going to be coming back into modern times Brad for the film that brought Martin Scorsese his one and only best director Oscar. 2006 has The Departed for the film of whiskey podcast. I'm Bob book. I'm Reggie, and we'll see you next time.