Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15480 in VHS
• Released on: 1994-06-30
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Formats: Color, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 115 minutes

Amazon.com
This remake of the 1932 Red Dust is famous for using the very same romantic leading man--21 years after the fact. But when that leading man is Clark Gable, what's a little gray hair in the temples? Gable was certainly still the great strutting rooster of American movies in 1953, when Mogambo made him a safari guide juggling two much younger women. First up is good-time girl Ava Gardner, who's game for a little harmless romp with Gable after she gets stood up by a playboy in the African jungle. But when Grace Kelly--the proper wife of a visiting anthropologist (Donald Sinden)--arrives on the scene, a new affair begins. The location shooting is much in the vein of King Solomon's Mines, although the story is much more intimate. This feels like a bit of a holiday for Hollywood's top director, John Ford, and not one of his most committed pictures. Still, Ford's unparalleled eye for backlit exteriors and for the way people move around in rooms is on display, even when the script wobbles. People always joke about Gable being too old for this movie, but that doesn't take into account his durable movie-star appeal--he certainly looks every inch the Hemingwayesque hunter, and it's not that big a stretch to imagine Gardner or Kelly in the clinches with him. Indeed, he and Grace Kelly had an offscreen affair during shooting, graying temples or not. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews

Clark Gable returns to "Red Dust"
MOGAMBO is a remake of the 1932 classic "Red Dust", based on Wilson Collison's Broadway play. John Lee Mahin re-tooled his original screenplay, and Clark Gable returned to reprise his role of a rubber plantation owner (Dennis Carson in "Red Dust", but called Victor Marswell in the remake).

Clark Gable's performamce is amazing. How often does an actor have the opportunity of revisiting a character 20 years later, and use their maturity and experience to flesh out the role to a greater extent than they did before? In "Red Dust", Gable was magnificent, but here in MOGAMBO, he is positively magnetic.

Ava Gardner plays Eloise Kelly (`Honey Bear') who battles with crisp Linda Nordley (Grace Kelly) for the affections of Victor. Gardner is more than a match for Jean Harlow; and Grace Kelly, in one of her first big important roles, is fantastic in the part originally taken by Mary Astor. Filmed on location in Africa, director John Ford brings a lot more action and cinematic thrill to the story, but the central love-trilogy remains the focus. Highly-recommend, but if you haven't seen "Red Dust", I recommend that as well.

A successful remake with a perfect ending

Red Dust, the original on which Mogambo was based, starred Clark Gable and Jean Harlow set in Asia. 21 years later, the remake was in technicolor, shot in Africa and starred Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly.

What made this movie attractive were the 3-dimensional characters - Gable, as the animal trapper Victor, won hands down with his masculine outlook, down-to-earth character, knew-it-all worldly knowledge. Grace Kelly, as the married woman Linda, would steal every one's heart with her elegant beauty. But it was Ava Garner that shone brightly throughout the movie. She was Kelly, the American who fought fiercely, but clumsily and in vain, in her pursuit of Victor's love. She might lose to Linda but beneath her unforgiving remarks about Linda, she had a big and understanding heart. She helped Victor all along and stood up for Victor and Linda when Linda's husband began to suspect. Ava Garner was beautifully portrayed here, both under the camera and in the script. She had wit, courage and adapted well in the jungle. And there was chemistry between Gable and Gardner, whose vulnerable feelings were disguised by their professions and their strong characters.

A thought provoking movie about sophisticated people and mature love. And I couldn't see the ending coming, not until the last minute.

African love story
Mogambo was essentially a convoluted love story set against the glorious and picturesque backdrop of the African savannah.

A somewhat aged looking Clark Gable in his typical macho style played Victor Marswell a safari leader and procurer of wild animals for zoos and circuses based in Kenya. Arriving at Gable's complex unexpectedly in search of a recently departed maharajah is the raven haired beauty Ava Gardner. Gardner, a wordly chorus girl from New York and Gable imediately hit it off. Things are proceeding swimmingly until the arrival of the next safari clients, the Nordleys. Professor Nordley played by Donald Sinden is an anthropologist interested in gorillas. His wife the prim, proper and lovely Grace Kelly rues her loveless marriage and is smitten with Gable. Gable returns her advances and soon we are in the midst of a love quadrangle.

The heat is turned up as the group goes on safari to gorilla country and passions percolate. All the while they are fleeing from hostile natives, chasing a plethora of wild and exotic animals and travelling through some of the most scenic country imaginable.

The interplay among the main characters as well as the supporting cast was very amusing. The settings and cinematography was first rate. The satisfying conclusion ties up the plot into a neat little package.