Fails the Bechdel test
The African Queen
1952. Directed by John Huston, written by C.S. Forester and James Agee and John Huston.
The Bechdel test
Bechdel score
1 / 3
Fails
-
Yes
1. At least two women
The film has at least two women characters. -
No
2. Who talk to each other
Our parser found no scene where two women talk to each other. -
No
3. About something besides a man
Not reached: the film fails an earlier rule.
Second opinion
Agree bechdeltest.com readers give it 0 out of 3.
The film
September 1914, news reaches the colony in German East Africa that war has broken out across Europe making British Reverend Samuel Sayer a hostile foreigner. German imperial troops burn down his mission; he is beaten and dies of fever. His well-educated, snobbish sister Rose Sayer buries him and leaves by the only available transport, the dilapidated river steamboat 'African Queen' of grumpy Charlie Allnut. As if a long difficult journey without any comfort weren't bad enough for such odd companions, she is determined to find a way to do their part for the British war effort while avenging her brother and aims high, as God is obviously on their side: construct their own torpedo and use the converted steamboat to take out a huge German warship, the Louisa, which is hard to find or reach on the giant lake. She presses till Charlie accepts to steam up the Ulanga, brave a German fort, raging rapids, bloodthirsty parasites, and the endlessly branching river which seems to go nowhere but impenetrable swamps. Despite fierce rows and moral antagonism between a bossy devout abstentionist and a free-spirited libertine drunken loner, the two grow closer to each-other as their quest drags on.
- Released
- 21 Mar 1952
- Genres
- Adventure, Drama, Romance
- Rated
- PG
- IMDb
- 7.7 / 10
- Metascore
- 91 / 100
- Awards
- Won 1 Oscar. 7 wins & 9 nominations total
- Elsewhere
- View on IMDb
Starring, by lines spoken
- Women
- Men
- Not in the cast list
- Bigger name, more lines
- Allnut 386 lines, man
- Rose 335 lines, woman
- Brother 44 lines, man
- 1st Officer 24 lines
- Captain 20 lines
- Allnutt 14 lines
- 2nd Officer 7 lines
- Allnutt -- 3 lines
- Corporal 3 lines
- Old Woman 3 lines, woman
Full cast, 8 people
- Humphrey Bogart as Charlie Allnut
- Katharine Hepburn as Rose Sayer
- Robert Morley as The Brother
- Peter Bull as Captain of Louisa
- Theodore Bikel as First Officer
- Walter Gotell as Second Officer
- Peter Swanwick as First Officer of Shona
- Richard Marner as Second Officer of Shona
Who talks, scene by scene
Lines of dialogue in every 1 scene, start to finish. Women above the line, men below. 9% of lines come from characters we couldn't match to the cast list and aren't shown.
Women
Men
Scene 1 Scene 14
Hover, tap or tab to a bar to see those scenes: where they happen and who's talking.
Show the numbers
| Scenes | Women's lines | Men's lines |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 2 to 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 3 to 3 | 4 | 12 |
| 4 to 4 | 104 | 153 |
| 5 to 5 | 61 | 52 |
| 6 to 6 | 61 | 84 |
| 7 to 7 | 13 | 20 |
| 8 to 8 | 2 | 3 |
| 9 to 9 | 0 | 0 |
| 10 to 10 | 66 | 82 |
| 11 to 11 | 0 | 9 |
| 12 to 12 | 1 | 1 |
| 13 to 13 | 24 | 9 |
| 14 to 14 | 5 | 6 |
The evidence
- Straight from the script
- Counted from the script and the credits
Tap an exhibit to open it.
Exhibit A: every 100 lines
Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 44 are women's.
341 lines from women, 431 from men.
- Women
- Men
Exhibit B: who's in it
1 women and 7 men in the cast. 2 women and 1 men from it get lines.
Characters
With lines
- Women
- Men
Exhibit C: who gets heard
The first woman speaks at line 6 of 853.
The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 28 lines.
Every line of dialogue, first to last
- First line by a woman
- Longest stretch with no woman speaking
Words spoken
Women speak 29% of the words (2,487), men 71% (5,991). Women have 44% of the lines, so their lines run shorter than men's.
Exhibit D: the test the other way
Run the other way, for men, the film scores 0 out of 3.
Conversations between two named characters
Two women
0
Two men
0
Exhibit E: behind the camera
2 of the 11 people in these jobs are women.
Across the whole crew, 17% of the people whose gender is listed are women.
- Directed by
- John Huston (man)
- Written by
- James Agee (man), John Huston (man)
- From the novel by
- C. S. Forester (man)
- Produced by
- John Woolf (man), Sam Spiegel (man)
- Shot by
- Jack Cardiff (man)
- Edited by
- Ralph Kemplen (man)
- Music by
- Allan Gray (man)
- Costumes by
- Doris Langley Moore (woman), Connie De Pinna (woman)
The crew, department by department
-
Costume & Make-Up
3 women, 0 men, 2 not listed
-
Sound
0 women, 3 men, 2 not listed
-
Camera
0 women, 4 men
-
Directing
1 women, 3 men
-
Production
0 women, 2 men, 2 not listed
-
Writing
0 women, 3 men
-
Art
0 women, 2 men
-
Other crew
0 women, 1 men
- Women
- Men
- Gender not listed on TMDB
Exhibit F: how old the stars were
Women: 44 on average. Men: 35 on average.
The top-billed cast, at the film's release.
Women
Katharine Hepburn 44
Men
Theodore Bikel 27, Walter Gotell 27, Peter Swanwick 29, Richard Marner 30, Peter Bull 39, Robert Morley 43, Humphrey Bogart 52
Exhibit G: the money
It made 10.8 times what it cost.
- Budget
- $1 million
- Box office
- $10.8 million
From TMDB, not adjusted for inflation.
About this analysis
Our parser read the script: 14 scenes and 853 lines of dialogue. The bechdeltest.com rating comes from that site’s readers. How the test works
