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IMDbPro

Congo Maisie

  • 1940
  • A
  • 1h 11m
IMDb RATING
6.2/10
563
YOUR RATING
Ann Sothern in Congo Maisie (1940)
ComedyDrama

Brooklyn showgirl Maisie gets stranded in the African jungle with a romantic doctor.Brooklyn showgirl Maisie gets stranded in the African jungle with a romantic doctor.Brooklyn showgirl Maisie gets stranded in the African jungle with a romantic doctor.

  • Director
    • H.C. Potter
  • Writers
    • Mary C. McCall Jr.
    • Wilson Collison
  • Stars
    • Ann Sothern
    • John Carroll
    • Rita Johnson
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.2/10
    563
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • H.C. Potter
    • Writers
      • Mary C. McCall Jr.
      • Wilson Collison
    • Stars
      • Ann Sothern
      • John Carroll
      • Rita Johnson
    • 16User reviews
    • 4Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 2 wins total

    Photos11

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    Top cast18

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    Ann Sothern
    Ann Sothern
    • Maisie Ravier
    John Carroll
    John Carroll
    • Dr. Michael Shane
    Rita Johnson
    Rita Johnson
    • Kay McWade
    Shepperd Strudwick
    Shepperd Strudwick
    • Dr. John McWade
    J.M. Kerrigan
    J.M. Kerrigan
    • Captain Finch
    E.E. Clive
    E.E. Clive
    • Horace Snell
    Everett Brown
    Everett Brown
    • Jallah
    Tom Fadden
    Tom Fadden
    • Nelson
    Lionel Pape
    Lionel Pape
    • British Consul
    Nathan Curry
    • Luemba
    Leonard Mudie
    Leonard Mudie
    • Farley
    Martin Wilkins
    • Zia
    Ernest Whitman
    Ernest Whitman
    • Varnai
    William Broadus
    • Third Witch Doctor
    • (uncredited)
    Tom Farrell
    • Sergeant
    • (uncredited)
    Joel Fluellen
    Joel Fluellen
    • Native
    • (uncredited)
    Buddy Harris
    • Second Witch Doctor
    • (uncredited)
    Darby Jones
    Darby Jones
    • First Witch Doctor
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • H.C. Potter
    • Writers
      • Mary C. McCall Jr.
      • Wilson Collison
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews16

    6.2563
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    Featured reviews

    7mgmstar128

    Maisie Goes to Africa

    Congo Maisie is a cute little film from the Maisie series which features a great independent female character. Maisie is a woman who keeps her self respect, her dignity, and her good girl status through all of her adventures. Ann Sothern was very lucky to have come across this character. Maisie is a tough cookie with a heart of gold.

    This film in the series is pleasant, even if isn't my favorite one. It does have similar aspects to Red Dust, but it really isn't a remake as Mogambo later was.

    Maisie sings and dances and performs magic tricks. The audience gets to see her think fast on her feet and to use her natural intelligence. She may not be a highly educated person, but she is someone everyone would want to have in their lives.

    Enjoy this trip to Africa, and don't forget to bring your umbrella!
    7SimonJack

    Maisie's up the river with monkeys, medicine and magic

    "Congo Maisie" is the second film of what would be a 10-fim series of comedies mixed with other genres by MGM from 1939 to 1947. The first film , "Maisie" of 1939, had been planned for Jean Harlow in 1937 until she died suddenly of liver disease. Ann Sothern was picked for her role two years later and did so well that MGM had its writers churn out nine more tales based on the Maisie Ravier character.

    In these early films, Maisie is usually playing a club dancer and singer who's between jobs or enroute to another one. But here she happens to be in British West Africa, just before World War II. The opening scene identifies it as Kurmala, West Africa, and it appears to be on the coast at the mouth of the Congo River. That might be present day Muanda of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

    The movie opens with Maisie sneaking out of her hotel to avoid the proprietor because she can't pay her bill. She stows away on a boat that she thinks will be traveling along the coast. So, she's surprised when she finds out its going a good distance up the Congo. And that's where this comedy drama takes place. The boat engine conks out and Maisie and the male passenger, Dr. Michael Shane, have to walk a couple miles to the Atkinson Rubber Co. Medical station, where he used to work.

    This story centers around the former doctor who's now trying to make it big running a plantation. But when the new doctors takes ill, he has to again practice medicine. Besides helping the doctor with his practice, Maisie helps stem a medicine-man provoked uprising with some magic of her own. And, she helps save the stations doctor's marriage. Naturally, the comedy is quite low-key in such a setting, but it's a good and entertaining film.

    Here are some favorite lines.

    Nelson, "Have you seen anything of a blonde?" Captain Finch, "Brother, where is she?" Nelson, "That's what I'm asking you. Are you sure that there ain't been no blonde with a suitcase stowed away on this boat within the last couple of hours?" Captain Finch: "Listen, silly, if there was a blonde on board, would I be out here talkin' to you? You've got it easy. You're behind that face. Brother, from the front it's terrible."

    Captain Finch, "And don't ever offer anybody money like that - in the presence of witnesses."

    Maisie Ravier, "Hey, what happens to me? Can I come along?" Dr. Michael Shane, "Suit yourself." Maisie, "Well, it's you or the crocodiles, and they got more teeth."

    Maisie Ravier, "What was that?" Dr. Michael Shane, "A baboon drumming." Maisie, "Now, who'd give a baboon a drum, missionaries?"

    Maisie Ravier, "Hmh. All the modern conveniences. Electric lights, hot and cold running monkeys...."

    Maisie Ravier, "Hey, wait a minute. This is not how you look at a place. I've even had fun in Philadelphia - in good company."

    Dr. Michael Shane, "I spent five years serving humanity. Now I'm looking out for Michael Shane." Dr. John McWade, "I didn't know you could measure service to humanity five years and then no more."

    Dr. Michael Shane, "Little girls who listen at key holes don't go to heaven." Maisie, "I know, but sometimes you get a chance to help someone you like and I like that Mrs. McWade."

    Maisie Ravier, "You better operate." Dr. Michael Shane, "I'm not practicing medicine." Maisie, "Have you stopped practicing being a man?"

    Dr. Michael Shane, "I'm going to take that out, McWade. I know you don't like me, but my worst enemy will tell you that I'm handy with a knife."
    5bkoganbing

    Magician's apprentice

    MGM's Tarzan sets got some extra use when in Ann Sothern's Maisie series she did an African film Congo Maisie. The plot which was recycled from Red Dust would get recycled again for Mogambo only that one was actually done on African location.

    Ann Sothern stows away on the wrong boat, she has a job in a coastal African town, but this boat commanded by J.M. Kerrigan is going upstream to a small settlement, a research facility where married couple Sheppard Strudwick and Rita Johnson. Even further into the wild is another former doctor now rubber plantation magnate John Carroll and all three go visiting there.

    Where both an outbreak of witch doctor fundamentalism and an attack of appendicitis on Strudwick puts the whole party in jeopardy. But not with the ever resourceful Maisie using some tricks she learned from when she was a magician's apprentice.

    Using her Maisie character as a bridge between what Jean Harlow and later Ava Gardner did with same part, Sothern is light, breezy, entertaining and very wise in a street smart way. The Maisie series went on for about a decade and Sothern's ingratiating and affable personality was the reason why.

    We could all use a wise Maisie in our lives.
    5Art-22

    Maisie's adventures in West Africa never rings true, but Ann Sothern is once again enjoyable in that role.

    Ann Sothern does what she can with the material in this far-fetched story set in the jungles of West Africa, but the film never really makes an impact. Although the acting is fine throughout, the fast-talking Sothern is the only character I really liked. And the only sequence I truly enjoyed was the one-minute crash course Sothern gets from John Carroll on how to assist in an appendectomy. I think even I could do it now.

    The film has been called a "loose" remake of Red Dust (1932), but it is actually based on a different book, "Congo Landing," which was written by the same author after Red Dust was released. It is similar in plot to it as well as to Torrid Zone (1940).
    7blanche-2

    A poor man's "Red Dust"

    This time, just call Maisie "Congo Maisie" in this 1940 second entry into the "Maisie" series. Each episode of Maisie's fabulous life is done as a separate entity as if the previous one never happened. So don't get too attached to anyone.

    Maisie, stranded as usual, stows away on a ship that doesn't go the way she wants and, in fact, breaks down. She tags along with a rubber plantation manager (John Carroll) when he hikes to his old house where he worked as a doctor (he's since forsaken the Hippocratic oath). Now it's the home of a doctor who does research (Sheppard Strudwick) and his wife (Rita Johnson).

    "Congo Maisie" is chock full of adventure, with Maisie assisting in an emergency operation and, wearing a gown and a Carmen Miranda headpiece from her club act, fends off witch doctors.

    It's quite funny but as my sister yelled out to me hearing some of it, "Is that a politically incorrect movie you're watching in there?" Uh, yeah.

    John Carroll is the new object of Maisie's affections. He talks a lot and uses a monotone that becomes grating real fast. I recall a photo of him where he was presented as a Gable wannabe. Forget it. Rita Johnson is absolutely lovely, and Sheppard Strudwick is very good. Fun.

    More like this

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    6.7
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    6.2
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    7.2
    Phantom Lady
    Nightmare
    6.4
    Nightmare
    A Slight Case of Larceny
    6.1
    A Slight Case of Larceny

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      This film is based on the 1934 novel "Congo Landing" by Wilson Collison and is not a remake of Red Dust (1932). Although the two films are similar, and promotional material for Congo Maisie compared them, Red Dust was based on the 1928 play of the same name, also by Collison. The play was adapted in a second version as Mogambo (1953) with the setting changed from Indochina to Africa.
    • Goofs
      When Dr. Shane is trying to hold off the natives at the end, Maisie comes out and does some magic tricks - a color-changing scarf, and cards appearing from nowhere. Dr. Shane tells her to do more, and she says that's all she has. Yet earlier, she was doing a trick with a disappearing ball. And later she comes out doing a water trick.
    • Quotes

      Dr. Michael Shane: Little girls that listen at keyholes don't go to heaven.

    • Connections
      Followed by Gold Rush Maisie (1940)

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • January 19, 1940 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Boginja Konga
    • Filming locations
      • Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios - 10202 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA(Studio)
    • Production company
      • Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 11 minutes
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.37 : 1

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