In 1951, two of the world’s most beloved, best-paid stars, Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, followed director John Huston to a most un-Hollywood location: the sweltering jungle around the Ruki River, in the Belgian Congo.
There, they spent seven weeks filming The African Queen, the WWI-set tale of a hard-drinking riverboat captain (Bogart) and his journey with a prim Christian missionary (Hepburn). LIFE photographer Eliot Elisofon was there, capturing the legends between takes on the arduous shoot. Now, in celebration of the film’s 60th anniversary — it premiered in Los Angeles on December 23, 1951 — LIFE presents a glimpse inside the making of a film classic, including some never-before-seen images.
(see more — ‘The African Queen’: Rare and Unpublished)
