#4 The African Queen
vs.
#13 Better Off Dead

Better Off Dead was released in 1985, directed by Savage Steve Holland, and starred John Cusack, Amanda Wyss, and Diane Franklin. It concerns the exploits of Lane Meyer (Cusack) who attempts to alternately recover and kill himself after his girlfriend Beth (Wyss) dumps him for a guy named Roy Stalin (Aaron Dozier).

This is a goofball movie couched in a goofball premise. Beth clearly wants to go out with Roy because he skis a really tall mountain called the K12. Lane dedicates himself to skiing the K12…therefore this is ostensibly a teenage comedy/sports movie. Throughout the more typical aspects of the film (skiing, finding the girl of your dreams under your nose, etc), there’s also boiled bacon, asian racing guys, David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen fused into animated burger form, and psychotic paperboys.

Lane could be the lead in most teenage comedies…the joy of this film (apart from all the stuff above) is the supporting cast. Lane’s little brother Badger (Scooter Stevens) builds laser weapons, gets trashy women into his room, and constructs a space shuttle out of household items. Lane’s best friend is Charles De Mar (Curtis Armstrong) who snorts snow, talks to a preserved fetal pig, and spends Christmas Eve drinking egg nog his brother makes from lighter fluid. And then there’s Vincent Schiavelli as Mr. Kerber, who is without a doubt the oddest geometry teacher I’ve ever seen. There are many more, more than I have space to discuss.

The African Queen was released in 1951, directed by John Huston, and starred Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. It’s the story of gin-drinking Charlie Allnut (Bogart), captain of the African Queen, who takes on a British woman (Hepburn), and the two hatch a plan to destroy a German warship.

Note that I mentioned the Germans…the Germans are indeed the bad guys in this film, but NOT the Nazis! This film is set in 1913, so these guys are Kaiser Wilhelm II’s Germans. It’s kinda weird to see bad guy Germans who AREN’T Nazis.

I’ve watched a bunch of Bogart films, but there are only two that are in color…The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The African Queen. In both films (interestingly enough, both directed by John Huston), Bogart is not overly handsome, but does some of his best acting. He and Hepburn are so good together in this film, and 90% of the film is just them.

I thought this would be a lot easier to choose, coming into this. The African Queen is really good, but it suffers slightly because of some of the ‘effects’ throughout the film. It loses a couple of points because of that.

The African Queen - 70
Better Off Dead - 73 (OT)

Better Off Dead moves on, and will play 12 Monkeys in the next round. That completes the New York Bracket!