Product Details

• Actors: Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly, Donald Sinden, Philip Stainton
• Directors: John Ford
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: MGM (Warner)
• VHS Release Date: June 30, 1994
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301971558
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #143,157 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

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

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Clark Gable returns to "Red Dust", January 8, 2006

By 

Byron Kolln (the corner where Broadway meets Hollywood) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Mogambo [VHS] (VHS Tape)

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.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars African love story, February 8, 2003

By 

Cory D. Slipman (Rockville Centre, N.Y.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mogambo [VHS] (VHS Tape)

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.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gable re-makes Red Dust!, July 9, 2006

By 

John Malanga "film guy" (Pacifica, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mogambo (DVD)

It's not often that a major star is given the opportunity to star in a re-make of a film. It's happened twice, that I know of: Clark Gable did it in Mogambo (a re-make of Red Dust) and Betty Grable re-made Coney Island as Wabash Avenue. However, I am here to ask if anyone has noticed that the DVD of Mogambo looks very soft and blurry in the wide shots. It's only in the close-up scenes that the picture looks sharp and clear. So many reviewers on this site focus on the stars, the director and the story, which is all well and good, but it would be very helpful if there were more emphasis on the picture and sound qualities of the DVDs as well. A great movie can suffer from poor sound and picture quality. It's a shame that some of the major studios do not bother to remaster some of their prints before releasing them. Come on guys, always strive to do better.