Congo Maisie (1940) User Reviews

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

[Art-22 · 5/10 · 19 February 1999]

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).

Maisie Goes to Africa

[mgmstar128 · 7/10 · 10 July 2009]

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!

A poor man's "Red Dust"

[blanche-2 · 7/10 · 28 November 2007]

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.

Light and enjoyable.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 11 November 2013]

During the late 30s and through the 40s, Ann Sothern made ten Maisie films. They were clearly B-movies--short, relatively low budget (for MGM) and meant as second films in a double-feature. Yet, despite this, they also were very polished and entertaining. Clearly, MGM made nice looking B-films.

In this second installment, Maisie is inexplicably in central Africa! Why is never really explained well and seeing the blonde Sothern traipsing about what is supposed to be African jungle is rather surreal. As far as the plot goes, it's a reworking of "Red Dust" but due to the Production Code, the sexiness of the remake is much more subdued than the original. In the original, Jean Harlow was a tramp--a nice tramp but clearly a tramp. Here, Maisie is a nice girl--a show girl but a NICE show girl.

When the film begins, Maisie stows away on a boat. Instead of heading down river to Lagos, it heads up river to disease-ridden and superstition-filled jungle. Along the way, she teams up with a grumpy ex-doctor, Dr. Shane (John Carrol), and they head to a jungle hospital--where the "Red Dust"-like plot ensues. There, another doctor's wife is bored and lonely and immediately falls for Dr. Shane. But, Maisie being a good girl, she does what she can to help the lady realize her problems WON'T be solved with an affair. How all this works out you'll just have to see for yourself.

Aside from stealing a few clips from "Trader Horn", the film looks pretty good for a stage-bound B-movie set in the jungle. And, the acting and story work well. Overall, it's an agreeable little film and a decent remake since the story is more a reworking than a direct remake. Worth your time even if it is a bit patronizing in how it depicts many of the Africans.

Loved the showgirl routine

[bensonmum2 · 7/10 · 14 August 2019]

The Quick Pitch: Maisie finds herself stranded in an African jungle. If that's not bad enough, Maisie will have to use all her skills as a showgirl to deal with the local witchdoctors.

Watching Congo Maisie can be a bit jarring at first as there is no continuity from Maisie, the first film in the series. Well, actually there's no continuity other than Ann Sothern in the title role. Here, she's just as delightful, energetic, cute, and funny. Maisie is a fantastic character and Sothern plays her perfectly. Sothern's comedic time is in top form. In Congo Maisie she even gets a chance to do a bit of her showgirl routine. The final scene where she does her song and dance number for the dazzled and confused natives is a real highlight. Funny stuff. The supporting cast is decent enough, but no one really stood out. As with Maisie, Congo Maisie moves at a relatively good pace throughout most of the movie. The exception is when the film gets bogged down in its romance angle. Unfortunately, in Congo Maisie, it's a poorly written love triangle (a love square might be more appropriate) that annoyed me more than anything. Still, this bit couldn't ruin the overall film. Congo Maisie is a winner.

7/10

Maisie Goes Dramatic

[dougdoepke · 21 March 2017]

Since it's a Maisie, I was expecting more of a comedy. But the laughs, such as they are, are secondary to a rather dramatic plot. Due to a series of mishaps, our girl ends up in a medical research station in darkest Africa. There she mingles with a strapping fellow refugee (Carroll), along with the current research doctor (Strudwick) and his classy wife (Johnson). In the background lurks a restive native tribe and their jealous witch doctors. Naturally, emotions wander while the natives grow more restless.

Sothern's brassy persona remains intact but with many more dramatic moments than usual for the series. And that's despite a really clever opening. Looks to me like the studio was still unsure of the series direction. Not so with the handsome Carroll, who's clearly a Clark Gable hopeful in both voice and manner, and getting a lot of screen time, to boot. Fortunately, Maisie gets some snappy lines, along with the movie's highlight where she out-performs the witch doctors with a magic act. And catch her slinky outfit that's a real eye-catcher. Too bad for Rita Johnson's rather dour and dowdy role as the neglected wife.

All in all, it's a well-mounted B-picture whose sets and effects reflect MGM's concern with quality. Nevertheless, the 71-minutes largely fails to show off Maisie's street-wise comedic appeal to best effect. The series would soon find a surer footing for that appeal.

Not the best Maisie, but enjoyable

[dbkenner-73304 · 7/10 · 9 May 2018]

Maisie is Maisie. Always enjoyable, but never rising to the level of series like The Thin Man. I like them as much as Blondie and a little better than Torchy. If you liked the first one you can certainly bask in this mix of seriousness and silliness.

Typically, some people are upset that the African characters are not all depicted as surgeons or poets. Oddly, these guardians of the film world end up minimizing the contributions of the black actors and the importance of the African characters (e.g., Everett Brown as Jallah).

Third World riots aren't pretty (they share this quality with First World riots). Hollywood would film it different today, but they'd also ruin the movie with politics. To enjoy old movies we have to accept that things were different then.

My rating (7/10) is measuring Congo Maisie against other movies in the series and against other series movies of the same type.

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

[SimonJack · 7/10 · 18 September 2021]

"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."

Magician's apprentice

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 9 November 2013]

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.

A sad reminder

[ilprofessore-1 · 7/10 · 13 January 2009]

This film is worth watching if only for one supremely silly moment when Ann Southern dressed in a Carmen Miranda head dress subdues a native rebellion in the African jungle by singing "St. Louis Woman" (pronounced here "Lewis") to the sole accompaniment of jungle drums and then doing magic tricks to the amazement and eventual pacification of the natives. Shot on MGM sound stages in 1940 with a large crowd of extras speaking mumbo-jumbo and wearing outlandish quasi-African costumes, it's a sad reminder that once upon a time this sort of nonsense was the only kind of employment available to African-American actors in Hollywood.

A ridiculous plot with colonial bigotry throughout

[secondtake · 5/10 · 5 May 2018]

Congo Maisie (1940)

This is one of ten in a series with mostly different casts based on the same character (Maisie), and so it's got its formula aspects. The plot is ostensibly about a showgirl (Maisie) hiding out on a small steamship in West Africa. It has nothing rough and tumble about it (it's not Warner Bros., but MGM), and the falseness (and obvious studio sets) are a problem from the getgo. The star here is Ann Southern, who is a "star" and who has spark, but she doesn't quite click into the part here. Exaggerated expressions and a slightly ludicrous situation don't mix well. The fact she is constantly made up to perfection and dressed in fancy city outfits just makes it more stupid. It's necessary to point out that some of the smaller parts are played by African (African-American) actors, and they are treated with miserable disdain, or they are made to be hysterical and "primitive" in a way that's just hard to watch. If all of this isn't enough, there is a comic absurd ending to the whole thing (during the uprising). And it reminds you that this is a lightweight movie, and you can't take it too seriously. Which also means there might be other movies to watch.

Maisie Revier in the Jungle!

[wetcircuit · 8/10 · 3 January 2014]

If you are a fan of the Maisie films you may be surprised (as I was) that this is only the second in the series (out of ten). It's so over the top it feels like the series has "jumped the shark" and the brassy showgirl from Brooklyn finds herself in Africa in an isolated medical camp surrounded by restless natives.

In all her films Maisie gets into hilarious situations, but the best scenes are when her suffering stage acts go horribly wrong just before she gets fired.... In Congo Maisie however the "disaster" stage act comes at the climax when she must out voodoo a native witch doctor with hokey illusions from her nightclub act - and of course this means she has to present her entire show including singing St Louis Woman to the accompaniment of native drums while wearing a showgirl costume. This is mere minutes after assisting in emergency surgery, meanwhile clearing up the relationships of everyone around her.... It's all for laughs at a manic screwball pace. Southern moves briskly from scene to scene holding the energy. By the time she starts doing her nightclub act in the jungle I was in love.

All the Maisie movies are charmers, and as the series progressed Maisie joins the war, works in an airplane factory, goes out west and discovers a hidden goldmine.... Maisie is practically a prototype of Scooby-Doo-esque iconic American adventures, borrowing liberally from trendy plot lines appropriate for a B comedy. They are all feather light and Ann Southern puts so much heart and sweetness into her character, It's wonderful to see same Maisie story progression, her fighting and falling in love with her leading man again and again - even though we know it won't be the same guy next time, poor Maisie!

But Congo Maisie is the one that really stands out as the most outrageous and off the hook. It breaks from the apple pie formula into stylized farce, and pokes fun at so many movie tropes of the day that it stands out from the rest of the series as a funny parody of many films, from Harlow's Red Dust to Ann Harding's Prestige, all painted with broad strokes and with snappy dialog.

second of ten

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 12 August 2019]

In Congo, showgirl Maisie Ravier (Ann Sothern) is a stowaway on a river boat. The boat has mechanical problems and Maisie joins Dr. Michael Shane (John Carroll) to walk to his former medical station at a plantation. He had become disillusioned with rubber plantation management. Dr. John McWade is the new head of the station and his wife Kay is the station hostess.

I actually don't care about Shane. There are lots of confused romantic stray arrows flying around. I would simply make it all about Maisie. She could stumble upon the medical station by herself. She could still solve their marriage problems and she could do the whole rain dance by herself. I am surprised that this character got ten movies. If it's all about her, it would justify that kind of endurance. She's almost a side character in her own movie. For the confrontation with the witch doctor, it is less racist than I expected. It's somewhat thrilling and well put together. That section really sells the movie.

The Adventures of a Struggling Showgirl in Africa

[Uriah43 · 5/10 · 14 October 2018]

This movie begins in Africa with a struggling showgirl named "Maisie Ravier" (Ann Sothern) having to quickly leave the town she is in before the landlord has her arrested for failure to pay her rent. So with very little time to plan her escape she sneaks aboard a nearby freighter under the assumption that it is headed up the coast where a job might be available. To her chagrin, upon being discovered by one of the crew, she learns that this particular freighter is headed deep into the heart of the African jungle. To compound her problems, halfway up the river the ship has mechanical problems which then results in her having to venture through the thick jungle to a nearby hospital with another one of the passengers named "Dr. Michael Shane" (John Carroll) who doesn't hold her in high regard. And events get even more complicated for her after that. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this particular film happens to be the second in a series of ten "Maisie" films produced during this time period. That being said, since this is the only film in the series that I have seen I cannot honestly compare it to the others at this time. Be that as it may, I thought it was an okay film for the most part with Ann Sothern putting in a reasonably solid performance and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

"It takes a certain kind of woman to handle a certain kind of man"

[utgard14 · 6/10 · 9 October 2023]

One of the lesser Maisie films, at least to me, but still worth a look. This is the second entry in the series, beginning the pattern of ignoring what happened in the previous film. Maisie somehow finds her way on a ship bound for Africa. She meets up with a gruff unlikable man she inevitably will fall for (an unfortunate theme for the series). This one peddles in the clicheso of similar films of the time about natives always on the edge of uprising and lonely housewives on rubber plantations looking for Mr. Goodbar. All that stuff is the pits. Ann Sothern is the only thing that keeps this ship afloat. Every scene with her is a vast improvement over those without. Like I said, it's not one that I enjoy much so I don't revisit it often. But there's still entertainment to be had, at least when the star is onscreen."It takes a certain kind of woman to handle a certain kind of man"

Maisie Multi-Tasks in the Rain Forests -- Backwards and without the Manuel

[Greenster · 8/10 · 30 June 2007]

Quick-witted, fast-talking, wise-cracking and often penniless, Miss Mary Anastasia O'Connor undauntedly takes her nightclub act on the road--usually the very long road--persevering, and performing by the stage name of Maisie Ravier.

Chapter Two of the resulting ten-film series bearing her name, and recounting her saga, finds her itinerary set in the wilderness of the Congo, hence "Congo Maisie" (MGM 1940).

While much of its cast (including J.M. Kerrigan, E.E. Clive, Everett Brown, Tom Fadden, Lionel Pape and Nathan Curry) appears in its story's periphery, the lion's share of this jungle tale concentrates upon its second leads (Rita Johnson, as Kay McWade, and Shepperd Strudwick, as Doctor John 'Jock' McWade), its leading man (John Carroll, as Doctor Michael Shane) and, especially, its ever-lovely leading lady (Ann Sothern, as Maisie Ravier).

This time around, Maisie books her nightclub act at a remote village up river from a western African port. Again impoverished, she cleverly stows away upon a river barge to attempt to reach her destination but is soon discovered by its renter, Doctor Shane (John Carroll).

Evicted from his quarters, but remaining on board, she pawns trinkets for morsels of breakfast, about which time it is learned that the barge must dock for several days because of rising waters.

Stranded from the raft, Doctor Shane reluctantly "rescues" Maisie, by inviting her to accompany him on a three- or four-mile hike through the uninviting wilderness to the nearby fortified medical research station, which he once managed.

Here, Maisie is welcomed by its current operators, Kay and Doctor John McWade (the pretty Rita Johnson and the kind and gentlemanly Shepperd Strudwick). Miss Johnson is often cast as a "foresaken first wife" or "a possessive and haughty other woman." Here, she combines the types in gentle fashion, forlorn from her station in life, and seeking the advances of a handsome suitor.

And Maisie, with her present bag of resources and presence-of-mind perception to figure the score, suddenly finds herself with her hands full, facing the breaking down of her hosts' marriage, a patient in need of emergency surgery, treacherous weather conditions, an impending attack on the fort by tribal natives, simultaneously, while trying to resolve her feud and feelings for Doctor Shane, before the raft sets sail again.