The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
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Mogambo
Adventure · Drama · Romance · 1953
On a Kenyan safari, white hunter Victor Marswell has a love triangle with seductive American socialite Eloise Kelly and anthropologist Donald Nordley's cheating wife Linda.
Movie details
Mogambo
“Flaming love found in the savage heart of the jungle!”
1953 Adventure · Drama · Romance 1h 56m
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
6.6 / 10
9.4K votes
Rotten Tomatoes
79 %
Tomatometer
TMDB
6.4 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
On a Kenyan safari, white hunter Victor Marswell has a love triangle with seductive American socialite Eloise Kelly and anthropologist Donald Nordley's cheating wife Linda.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over Mogambo?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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Medicine Man
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Elephant Walk
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Julia
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Nine Lives
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The Yellow Handkerchief
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Not Easily Broken
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Where it lives
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Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.
Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
John Ford
Written by
John Lee Mahin
Clark Gable
Victor Marswell
Ava Gardner
Eloise Y. Kelly
Grace Kelly
Linda Nordley
Donald Sinden
Donald Nordley
P
Philip Stainton
John Brown-Pryce
Eric Pohlmann
Leon Boltchak
L
Laurence Naismith
Skipper
Court is in session
Put Mogambo on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.