John Ford’s African adventure film starring Clark Gable and Ava Gardner is Mogambo.
Released in 1953, the film casts Gable as Victor Marswell, a safari guide and big-game hunter, and Gardner as Eloise “Honey Bear” Kelly. Grace Kelly plays Linda Nordley, creating a romantic triangle amid the film’s colonial East African setting. John Ford directed the picture for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Mogambo was adapted from Wilson Collison’s 1928 play Red Dust and is a remake of the 1932 film version, which also starred Gable. The production was filmed partly on location in East Africa, including areas of Kenya, Uganda and the former Tanganyika, with the landscape supplying much of the film’s visual appeal.
The title is sometimes mistakenly treated as an African word meaning “the greatest.” The film’s trailer promoted that meaning, but the name actually came from producer Sam Zimbalist’s alteration of Mocambo, the name of a well-known Hollywood nightclub. Gardner earned an Oscar nomination, while Kelly won a Golden Globe for supporting actress.