Congo Maisie

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.