Rhodes of Africa
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Rhodes of Africa |
 | |
| Country of production | United Kingdom |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1936 |
| length | 91 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Berthold quarter |
| script |
Leslie Arliss Michael Barringer |
| production | Geoffrey Barkas |
| music | Hubert Bath |
| camera |
SR Bonnett (exterior recordings) Bernard Knowles (studio recordings) |
| cut | Derek N. Twist |
| occupation | |
| |
Rhodes of Africa is a heavily embellished British biopic about the English businessman, colonialist, politician and imperialist Cecil Rhodes , played by the American Walter Huston . His main opponent John Paul "Ohm" Kruger embodied Oskar Homolka . Directed by the Austrian exile Berthold Viertel , who presented his last cinema production in 1936. The film is based on the biography “ Rhodes ” by Sarah Gertrude Millin .
action
South Africa around the year 1870. After diamonds were found in the Cape Colony , a real frenzy of retrieving the precious stones begins. The still very young Englishman Cecil Rhodes announced at the Kimberley Club that he would also like to try his luck as a diamond prospector. A doctor predicts that due to ongoing heart problems, Rhodes will only have six more years of life. But the soldier of fortune Rhodes is gripped by an irrepressible will to live and begins his successful career. Ten years later, the businessman has made it: he owns all of the mines in the city of Kimberley . Unmoved, he explains to one of his former opponents at the Kimberley Club that his employees have spied on all adversaries for him and that this inside information has always given him a clear competitive advantage. This unscrupulousness would continue to determine his maxim in Rhodes' later life.
His next ventures lead Rhodes with the British South Africa Company to the region north of the Boer Republic of the Transvaal , where he suspects gold, copper, coal and fertile land for farming. After initial skepticism among his employees, his activities are beginning to bear fruit there too. Before that, however, he has to get in touch with the rulers there, and so Rhodes plans to meet with the tribal chief King Lobengula and Boer President Ohm Kruger. The negotiations with Lobengula are particularly difficult. He is initially met with suspicion and open rejection, because the Black King claims, not completely wrongly, that whenever a white man wishes to speak to him, one wants something from him and that ultimately harms his people. Rhodes makes it clear to Lobengula with British imperialist gruffness that the black monarch will never get peace from the white man as long as he does not make a deal with a representative of the white race that protects him from the other white robbers of land and natural resources. After a little persuasion on the part of Rhodes, Lobengula signs a corresponding agreement.
A few days later, Rhodes enters the house of Transvaal President Kruger and bluntly tells him that he has succeeded in acquiring the lands of Lobengula. He says that the two strongest countries in Africa must work together, otherwise there will be war sooner or later. Kruger is not intimidated, however, and says that should there be war between the Boers and the land-grabbing British, it is solely the fault of the English. Rhodes points out that in the end it doesn't matter who is to blame for such a conflict; in the end, both nations would be harmed. President Kruger made it clear, however, that his country would not agree to cooperation with the dominant British. Settlers in the north of South Africa soon report that they had been brought to the Transvaal, but were restricted in their work by President Kruger's legislation, while further south, in Rhodes Land, things have looked much better since Cecil Rhodes was Prime Minister there the Cape Colony took power. The call for the unification of both South African parts of the country is loud, and especially the British settlers living in the north are calling on Rhodes to force this unification by force of arms if necessary.
A conflict between the two South African states seems inevitable. On the border between the British South Africa colony and the Boer Republic of the Transvaal, the soldiers of the army of the British South African Company congregate. They send a letter to Rhodes asking if they can attack as soon as possible. As a preventive measure, Boer soldiers capture the British aggressors and Rhodes travels to Kruger to ask for their release. Kruger rejects this request. Rhodes replied that he was no longer Prime Minister of the Cape Colony and no longer director of the British South African Company. So there would be no longer any reason to detain the captured British corporate soldiers any longer. After all, war seems inevitable. At the turn of the century there was a military conflict between the British and the Boers, which the British could win in view of their colonial superiority. Rhodes' fervent desire to create a unified South Africa is being realized. However , he did not live to see the end of the second Boer War . Cecil Rhodes died at the age of 48 in March 1902, a good two months before the end of the war.
Production notes
The filming of the film Rhodes of Africa , with which the British colonial and conquest policy was to be celebrated on the African continent, took place in 1935 in what was then the British colony of Southern Rhodesia . It premiered on February 10, 1936 in New York City and premiered in London the following month. The film was never shown in Germany.
Geoffrey Barkas directed the exterior shots in southern Africa. OF Werndorff created the film structures, Joe Strassner created the costumes. Louis Levy was the musical director.
Reviews
The praising of a film about British imperialism seems more than strange by today's standards. Nevertheless, at the time of its premiere in London in 1936, the film received favorable reviews from ardent colonialists and the upper class profiting from colonialism. Elsewhere, the film has also been heavily criticized, largely due to its historical inaccuracies. Below are several examples:
The strip received a glowing review in United Empire magazine ('Rhodes' in United Empire, Volume 27, 1936). The Times acknowledged the inaccuracies but accepted them as simplifications necessary for a historical film, claiming that they were conveyed "without any significant distortion" (The Times, March 6, 1936). The Times reviewer praised the film's clarity in portraying intricate historical issues. Other British critics were less enthusiastic. Graham Greene in The Spectator described the film as "sober, appropriate, humorless". In a review in which he compared the film to the disadvantage of Sergei Eisenstein's revolutionary drama “October”, Greene claimed that “Rhodes of Africa” “lacked any passionate conviction, whether for or against Rhodes and his work in Africa”. (The Spectator of March 27, 1936). In Left Review magazine, Elizabeth Coxhead also noted the film's subdued patriotism: "There are some interesting signs about the times in the film that Gaumont-British made of Cecil Rhodes' career." (Left Review, Volume 4, 1936).
American critics criticized the film's dramatic qualities. The Saturday Review found him "dull but conscientious" (The Saturday Review of March 28, 1936). In the Washington Post, Nelson B. Bell complained that he lacked "fire", although he admitted that the film was enthusiastically received by audiences (The Washington Post, April 17, 1936). The New York Times reviewer also found it tame, claiming that it showed the British had lost the ability to make exciting films about their empire (The New York Times, February 29, 1936). This subject was examined more deeply in a follow-up article a few months later: Rhodes of Africa “was made, as you may recall, to be a glorification of the Empire Builder. But it turned out to be a sympathetic study of Ohm Paul Kruger, the Boer president. (…) Hollywood would have done it much better, I'm sure ”(New York Times, November 8, 1936).
In the actual location, southern Africa, "Rhodes of Africa" also caused controversy among the white audience. English and African newspapers criticized the film's historical inaccuracies. The Afrikaner particularly opposed the portrayal of President Kruger, although Homolka's performance had been one of the elements of the film that had received critical acclaim from British and American critics. The controversy inspired the government of the Union of South Africa to ban the film to all African viewers.
In modern criticism one could read among other things the following:
“Huston's performance is big, romantic and theatrical, but the film is a justification for Rhodes' rape of Africa and the Boer War . Homolka's grumpy, sly Kruger is more interesting than Huston's Rhodes ”.
"Sluggish but generally interesting historical drama created on site."
Individual evidence
- ↑ Review overview
- ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 1091
- ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 852
Web links
- Rhodes of Africa on colonialfilm.org
- Rhodes of Africa in the Internet Movie Database (English)