Broadway and Hollywood star Walter Huston was accustomed to playing important men. Having impersonated Abraham Lincoln for D.W. Griffith as well as two fictional U.S. Presidents in the fantasy films Gabriel Over the White House (1933) and Trans-Atlantic Tunnel (1935), it was no surprise when The Gaumont British Picture Corporation engaged him for the biopic Rhodes, known in America as Rhodes of Africa (1935). The famed empire builder Cecil John Rhodes was firmly entrenched in the colonial tradition of the late 1800s. One of his more famous quotes is, "Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of life." Success in diamond mining and politics led to Rhodes becoming the Prime Minister of the Cape Colony during a time of violent clashes over land and power, primarily against the region's established Boer population. He united South Africa under a British flag and eventually founded the self-named country Rhodesia. Walter Huston arrived in London only to find that an actual screenplay was only in a preliminary stage, even though director Geoffrey Barkas had already filmed all of the location scenes in South Africa. Huston felt that the famous Cecil John Rhodes was interesting only because he had gotten rich, but three writers enlivened the British hero to the star's satisfaction. The film simplifies history by embellishing the diplomatic conflict between Cecil and his Afrikaans counterpart "Oom Paul" Kruger, played with gusto by Viennese-born Oscar Homolka. Young actors Peggy Ashcroft and Bernard Lee filled important supporting roles. Walter Huston ably delivered several scenes of inspiring Rhodes oratory, but he remembered having some difficulty choosing the right mustache. Settling on a wide, thick brush, the star quipped that he ended up looking more like the then- Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald.

By Glenn Erickson