BOERS REMEMBER THE JAMESON RAID

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 60, 8 September 1934, Page 25

BOERS REMEMBER THE JAMESON RAID

Filming the life of Cecil John Khodes, the empire builder, in Africa is proving more difficult than the promoters expected, says the "San Francisco Chronicle.'' Several '>. producers, including one in the United States, are interested in the scheme, but to date none- has ■ surmounted the obstacles created by political hostility and .fear of provoking a disturbance in South Africa. ... ■'■'■■ Matters started last year when Mrs. Sarah Gertrude Millin, a South African novelist, brought out a new, stirring, but , ; 'by'.no. means hero-worshipping biography of Rhodes. ' It became a best seller in Europe, and .also found a good-market in America, sOthat'the idea of producing a film of the millionaire politician's career was mooted simultaneously in London and Hollywood. Negotiations were begun with the Union Government, whose co-operation was deemed essential. George Barkas, a British producer, went to South Africa and began to gather material. Data was' contributed by pioneers surviving from the time of Cecil Khodes's glory (he died in 1902), tentative arrangements even being made about locations on the Kimberly diamond fields, where Rhodes made his

money. Then trouble began on the political side. •• . .Not only the British enterprise represented by Mr. Barkas, but also the Americans, took steps to sound the Government, and they were informed that unless the greatest care was taken the film might not be produced at all. ' . ; The producers discovered that after more than a generation the difficulties, connected with Rhodes's political career have not been removed. His greatest error of judgment, the Jameson raid, a peace-time attack by armed forees on the Transvaal republic in 1895, is remembered. Boer susceptibilities are still so strong that any idea of glorifying the man, whom many of them, still regard as a bandit, is anathema. Accordingly, the information was conveyed to the producers that no picture in which the Jameson raid was reproduced might be taken. Unfbi'tunatel}', the interest of Rhodes 's career—his early days in the diamond fields, 'the later ones on the Rand goldfields, and the founding of Rhodesia —reaches its ' climax in this particular incident. While the possibility of making an uncensored film outside South Africa remains, the producers are not willing to take risks undcrpi-esent conditions.