ABSTRACT
Half a century after the death of Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister in 1868 and again from 1874 to 1880, Hollywood came out with a movie celebrating his role in the making of the British Empire. Alfred Green’s 1929 film Disraeli is a romantic comedy about Disraeli’s purchase of the Suez Canal in 1875 and his conferment of the title “Empress of India” upon the Queen the following year. In the movie an avuncular Disraeli, played by George Arliss, overcomes all obstacles to purchase the Canal from Ismail Pasha, the Egyptian Khedive whose regime totters on the edge of bankruptcy. The movie shows that by purchasing this direct route to India, Disraeli spared Egypt from bankruptcy, saved England from the rapacious Russia, and ushered in a new age of imperialism.
