It was Em’s late father’s dying wish. Gentle Otto runs the farm and cares for Waldo his son. Waldo is bright and is busy designing a model of a sheep shearing machine that he hopes will make them all rich.
Things change when the sinister, eccentric Bonaparte Blenkins arrives. This stranger believes that Tant Sannie is wealthy – after all she owns a farm! – and it’s not too long before he has thrown the narrow-minded, simple woman into an amorous whirl.
But his motives are all too obvious to the children and he makes enemies of them. And worst of all, he connives to get Otto fired by lying to Tant Sannie. Sadly defeated, Otto returns to his room where he dies of a broken heart.
While Tant Sannie’s heart’s a whirl Bonaparte Blenkins is creating havoc. Not only does he ransack Otto’s room looking for the pile of money he thinks is stashed away but he creates a reason to give Waldo a thrashing within an inch of his life and destroys the sheep shearing model.
However Lyndall prepares for battle – she sets a trap for Bonaparte, she suggests that their cousin Trana comes to visit. Bonaparte is under the impression that Trana is even wealthier than Tant Sannie and attempts to seduce her in the parlour , blissfully unaware that Tant Sannie is within earshot. Exposed as a fraud, Bonaparte Blenkins is forced to make an undignified exit from the farm, chased by Tant Sannie, a delighted housemaid, Waldo’s dog and Oswald the ostrich, who clearly knew all the time that Bonaparte was a thoroughly bad egg!
Starring: Richard E. Grant (The Crimson Petal & The White; Withnail and I); Armin Mueller-Stahl (The West Wing)
Director: David Lister
Based on the popular novel of the same name by Olive Schreiner
The Story of an African Farm is a Rodini Film Production