 Lee's screen debut was in The Double Event in 1934, followed by a role as Cartwright in Berthold Viertel's Rhodes of Africa (1936), a biopic of Cecil Rhodes, in which he starred alongside Walter Huston, Oskar Homolka, and Basil Sydney. Terence Pettigrew mentions a "witty scene" featuring Bernard Lee in the film in which he is "struggling to put on a tight collar prior to slipping into town for a few ales." Although Lee was in wartime service in the army between 1940 and 1946, he had managed to act in several films earlier which were released between 1939 and 1943, including Murder in Soho, The Frozen Limits, Let George Do It! (known in the US as To Hell with Hitler), Spare a Copper, Once a Crook, and The New Lot.
