August Bolte, the richest man in a settlement in German East Africa in the period before World War I, is called "Mamba" by the locals, which is the name of a deadly snake. Despised by the locals and the European settlers alike for his greed and arrogance, Bolte forces the beautiful daughter of a destitute nobleman to marry him in exchange for saving her father from ruin. Upon her arrival in Africa, she falls in love with an officer in the local German garrison. When World War I breaks out, Bolte, unable to avoid being conscripted, foments a rebellion among the local natives.
Production
One of earliest uses of Technicolor — they went HARD.
Acting
Jean Hersholt's snake-coded villainy is deliciously unhinged.
Director
Albert S. Rogell
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Most of the two-strip Technicolor prints were lost to nitrate fire — only fragments survive in archives.
This was MGM's attempt to compete with Warner's colonial epics, but they shelved it for months fearing the interracial tension (read: white woman + colony) was too hot for 1930.
US
