Mamba (1930)

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Director:

Albert S. Rogell

Writers:

Winifred Dunn (writer)
Tom Miranda (dialogue)

Release Date:

10 March 1930 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

In the depths of the African jungle is enacted a story of the depths of Human Hate and the Heights of Pure Love! (original ad)

Plot:

August Bolte, the richest man in a settlement in German East Africa in the period before World War I...

Plot Keywords:

Africa | Partially Lost Film | Melodrama | WWI | Two Strip Technicolor

Cast

Jean Hersholt	...	August Bolte (Mamba)
Eleanor Boardman	...	Helen von Linden
Ralph Forbes	...	Karl von Reiden
Claude Fleming	...	Major Cromwell
Will Stanton	...	Cockney servant
Wilhelm von Brincken	...	Major von Shultz (as William von Brincken)
Hazel Jones	...	Hassim's daughter
Arthur Stone	...	British soldier
Torben Meyer	...	German soldier
Andrés de Segurola	...	Guido (as André De Segurola)
Edward Martindel	...	Fullerton
Noble Johnson	...	Hassim
Josef Swickard	...	Count von Linden

Runtime:

78 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (2-strip Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Photophone System)

Company:

Color Art Productions

Trivia:

According to the authors of Forgotten Horrors, only "about 12 minutes of silent footage" remains.

A Lost Landmark Production

Mostly forgotten today, Mamba was a sort of landmark in its day. It was one of the most bold films that the smaller studios, the so-called Poverty rows, ever made. It was a joint project of Tiffany and Color Art Productions. It had ornate costumes, realistic and spectacle sets, and claimed that it was the "First All Technicolor Drama."

Mamba didn't just have a scene or two colored, as did Dixiana, Rio Rita, Broadway Melody or the Great Gabbo. Money poor Mamba was more ambitious than those films. Mamba was filmed in 2-strip Technicolor from beginning to end. It may well have been the first sound feature to have had such a grand treatment. When the film opened at the Gaiety Theatre in New York, it caused a sensation, breaking the two-week box office at the theater.

Apparently, the color was outstanding with lush greens and excellent flesh tones. Overwhelmed by its Technicolor effects, the critics of the day gave the movie and its stars excellent reviews, pointing out how the film appealed to both men and women alike because of its Jungle theme and the beauty and the beast aspect of the romance.

According to the director, Albert Rogell, while in production Mamba kept running out of money. In order to fool, the creditors, the production kept two sets of identical costumes available so that the cast and crew could keep working on the production.

While this cash poor production may have been a grand success in 1930, Father Time has finally collected the bill on this historic landmark film. It exists today only in fragments. Too bad an identical master copy wasn't keep in the vaults.