Mamba (1930)

Set in German East Africa on the eve of WWI, a vulgar and coarse brute (Jean Hersholt) is shunned by other members of the German community as well as the British. He goes to Berlin to marry the aristocratic daughter (Eleanor Boardman) of a man who owes him money. She is, however, repulsed by him and finds herself attracted to a young German officer (Ralph Forbes). Based on a short story by Ferdinand Schumann Heink and directed by Albert S. Rogell (MURDER IN GREENWICH VILLAGE). This turgid overheated melodrama is notable for two things. It's use of two strip Technicolor and as an example of racism in 1930s Hollywood cinema. It's a pre code movie so it gets away with subjects like marital rape and miscegenation. However, the implications that arise from the film's cretin (Hersholt) being the only one who has sexual relations with the Africans which the "proper" colonialists (both German and black) would never do suggests where the film makers sympathies lie. The indigenous black population are referred to as savages and when they rebel against their white oppressors, we're supposed to be rooting for the colonialists, not the natives. But as an artifact of its time, it's culturally significant and the use of the two strip Technicolor (very pastel looking) is interesting. With Claude Fleming and Will Stanton.