Mamba

I'll start by saying that I'm very glad to have seen MAMBA, thanks to Kino's new release of a long-in-the-works restoration of what was long thought to be a lost film. A print was discovered in Australia and the Vitaphone discs survived (at UCLA I assume). Apparently only fragments of a silent version had been known to survive. Anyway, the money was found to restore the Australian print and put it all back together ... minus some bits the Australian censors had cut out.

Mamba was touted in 1930 as the first All-Technicolor All-Talkie dramatic film. Produced by Tiffany, it was apparently a success in its day.

Unfortunately, the story of the film's production and rediscovery is almost more interesting than the film itself. The story is set in 1913 in German East Africa just before the war. Boorish landowner August Bolte (Jean Hersholt) is the local rich man (the notes say he's an ivory trader, but I don't recall any mention of ivory), supposedly called Mamba (a deadly snake) by the locals (although I don't recall this word being uttered). There are German and British soldiers in the area. Bolte forces an impoverished German nobleman to "sell" his daughter (Eleanor Boardman) for a sum of money. Bolte snags his bride and heads back to Africa but on the voyage she meets a dashing German officer (Ralph Forbes).

It seems that Bolte rapes his bride on their wedding night (cut by censors) and she lives behind a locked door once they get back to Africa. Bolte tries to win over the local society by throwing a party for his wife but it doesn't work and they soon get word that war has been declared in Europe. Bolte is drafted into the local German army but there is a big native uprising that binds together the Germans and Brits (at least temporarily) against them.

Sorry to say the acting is abysmal. Stiff and hammy and much of the time they seem to be parodying silent acting technique. Boardman spends most of her time wringing her hands and when she speaks (which isn't often) she sounds more like she's from Old Virginy than Old Germany. Hersholt comes off best as the slimy pig. Forbes is a piece of wood with a scar across his cheek. Will Stanton plays the Cockney servant for comic relief.

The color is quite good (2-strip Technicolor or whatever we call it these days) although it's limited to red and greens. Much credit is due to the UCLA restoration team and the various partners. The film looks great, and the sound is very good.

The story reminded me a lot of THE WITNESS FOR THE DEFENSE (1919) with Hersholt on par with Warner Oland's deranged husband in that Elsie Ferguson film.

The comment from film library below is true and it is one of the most important discoveries in lost cinema. MAMBA is found intact and in color and on 35mm and the print exists here in Australia. In the tech specs info for this film, there were two main versions made, as silent one and two sound versions such was the transition of the time.... a photo-phone sound one and another sound version with the Vitaphone talking gramophone discs. This version discovered here is the sound-disc version and some discs exist here and some with a collector in the US. I now have been fortunate enough to actually see ALL of the film and the color is glorious: peacock colors and opalescent tangerine reds and cobalt blues... and excellent jungle colors and military uniforms... What a find! the sound is now matched and restoration imminent.....applause to our friends Murray and Pat xx

The re-discovery of a complete 35mm tech print of MAMBA is a major event for the world to share....so now we can share it: Talkie Historian Jonas Nordin and Myself PAUL BRENNAN with the assistance of the fabulous Astor theatre St Kilda (Melbourne) re presented MAMBA on a huge movie screen for the first time in 80- years on Nov 21st 2011. It was a gala night with hundreds in attendance who thrilled to the slideshow of the history of Tiffany productions then saw the whole 78 minute print with matched sound from the 9 discs held by UCLA. It was their office who assisted in providing the whole soundtrack in which we also found a censored sequence. MAMBA will have a US premiere in March 2012 courtesy of the Vitaphone Project office.

In the town in German East Africa, right by the border with British territory, everyone gets along famously. They are all united, Germans and British, Blacks and Whites, in despising Jean Hersholt, who's the richest man around and an utter rotter. He heads back home, finds himself Eleanor Boardman, the daughter of a destitute German aristocrat, pays off daddy's debts, marries her, and brings her back to Africa. Everyone attends his wedding party for her sake, but he's so disagreeable that everyone leaves, and she promptly falls in love with German soldier Ralph Forbes. Then World War One begins, the natives revolt, the volcano erupts, the ....

Well, not the last, but there's a general upheaval and a big ending fight scene as the natives attack the German fort that looks like it was pulled from a western.

It's not a particularly good movie, even though you can see why it was immensely popular when it was made. Sound and Technicolor! Villainy and love! Big battle scenes! True, the second unit work seems to be rather slapdash, the dialogue is spoken at a slow pace with lots of time between sides, and so forth. But for 1930, it's all rather impressive.

It being 1930, there are some technical issues. Because it was two-strip Technicolor, people bleed orange, and use the color far more frequently than we do nowadays. Also, the images are softer than one would wish, but it's one of those movies that would have rated very highly in the year it was made.... and seems ridiculous nowadays.

I have just had the opportunity of viewing the complete 1930's Tiffany Production of "Mamba", starring Jean Hersholt, Eleanor Boardman and Ralph Forbes. Unfortunately, this was seen without the accompanying Vitaphone disc soundtrack, but due to having a copy of your Plot Summary this made it easy to follow the storyline. The early two-colour Technicolor was amazingly bright and made this screening a surprisingly pleasant experience.

I note in your Trivia notes that, according to the authors of Forgotten Horrors, "only about 12 minutes of silent footage remain." I can refute this information as there exists in Australia a complete 35mm version of this film, in good condition.

From a time when smoking was still good for you and political correctness was unheard of, comes Mamba. The simple but perfectly engaging plot cracks along at a reasonable pace even by modern standards, and the cast make a fine show of their transition from silent film to one of the first ever 'talkies'. The richness of the colouring is staggering given the technical limitations of the studio in its year of production, 1929.

In the screening I saw there was one deleted scene, which was apparently removed by censors in 1930 (the year of Mamba's release) – the sound for this section remained however, and was played over a number of 'stills' taken from elsewhere in the film. This had the effect of emphasising that the films dialogue was somewhat stilted, which is perhaps understandable given this was one of the earliest efforts of talking films. From the sound in this section it was evident that the cut scene might have been considered a bit too intimate for the day.

Shown in its entirety in Melbourne at The Astor in November 2011 – presumed to be the first screening of this film on the big screen for almost 80 years. Years ahead of its time – a must see for all film fans now that it is finally available for viewing again.