One of the most ambitious productions ever to emerge from parsimonious Tiffany Studios,
Mamba
is also one of the few 1930s horror films to be lensed in Technicolor. The story takes place in East Africa, where bestial August Bolte (Jean Hersholt), also known as Mamba, holds the local Zulu population in a grip of terror. Bolte's villainy apparently knows no bounds, extending all the way to his native Germany, where for $40,000 he "purchases" virginal Helen von Linden (Eleanor Boardman) from her greedy mother. En route to Africa, Helen falls in love with ship's captain Karl von Reiden (Ralph Forbes), who vows to rescue the girl from Bolte's slimy clutches. But Bolte proves a near-invulnerable enemy -- at least until the Zulus rise up against him and mete out their own gruesome justice. Only a few existing prints of
are in color; most available copies are black-and-white dupes.