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Released by: Alpha Video
Released on: 5/31/2010
Director: Elwood G. Price
Cast: Chet Huntley
Year: 1955
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The Movie:
Filmed in Africa! In flaming color! Weird, mysterious love rites performed by sex-mad natives! The naked truth! Never told before! Cult secrets of people practicing black magic!
Promoted using a ridiculously lurid advertising campaign that showed topless African women wrestling with one another and a big black dude brandishing a machete and which promised viewers that they would 'see the secret killer society massacres that shocked the world raw,' Elwood Price's Mau-Mau is pretty trashy stuff. Made in 1952 and featuring semi-classy narration from network TV news anchor Chet Huntley, it's fifty-two minutes of stock footage mixed in with inserts that were supposedly shot on a Hollywood soundstage with black actors made up to look like 'jungle savages.'
The film purports to examine the very real events that took place in Kenya in the 1950s, the film is chock full of nudity and features some fairly shocking real death footage. It's hard to imagine that this film didn't at least partially inspire Jacopetti and Prosperi when they made Africa Addio (alternately known as Africa Blood And Guts), a similarly themed mondo film made more than a decade later in 1966. Aside from the sensationalism inherent in the picture's advertising campaign and the gratuitousness of its sex and violence quotient, the film does shed some light on the Mau-Mau uprising that took place from the early fifties through to 1960. A group called of Kenyan Kikuyu natives calling themselves the Mau-Mau grew tired of living under British rule and so they took violent action against their oppressors. This, in turn, caused the British to hit back even harder and by the time it was all over with, reports state that thirty-two Europeans were killed versus over eleven thousand Kenyans (though there are substantial claims that it was closer to three hundred thousand).
Huntley's narration is often times rather fair and balanced and is delivered with enough insight that, while it might not win any documentary film awards, it does serve to shed some light on what happened in Kenya even if it does portray the Mau-Mau as simple savages. It is a little too kind, at times, to the British oppressors but hindsight obviously makes this easier to see (and therefore condemn) by modern standards than it probably would have been in the early fifties. When taken at face value, the footage of atrocities committed paints a pretty grim picture for both sides. Some of the running time explores the Mau-Mau's relationship with 'witch doctors' and different 'blood oaths' that are taken. These aren't explained with very much cultural significance and are really played more for exploitative reasons than anything else.
Supposedly director Elwood Price originally hoped to sell Mau-Mau to a major studio as a serious film (though this is debatable) but no one was interested and he wound up taking it to Dan Sonney, an exploitation film distributor and one time partner of David F. Friedman. Sonney capitalized on the film's stronger content and played up the sex and violence (a tradition dutifully carried on by Alpha's cover art which uses the film's shocking original one sheet). Joe Rock, of Krakatoa fame, produced and the film reportedly wound up making all involved some serious cash. The film, despite its many and obvious flaws, is still an interesting watch. If nothing else it's a time capsule and a prime example of early fifties exploitation film marketing. Some of the actual footage is of historical value as well.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The 1.33.1 aspect ratio appears to be correct for the film, so the transfer has that going for it, but otherwise this isn't anything to write home about. The image is watchable enough but often suffers from very faded color and heavy print damage. Detail varies from scene to scene but more often than not is quite soft.
The narration is easy enough to follow and understand and while there are instances where hiss and distortion are both evident, it's not enough to really ruin things. Does it sound great? Nope, not at all, but it's not horrible either.
Extras are slim on this disc, limited to a plug for Alpha's catalogue and trailers for unrelated DVD releases available through the company. Menus and chapter stops are, of course, also included.
The Final Word:
Alpha's presentation isn't going to win any awards but the fact that Mau-Mau is available at all is a minor miracle in and of itself. As a precursor to the mondo pictures that would follow in its wake, the film has historical significance and as a document of a very harsh time in history, it serves as a very disturbing time capsule. While the film is certainly as exploitative as its reputation would have you believe, it remains an interesting enigma and cinematic curiosity item.