Mau-Mau

No words struck more terror in central Africa in the 1950s than "Mau-Mau", the name of a horrific army of machete-wielding terrorists who took bloody aim at the cruel white British colonialists who dominated the farm lands of Kenya. This starkly detailed 1955 documentary about the grisly war between subjugated tribesmen and militant colonists was narrated by famed NBC newsman, Chet Huntley, and so shocked potential audiences that director Elwood Price was unable to get any main stream interest in marketing it. Price turned to exploitation mogul, Dan Sonney, who sold the film as a tawdry expose of jungle sex cults, and it finally managed to pull in a profit.

Filmed in color in Kenya, Mau-Mau still shocks with its graphic depiction of violence and death. The anti-colonial battle raged from 1952 to 1960. The overwhelming British military reaction was fueled by the rabid terror expressed by white settlers. Ultimately less than a hundred settlers were killed, while the death toll among the Kikuyu tribespeople of Kenya was close to 50,000. The high mortality rate among the black natives was a combination of Mau-Mau atrocities (committed against fellow tribesmen who collaborated with White rule) and Britain's brutal racist and heavily armed response.

• documentary