Bwana le diable

I saw it the first day of its first run release at the Chicago Theater in Chicago in 1952. 'Bwana Devil' was the brainchild of radio director, Arch Oboler. - best known for the radio (and early live TV series) 'Lights Out'. Oboler's brother-in-law was Milton Gunzburg. Gunzburg was, I believe, the optician who connected the use of Polaroid lenses to the making of stereoscopic films.

In 1952, television was stomping out movies and movie theaters the way rogue elephants could destroy villages. Hollywood was searching for any gimmick it could use to bring people back to the theaters. Cinerama, a cumbersome early widescreen process had come on the scene. It produced an 3-D like effect. That opened the door for Gunzberg and his brother-in-law. They called their process Naturalvision, raised some money to demonstrate the process, and produced 'Bwana Devil'.

While the story and production values took a back seat to the illusion of depth, the picture was a hit. It was quickly followed by 'House of Wax' and others. Most producers opted to exploit the stereoscopic effects rather than make good movies. 'House of Wax' was one of the rare exceptions. After about a year, audiences tired of the shoddy productions, and Naturalvision eventually disappeared. Into the void Fox introduced CinemaScope, a flat wide-screen process, and helped stem the sinking theater system.

I imagine seeing 'Bwana Devil' in flat projection would be painful. But for those of us who saw it with pristine prints, and quality projection, it was something to behold. Lions leaping off the screen into our laps was something few of us would forget.

It has taken another fifty years for 3-D to return. Today's producers seem not to be making the same mistake as those in the early fifties. I hope so. After all, 3-D is so much more fun than flat.

An interesting premise, based on a true life story of two man eating lions but unfortunately, poorly executed. Leading man Robert Stack lacks charisma and the film at only 1 hour and 20 minutes, still drags and, at times, is ludicrous. Nigel Bruce is billed third in this as Dr Angus McLean and it is his penultimate film appearance. Though he has an amusing story about a fish, he is, in the main, a straight character here, though has a twinkle in his eye. He features throughout until the last 20 minutes but unhappily, his Scots accent (Stirling) doesn't really convince and undermines him more than somewhat.

I will admit that "Bwana Devil" is not a great movie, but to compare this groundbreaking 3-D movie to "Plan 9 From Outer Space" is utterly ridiculous, as "Bwana Devil" is not bad--but it is slightly below average. The negatives are Robert Stack's overacting and forgetting his accent frequently as well as a few cheesy scenes (seeing a stuffed lion tossed on Nigel Bruce when he was supposedly being attacked was unintentionally funny). The HUGE plus is that this film was made mostly in Africa and looks so much better than the tons of schlocky African films of the 1930s-50s.

The story is a dramatization of a real story of a couple man-eating lions and the man who ultimately killed them. It's the same story you'll see in the newer and better "Ghost and the Darkness"--so my advice is see this film instead. But, if you don't, you'll essentially learn the same story...along with Stack's less than stellar performance. Not a bad film at all--just not one that will bowl you over, either.

Saw this for the first time as an 11 yr old at a matinee. Great movie but it scared me to death. I'm now 71 and it still remains the movie that I most remember as a child

Based on a true story. Bwana Devil, filmed in Natural Vision 3-D,came out at a time when movies were competing with the growing popularity of television, which was keeping audiences out of theaters in droves, Arch Obler's thiller has some spectacular photography of the African plains and is somewhat of a documentary. Lot's of shots of animal herds and native tribal dancing. The outdoor shots are brightly lit but the studio shots are quite dark. Third Dimension photography requires sets to be brightly lit. Starring Robert Stack, Barbara Britton and Nigel Bruce. This tale of a "Great White Hunter" hired, by the English rail-road company,to hunt down and kill two lions, that are killing off workers, is slow to start but the 3-D action picks up later with many shots of spears being thrown at the screen, on-coming trains heading stright for the camera and, of course, leaping lions jumping from the screen. This movie can still be screen on television, in 2-D of course, and is interesting to see the shots that had audiences jumping in their seats back in 1952.