Bwana, der Teufel

The story is not unlike the story of Jaws. A tiny group of people is isolated and threatened by this horrible creature, cut off from the world. Experts are brought in to eliminate the menace and restore order.

The only reason I mention this is to show the difference between talent (Spielberg/Benchley) and zero talent (Obler/Clampett) for story telling and film making. This 79 minutes (plus the mandatory intermission early 3-D requires) seemed to stretch way beyond its length. Horrible film.

Quick notes: What year is this story set in? It sure seems like 1952 until Barbara Britton, in high-button shoes, steps off the train.

The highlight was when star Robert Stack took his shirt off. Maybe if he had done the entire thing shirtless I would raise the score a half a point.

This was seen at the Film Forum in Manhattan, struck from the camera negative. It made zero difference as it was still completely awful.

Apparently this was the first "official" theatrical release in 3-D; without the glasses, pretty much the only eye-catching composition / depth of field comes at the very start, in the opening credits. Lots of uninteresting conversations serve as filler between the infrequent but reasonably well-done attack scenes - considering the era and the amount of blood that could (not) be shown (there is also some blatant use of stock footage). Second-billed Barbara Britton appears after half the movie is over but looks good, especially with sweat covering her neck. ** out of 4.

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.

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.

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