Bwana Devil
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| Bwana Devil (1952) | |
|---|---|
 Original film poster for United Artists release of Bwana Devil |
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| Directed by | Arch Oboler |
| Produced by | Producer: Arch Oboler Associate producer: Sidney W. Pink |
| Written by | Arch Oboler |
| Starring | Robert Stack Barbara Britton Nigel Bruce Ramsay Hill Paul McVey |
| Music by | Gordon Jenkins |
| Cinematography | Joseph F. Biroc |
| Editing by | John Hoffman |
| Distributed by | Limited release: Arch Oboler Productions General release: United Artists |
| Release date(s) |  November 30, 1952 |
| Running time | 79 min. |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Budget | US$ 400,000 |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Bwana Devil is a 1952 drama written, directed, and produced by Arch Oboler. It is considered the first color, American 3-D feature. It started the 3-D boom in the US film making industry from 1952 to 1954. It stars Robert Stack, Barbara Britton, and Nigel Bruce.
The film's tagline was: The Miracle of the Age!!! A LION in your lap! A LOVER in your arms!
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[edit] Plot
The film depicts the attacks by man-eating lions faced by the builders of the Uganda Railway.
The time: the turn of the century. The place: British East Africa. Thousands of workers are building Africa's first railroad. Intense heat and sickness make it a formidable task. Two men in charge of the mission are Jack Hayward (Robert Stack) and Dr. Angus Ross (Nigel Bruce). A pair of man-eating lions on the loose completely disrupt the undertaking. Hayward desperately attempts to overcome the situation but the slaughter continues.
Britain sends three big-game hunters to kill the lions. With them comes Jack's wife (Barbara Britton). After the game hunters are killed by the lions, Jack sets out once and for all to kill them. A grim battle between Jack and the lions endangers both Jack and his wife. Jack kills the lions and proves he is not a weakling.
[edit] The revolution that nobody wanted
It was 1951 and theatre attendance had spiralled from 90 million in 1948 to 46 million a few years later. TV was the culprit and Hollywood was looking for a way to lure audiences back. Cinerama had premiered September 30, 1952 at the Broadway Theatre in New York and was packing them in but it's bulky and expensive three camera system was impractical if not impossible to duplicate in all but the largest theatres.
One time screen writer Milton Gunzburg and brother Julian thought they had a solution with their Natural Vision 3-D film process. They shopped it around Hollywood with little or no interest. 20th Century Fox was focusing on the introduction of CinemaScope, and had no interest in another new process. Both Columbia and Paramount passed it up. Only John Arnold, who headed the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer camera department, was impressed enough to convince MGM to take an option on it but they quickly let the option lapse.
Natural Vision appeared to be dead and the Gunzburgs were back to square one until a meeting with Arch Oboler changed the history of films.
[edit] Production
Milton Gunzburg turned his focus to independent producers and demonstrated Natural Vision to Arch Oboler, producer and writer of radio's popular Lights out show, who was impressed enough to option it for his next film project, The Lions of Gulu. Oboler and co-producer Sid Pink scrapped 10 days of footage and started over using the Natural Vision process.
The film was based on a well-known historical event, the killing of more than 120 workers building the Uganda Railway for the British at the turn of the century. The incident was also the basis for The Man-eaters of Tsavo, an adventure yarn written and published in 1907 by Lt. Col. J.H. Patterson, the Great White Hunter who dispatched the animals.
The Paramount Ranch, now located in The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, sat in for an African savanna. There is a now a hiking trail in the area named "The Bwana Trail" to denote the locations used in "Bwana Devil".
Authentic Africa footage previously lensed by Arch Oboler in 1948 (in 2-D) was incorporated into the film. Ansco color film was used instead of the more expensive and cumbersome Technicolor process.
The film premiered under the banner of "Arch Oboler Productions" On November 26, 1952 at the Paramount Theatres in Hollywood and Los Angeles. The film was a critical failure but a runaway success with audiences. Premieres followed in San Francisco on December 13, Philadelphia, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio openings on December 25 and New York on February 18, 1953.
United Artists bought the rights to Bwana Devil from "Arch Oboler Productions" for $500,000 and a share of the profits and began a wide release of the film in March as a "United Artists" film. A lawsuit followed, in which producer Edward L. Alperson Jr. claimed that he was part owner in the film after purchasing a part of it for $1 Million USD. The courts decided in Oboler's favor, as Alperson's claim was unsubstantiated and "under the table."
The other major studios wiped the egg off of their faces and began a scramble to release their own 3-D films. Warner Brothers optioned the Natural Vision process for House of Wax. It premiered on April 10, 1953 and was ballyhooed as "the first 3-D release by a major studio". In truth, Columbia had trumped them by two days with their release of Man in the Dark on April 8, 1953.
[edit] Reviews
- Bosley Crowther of the New York Times said it was "a clumsy try at an African adventure film, photographed in very poor color in what appear to be the California hills".
- Variety summed up the process: "This novelty feature boasts of being the first full-length film in Natural Vision 3-D. Although adding backsides to usually flat actors and depth to landscapes, the 3-D technique still needs further technical advances."
- Time magazine called it a "dog".
- Hollis Alpert of The Saturday Review wrote, “It is the worst movie in my rather faltering memory, and my hangover from it was so painful that I immediately went to see a two-dimensional movie for relief. The polarization process darkened the image so that everything seems to be happening in late afternoon on a cloudy day. Nigel Bruce will either loom up before you or look like a puppet.
[edit] Trivia
- Robert Stack was well suited to handle guns in the film. In his teens he was a champion skeet shooter and gave lessons to Carole Lombard, Robert Taylor and Clark Gable.
- Jeff Stafford of Turner Classic Movies relayed the following story: "Robert attended the premiere, and recalled people's reactions to the 3-D lion scenes: "People in the audience jumped out of their seats, some even fainted."
- Both Robert Stack and Barbara Britton worked in episodes of Arch Oboler's TV version of Lights Out. These roles may have influenced their selection for parts in the film.
- The story line, based on the 1898 Tsavo Lion attacks was also the basis for "The Ghost and the Darkness" in 1996 starring Val Kilmer.
[edit] Availability
- Bwana Devil played at the Second World 3-D Film Expo] on September 13th, 2006 in two strip polarized 3-D at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, Ca.
- The film has not been released on VHS or DVD.
- The film occasionally shows on the AMC cablevison channel.
