Bwana Devil * (1952, Robert Stack, Barbara Britton, Nigel Bruce) – Classic Movie Review 5198

‘The Miracle of the Age!!! A LION in your lap! A LOVER in your arms!’ Writer-producer-director Arch Oboler’s 1952 adventure thriller has the enormous distinction of being the very first 3D sound feature movie in English and the first 3D film in colour. However, that is where both almost all of its interest and all of its excitement end.

Filmed with the Natural Vision 3D system, it sparked the first 3D movie craze. Despite being a stonking success with audiences and earning a huge $2.7 million in rentals in North America in 1953 and a total of $5 million, studio United Artists recorded a loss of $200,000. (It cost just $323,000.)

Nevertheless the other studios promptly their own 3D films. Warner Brothers used the Natural Vision process to shoot House of Wax and premiered it on 10 April 1953 as ‘the first 3D release by a major studio’ but Columbia beat them by two days with Man in the Dark.

Oboler’s film, based on the true story of the Tsavo man-eaters, is about two man-eating killer lions holding up the building of an African railway in Kenya when the British railroad workers are either eaten or scared off – until an American hero, head engineer Jack Hayward (Robert Stack), saves the day.

The audience at the premiere of Bwana Devil, photographed by J. R. Eyerman for Life magazine.

Unfortunately, though fun to see now, the 3D ‘Natural Vision’ is as dodgy as the story, and even the lions look mangy. The movie is badly acted, poorly made, very unscary and boring, though it was a hit as a novelty in 1953, and has taken its place in history, so it is an interesting curio.

Also in the cast are Barbara Britton as Alice Hayward, Nigel Bruce as Dr. Angus Ross, Ramsay Hill as Major Parkhurst, Paul McVey as Commissioner, John Dodsworth, Pat O’Moore, Hope Miller and Pat Aherne.

It played at the Second World 3D Film Expo on 13 September 2006 in two-strip polarized 3D at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. By 2014, it has not been released on VHS or DVD, but is available on Amazon Video.

The polarised light method was used and the audience wore 3D glasses with gray Polaroid filters.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5198

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