Bwana Devil

1952 "The world's FIRST FEATURE LENGTH motion picture in Natural Vision 3 Dimension—A lion in your lap! A lover in your arms!"
4.6| 1h19m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 22 August 1952 Released
Producted By: United Artists
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

British railway workers in Kenya are becoming the favorite snack of two man-eating lions. Head engineer Bob Hayward becomes obsessed with trying to kill the beasts before they maul everyone on his crew.

Genre

Drama, Action

Watch Online

Bwana Devil (1952) is now streaming with subscription on Prime Video

Director

Arch Oboler

Production Companies

United Artists

Bwana Devil Videos and Images

Bwana Devil Audience Reviews

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.
Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.
Phillida Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
kayebell-28118 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
blueglas-159-114603 Viewers: Hello. This movie does not show up on Cable very often. It reminds me of a much more recent movie, The Ghost and the Darkness. Similar plot...but has historical truth, of the two lions of "Ranchipour". The British colonel was building a bridge over the river, and some 150 workers were eaten by the two lions. He killed the lions. Those two lions , "taxidermied", are on display at the Chicago Field House,Chicago, IL.
AryeDirect 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.
bux Bwana Devil is reputedly the first major studio, full length feature filmed entirely in the 3D process. Supposedly producer Oboler went to Africa to shoot a different movie, but after hearing the tale of two man-eating lions, terrorizing railway builders, decided on this one. It's a good story too, almost Hemmingway-like; fear, redemption, the great white hunter and all. It's the telling of the story that seems to drag, almost as though filming in the new process was too weighty for the crew. The action scenes are stiff, almost too staged. But these technical problems appear small in light of the film's dramatic conclusion.