Tonight's Movie: Bwana Devil (1952) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review

The first feature-length 3D film, BWANA DEVIL (1952), was released on Blu-ray this summer by Kino Lorber Studio Classics.

This impressive Blu-ray set includes three different versions of the film, including the 3D Film Archive's restoration of the 3D print from 4K scans of the original 35mm Ansco Color negatives.

The set features one 3D version for 3D Blu-ray players; another 3D print which can be viewed with anaglyphic red and blue glasses included in the set, as seen in the photograph below; and a "flat" 2D print.

This 79-minute film about man-eating lions in Kenya, written and directed by Arch Oboler, has many similarities to MAN-EATER OF KUMAON (1948), another Kino Lorber release I reviewed earlier this year.

Robert Stack, a champion skeet shooter offscreen, seems apt casting as lion hunter Bob Hayward. Hayward is supervising the building of a railroad in Africa, but the construction is disrupted by workers being killed by fearsome lions.

Bob and his friend Dr. McLean (Nigel Bruce) try to come up with ways to find and kill the lions, but things keep going from bad to worse, with an increasingly high body count.

Bob's bride Alice (Barbara Britton) shows up in Africa unexpectedly just as things are coming to a climax. After a terrible attack on the railroad camp, it's Bob and Alice against the lions, and only one side will survive.

The movie itself is frankly not particularly good. The story takes a while to get rolling, and Stack's Bob is initially presented as an irresponsible drunk, making it hard to warm up to his character.

Rob also bullies his workers. I'm accepting of the fact that movies from earlier eras won't always mesh with modern sensitivities, but the treatment of the frightened Africans and Indians in this film, other than an orphaned little boy, struck me as pretty egregious.

The movie picks up interest when lovely Barbara Britton arrives just about half an hour before the ending, but it's too little too late. Stack grows more likeable once she arrives, but there's little time to spend on their relationship, as bodies keep stacking up until the film finally reaches its ending.

Like MAN-EATER OF KUMAON, the film is quite depressing due to almost the entire running time being focused on killings. Fortunately the film is not graphic, only showing the leads' reactions to finding the bodies, but that's quite enough, especially when it comes to one particular corpse discovered near movie's end. It's to the actors' credit that their faces alone are able to convey what they're seeing.

From an historic perspective, of course, the interest level is quite different. Joseph F. Biroc and the uncredited William D. Snyder shot the film with all sorts of interesting 3D moments, starting with the opening credits (which I'd add are nicely scored by Gordon Jenkins). Even a love scene is played toward the 3D camera!

The movie was shot in Southern California but also effectively incorporates safari footage shot in Africa.

The movie's technical achievements and importance as the film which started the brief 3D craze in the early '50s make this a valuable watch despite story deficiencies. Kino Lorber has done something special here in making this set of "film history in a box" available to home viewers, and they're to be applauded.

The movie is presented as it was theatrically, preceded by an original 1952 explanatory prologue hosted by Lloyd Nolan, along with puppets Cecil and Beany, and midway through the film the original 1952 intermission "snipe" appears. Both the introduction and the intermission snipe are in black and white.

BWANA DEVIL is presented by Kino Lorber as a Special Edition in a cardboard slipcase, which is seen in the photo near the top of this review. Extras consist of the featurette THE STORY OF BWANA DEVIL with 3D historian Mike Ballew, which can be viewed in either 3D or flat versions, and two different trailers.

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray.

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