![]() If seen in 3-D, it will constitute another disappointment. There were several scenes in the film where rear projection was used, and it didn't work well in the theaters. This works well on regular films, but when seen in 3-D, they look like a flat scene behind the actors. In many films of the time, actors would often work in front of a "rear projection screen," where backgrounds could be projected to make it appear that they were in a different environment, such as a jungle background when the actors were actually on a sound stage. I don't know whether this qualifies as a spoiler, but you've been warned if it is. The film started the trend of throwing objects at the audience, which was taken to absurd levels with later 3-D films. ![]() It had been ballyhooed in the press so that even service personnel overseas had heard of it, though it never screened at the Post theater. The film's plot wasn't my cup of tea as a high school sophomore, but I went to see it for the 3-D process. I was a teenager when this first appeared in theaters, and I saw it in Japan. 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. 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. Starring Robert Stack, Barbara Britton and Nigel Bruce. Third Dimension photography requires sets to be brightly lit. The outdoor shots are brightly lit but the studio shots are quite dark. Lot's of shots of animal herds and native tribal dancing. 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. After all, 3-D is so much more fun than flat.īased on a true story. Today's producers seem not to be making the same mistake as those in the early fifties. It has taken another fifty years for 3-D to return. Lions leaping off the screen into our laps was something few of us would forget. But for those of us who saw it with pristine prints, and quality projection, it was something to behold. I imagine seeing 'Bwana Devil' in flat projection would be painful. Into the void Fox introduced CinemaScope, a flat wide-screen process, and helped stem the sinking theater system. After about a year, audiences tired of the shoddy productions, and Naturalvision eventually disappeared. 'House of Wax' was one of the rare exceptions. Most producers opted to exploit the stereoscopic effects rather than make good movies. It was quickly followed by 'House of Wax' and others. ![]() While the story and production values took a back seat to the illusion of depth, the picture was a hit. They called their process Naturalvision, raised some money to demonstrate the process, and produced 'Bwana Devil'. That opened the door for Gunzberg and his brother-in-law. Cinerama, a cumbersome early widescreen process had come on the scene. Hollywood was searching for any gimmick it could use to bring people back to the theaters. In 1952, television was stomping out movies and movie theaters the way rogue elephants could destroy villages. Gunzburg was, I believe, the optician who connected the use of Polaroid lenses to the making of stereoscopic films. ![]() Oboler's brother-in-law was Milton Gunzburg. best known for the radio (and early live TV series) 'Lights Out'. 'Bwana Devil' was the brainchild of radio director, Arch Oboler. I saw it the first day of its first run release at the Chicago Theater in Chicago in 1952.
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