Bwana Devil

Radio legend Arch Oboler is a fascinating case study in American entertainment, especially his weird, sometimes baffling cinematic efforts. He wrote and produced a handful of quirky movies with ‘twists’ similar to those in his famous radio show Lights Out!   They include the paranoid industrial film  Strange Holiday, the thoroughly botched psycho-mystery  Bewitched, and  The Twonky, a science fiction comedy so ill-conceived and unfunny that United Artists barely released it. In 1951 Oboler’s one claim to cinematic success was  Five, a marvelously expressive Sci-fi fantasy about survivors of an atomic war.

Part of Oboler’s genius was a knack for attracting talented collaborators, creative types with off-center specialties — experts in sound, montage, and camera magic. Always thinking BIG, he wanted to shake up the industry, as had the brand-new Cinerama format. A chance encounter with an ambitious would-be producer led Oboler to gamble on what became his biggest hit, a movie legend: 1952’s  Bwana Devil. Entrepreneur Milton Gunzburg had partnered with a Hollywood cameraman to develop a practical 35mm 3-D system called Natural Vision. When the big studios balked at the risks involved, Oboler got the first crack at making a color feature film in 3-D.

Arch Oboler not only shot his film in 3-D, but in color, too. This time he was able to attract a name star, Robert Stack. He took a small crew to rural Agoura, at the extreme West of Los Angeles County. His 3-D inventor-experts also devised a clever way for Oboler to integrate 16mm movie footage he had filmed ‘on Safari’ in Africa five years earlier.  ^*

Oboler also had some savvy with finance. He didn’t fall into the trap laid for Hollywood independents, who typically finished their films owing so much money that they had to take the first distribution deal that came along. The impresario had the financial backing and the publicity clout to premiere Bwana Devil on his own. He organized publicity that made 3-D sound like an interactive cinematic miracle:

The Miracle of the Age!!! A LION in your lap! A LOVER in your arms!
With the media stoking public enthusiasm, Oboler made a favorable deal with United Artists. As explained by expert Mike Ballew, the money raked in by Bwana paid for twenty years of Arch Oboler’s less successful forays into moviemaking. Along the way, he commissioned the construction of an improved, proprietary 3-D system he called Space Vision.

In Hollywood terms Bwana Devil was a cheapie filmed practically ‘off the cuff,’ with a minimal set and a small cast. Oboler wangled some flimsy thatched huts, and put together a facsimile of a narrow-gauge train to represent a railway being built in the wilds of Kenya-Uganda in 1898. The story is very loosely based on a true episode. Marauding lions were blamed for the slow progress of railway construction, reportedly killing 130 people.  ^**

Killer lions?  Forget Robert Stack, this is a job for Tippi Hedren.

Work on a Kenyan railroad construction project stalls when the Indian workforce protests, claiming that a marauding lion is responsible for laborers gone missing. English Major Parkhurst (Ramsay Hill), the project manager, bullies the workers and scoffs at the notion of a killer lion. He becomes one of the first identified victims, along with a woman brought in to cook for the colonials (Hope Miller). Parkhurst’s death puts young Bob Hayward (Robert Stack) in charge. Married to the daughter of a railroad stockholder, the alcoholic Hayward considers himself a failure. But he’s even better at bullying the Indians, and he takes the lion threat seriously. He and his colleague Doctor Angus McLean (Nigel Bruce) determine that there are two lions. Every plan to kill them fails, including a baited trap and the hiring of expert Massai warrior tribesman. A Hayward assistant, the leader of the Indian contingent and another Brit military man are slaughtered. It’s a feline sweep on the scoreboard: Lions 20, People Zero.

A train brings a trio of hunters with experience against tigers in India, along with Hayward’s wife Alice (Barbara Britton of the 3-D  Dragonfly Squadron). Alice wants to support Bob and save her marriage. Before the hunt can begin, disaster strikes, leaving the married couple practically on their own and defenseless.

Bwana Devil  has immediate importance as the feature that ignited the big 3-D craze of the 1950s. Given original film materials to work with, the  3-D Film Archive’s restoration begins with an original five-minute B&W prologue introducing viewers to the process. Then the feature itself pops on in excellent 3-D and brilliant Ansco Color. It doesn’t matter that Arch Oboler’s movie is not Oscar material, as his well-publicized show was ‘The Firstest with The Mostest’ and enticed thousands of curious moviegoers into theaters. Oboler and his colleagues fashioned a big-deal box-office sensation out of what before had been a novelty item for short subjects.

Oboler’s script is respectful of the native African characters, but shows less sensitivity for the Indian laborers. The Brits mostly scream at them. They trick the Indians into staying on the job, knowing that some may become lion bait. [Note: Employees in ‘Right To Work’ states will recognize this as Standard Operating Procedure.]  Oboler must have deferred to his DP Joseph Biroc to get get good coverage of his scenes. The blocking may not be inspired but it is always competent. The 3-D format has its own logic, anyway: as with still photo slides in a  ‘View-Master,’ we appreciate shots that linger on interesting tableaux in depth.  The movie’s poor reputation likely comes from 2-D viewings — to make Bwana Devil interesting, the 3-D novelty needs to be part of the experience.

In 3-D, Oboler’s film is arresting. A clever title sequence is soon followed by a handsome tracking shot, that makes us forget that much of the rest of the picture relies on locked-down angles. Looking at photos of the bulky Natural Vision rig, we can imagine weary grips straining and grunting to heft it into each new setup.

‘Ansco Color’ was a rival of Eastmancolor, that MGM was using around the same time:  Escape from Fort Bravo,  Brigadoon, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. The softer pastel colors look very good here, maybe better than did original theatrical prints. Robert Stack and Nigel Bruce’s faces do often look dark and ruddy. The much-publicized ‘First 3-D Kiss’ simply has Stack and Barbara Britton’s enormous faces come at us through the convergence point, creating an almost alarmingly unpleasant sensation. A few spears are waved near the camera, but Three Stooges- like poking and pelting is kept to a minimum. It was Warner Bros. near-immediate 3-D hit  House of Wax that went wild with things thrust into our eyeballs, like a street entertainer’s paddle-ball act.

The art direction garbs the Indian extras in colored shirts and turbans, making them look like a box of crayons. Researcher Matt Rovner confirmed that Arch Oboler did indeed make a deal with a private zoo. Besides the photogenic pair of ‘star’ lions, various animals were trucked to Agoura, including what looks like a Gnu. The rented narrow-gauge train is some sort of cobbled-together facsimile; the little passenger car looks like it was thrown together over a weekend. But it’s all that is needed for this small-scale bit of drama.

The acting is only so-so — Arch Oboler’s cast on Five had practically directed themselves. Hard-working Robert Stack would do his best for most any director, but without guidance he had a tendency to go ‘too big,’ even in his big supporting role in John Wayne’s  The High and Mighty. Stack’s attempt at an English accent disappears after the first scene, and we don’t miss it one bit.  ^***

Pleasant Barbara Britton doesn’t even try for an English accent, leaving the film’s ‘Brit’ pantomime to a quintet of stuffy hunters and military men, all performed with dull competence. Exception Nigel Bruce is pleasantly likeable as a Scots doctor; he knows how to naturally maintain an even pitch. Oboler’s third act puts a strain on the actors, as they try to convey the panicked idea that the unstoppable lions ARE demons or devils.

The movie lions look good, just not super-ferocious or supernaturally Evil. Some of the attack scenes look like playtime on the set of  Born Free. The script compensates by being unusually morbid. A woman’s mutilated corpse is used as bait in an attempt to trap a Lion. Almost the entire cast becomes kitty chow — first a stuffy major, then a trusted Indian helper, some Massai natives. A third-act massacre wipes out almost everyone with a speaking part. The victims are presumably ripped to shreds and partially devoured. If the movie showed any of this implied gore, it would be as grim and bloody as a ’70s movie about cannibals or zombies. The finale is particularly heartless, as Bob and Alice Hayward react to an offscreen sight, the shredded remains of an adorable character we’d never expect to join the body count.

A clever special-effect ‘cheat’  allows Arch Oboler to use quite a bit of his 16mm African Safari footage. Selected shots of sunsets and  wildlife were enlarged to 35mm for use on a rear-projection stage. An ersatz 3-D effect is obtained by positioning actors, tree branches, and other bric-a-brac in front of the screen, to serve as foreground objects. Shrubs and flowers manipulated in the foreground turn the 2-D images into sort-of 3-D… with very grainy backgrounds. At least one Warners 3-D western paid attention to this Bwana Devil 3-D trick, and re-used flat action scenes from the film library. For the 3-D The Stranger Wore a Gun, miniature foreground bolders in 3-D augment a 2-D stagecoach chase.

Just as when we hear  Al Jolson sing and see  Richard Burton spread out across a CinemaScope screen, we are impressed by the Arch Oboler thriller that broke new cinematic ground. We hope that his film crew had a tractor or a crane to lift that big camera up atop rocky outcroppings, etc. — in 1952 the Agoura location was really out there, way before the freeway arrived. Bwana Devil is fun in Blu-ray 3-D … it’s fascinating to see Arch Oboler and company sussing out what must have been prodigious technical and logistical problems on a tiny budget.