Bwana Devil
| Bwana Devil | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Arch Oboler |
| Produced by |
Producer: Arch Oboler Associate producer: Sidney W. Pink |
| Written by | Arch Oboler |
| Starring |
Robert Stack Barbara Britton Nigel Bruce Ramsay Hill Paul McVey Hope Miller |
| Music by | Gordon Jenkins |
| Cinematography | Joseph F. Biroc |
| Edited by | John Hoffman |
| Distributed by |
Limited release: Arch Oboler Productions Wide release: United Artists |
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Release date
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Running time
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79 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $323,000 |
| Box office | $5 million |
Bwana Devil is a 1952 U.S. adventure film based on the true story of the Tsavo maneaters and filmed with the Natural Vision 3-D system. The film is notable for sparking the first 3-D film craze in the motion picture industry, as well as for being the first 3-D film in color and the first 3-D sound feature in English. Bwana Devil was written, directed and produced by Arch Oboler and stars Robert Stack, Barbara Britton and Nigel Bruce.
The advertising tagline was: The Miracle of the Age!!! A LION in your lap! A LOVER in your arms!
The film is set in British East Africa in the early 20th century. Thousands of workers are building the Uganda Railway, Africa's first railroad, and intense heat and sickness make it a formidable task. Two men in charge of the mission are Jack Hayward and Dr. Angus Ross. A pair of man-eating lions are on the loose and completely disrupt the undertaking. Hayward desperately attempts to overcome the situation, but the slaughter continues.
Britain sends three big-game hunters to kill the lions. With them comes Jack's wife. After the game hunters are killed by the lions, Jack sets out once and for all to kill them. A grim battle between Jack and the lions endangers both Jack and his wife. Jack kills the lions and proves he is not a weakling.
The plot was based on a well-known historical event, that of the Tsavo maneaters, in which many workers building the Uganda Railway were killed by lions. These incidents were also the basis for the book The Man-eaters of Tsavo (1907), the true story of the events written by Lt. Col. J. H. Patterson, the British engineer who killed the animals. The story was also the basis for the film The Ghost and the Darkness (1996) with Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer.
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Wikipedia