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.

MartinHafer I will admit that "Bwana Devil" is not a great movie, but to compare this groundbreaking 3-D movie to "Plan 9 From Outer Space" is utterly ridiculous, as "Bwana Devil" is not bad--but it is slightly below average. The negatives are Robert Stack's overacting and forgetting his accent frequently as well as a few cheesy scenes (seeing a stuffed lion tossed on Nigel Bruce when he was supposedly being attacked was unintentionally funny). The HUGE plus is that this film was made mostly in Africa and looks so much better than the tons of schlocky African films of the 1930s-50s.The story is a dramatization of a real story of a couple man-eating lions and the man who ultimately killed them. It's the same story you'll see in the newer and better "Ghost and the Darkness"--so my advice is see this film instead. But, if you don't, you'll essentially learn the same story...along with Stack's less than stellar performance. Not a bad film at all--just not one that will bowl you over, either.

bree_thom I admit I have not seen this movie in 3D, nor is it germane to my opinion. As another reviewer notes, this movie elevates "Plan Nine From Outer Space", which was made with virtually no budget, to "good movie" level.This studio movie features contract actor Robert Stack, who leaves me wondering why the studio retained him on contract. He was a horrible actor, with no more depth than a mannequin. In this movie, the stuffed lions used to cold-cock Barbara Britton,(the archetypal swooning, cumbersomely-dressed white-woman-in-peril), had more animation than Stack. Or Britton.But moving on, this movie is about rogue man-eating lions. Er, lions in the wild eat moving mammals including men, so this was already a silly premise. But this "Kenya", obviously filmed on a Hollywood backlot (I recognize the area), features an African-less Africa. By that I mean, there are no Black Africans save for the random Black toddler who is eaten by the stuffed lions. The "African" slaves are all well-paid, self-sufficient, independent Sikhs! 1950's Hollywood sanitized film and TV by eliminating Blacks wherever possible. Apparently that included Africa. In this movie, "Africa" had automagically become the less-dark, ergo more acceptable India! I wonder how the previous reviewers missed this salient feature. Hm.What is there to recommend this movie? Well, perhaps as an example of bad acting, writing, plot, special effects, production values... It is a relic of what killed the movie industry in the 1950's and 1960's.Hint. It was not television.

jackbwhittaker Based on a true story. 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. Lot's of shots of animal herds and native tribal dancing. The outdoor shots are brightly lit but the studio shots are quite dark. Third Dimension photography requires sets to be brightly lit. Starring Robert Stack, Barbara Britton and Nigel Bruce. 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. 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.