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The two face-to-face Mitchell cameras mounted on the Blue Goose

With King Solomon´s Mines (1950) and The African Queen (1951) as immediate precedents,
Bwana Devil brings us another African adventure. It includes wildlife footage shot on location
in the Belgian Congo, Kenya and Uganda as background. The heavy cameras and equipment
were brought to the Paramount ranch in the Santa Monica Hills, an area with a strong
resemblance to the African savannah.
Robert Stack, Nigel Bruce and Barbara Britton play the lead characters. The story is simple: at
the turn of the century (yet looking quite actual), two lions terrorize the native workers of the
first railroad built by the British in East Africa, and the white engineer in charge (Stack) tries to
stop them. Not before, according to the reviews, some 200 natives are killed (these must have
been some of the fattest lions in Africa). It was based on real facts which took place in 1898
during the Tsavo bridge construction, part of the Kenya-Uganda railway, when two lions
repeatedly attacked the working party.

The huge 3D cameras were mounted on a four-wheeled vehicle, with a hydraulic lift platform,
nicknamed “the blue goose” by the crew. This allowed a closeness which enhanced the sense
of “being there” with the players.

Milton Gunzburg, the 3D camera representative, and Arch Oboler, independent producer,
writer and director, had joined efforts to make the tri-dimensional experience come true in that
“first” 3D feature. Gunzburg´s brother, Julian, who was an eye doctor, helped give the idea
shape as he was an amateur 3D photographer (stereo photographic cameras were available
since long ago). They had been contacted by engineer Friend Baker, a former cameraman in
early motion picture making. Baker was the pioneer who designed the camera, based on a first
16 mm prototype he had built using an alternate frame system of mirrors shifting with each
frame, thus creating a tri-dimensional effect. Baker and friend cameraman Lothrop Worth

8 REEL DEALS September 2024