Release
The film premiered under the banner of "Arch Oboler Productions" on November 26, 1952 at the Paramount Theater in Hollywood. As at all U.S. screenings of feature-length 3-D films in the 1950s, the polarized light method was used and the audience wore 3-D glasses with gray Polaroid filters. The anaglyph color filter method was only used for a few short films during these years. The two-strip Natural Vision projection system required making substantial alterations to a theater's projectors and providing its screen with a special non-depolarizing surface.
The film was a critical failure, but a runaway success with audiences. It opened in San Francisco on December 13, Philadelphia, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio on December 25, and New York on February 18, 1953. M.L. Gunzburg presents 3-D, a short film produced by Bob Clampett and featuring Beany and Cecil, was screened preceding the film. Long thought lost, the short rejoined Bwana Devil for screenings at the Egyptian Theater in 2003 and 2006.
United Artists bought the rights to Bwana Devil from Arch Oboler Productions for $500,000 and a share of the profits and began a wide release of the film in March as a United Artists film. A lawsuit followed, in which producer Edward L. Alperson Jr. claimed that he was part owner in the film after purchasing a part of it for $1,000,000 USD. The courts decided in Oboler's favor, as Alperson's claim was unsubstantiated and "under the table".
The other major studios reacted by releasing their own 3-D films. Warner Brothers optioned the Natural Vision process for House of Wax. It premiered on April 10, 1953 and was advertised as "the first 3-D release by a major studio". In truth, Columbia had trumped them by two days with their release of Man in the Dark on April 8, 1953.
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