The Bubble (3D)
Arch Oboler is remembered above all for Bwana Devil (1952), the first feature-length 3D sound film, which jumpstarted American audiences’ fascination with this format in the 1950s. In contrast to his other director colleagues, Oboler remained a staunch believer in 3D and still experimented with it when virtually everyone else had lost interest. One result of his obsession was The Bubble, a rather cerebral entry in the 3D catalog. While looking for a hospital, a couple stumbles upon a strange small town, where the townsfolk drift through their days as if in a trance. Soon the two find out that extraterrestrials have isolated the community from the rest of the world and are now controlling the inhabitants in a transparent dome . . . A politically endlessly reinterpretable parable of totalitarianism that also works well as an allegory of the peculiarities of 3D cinema. (Olaf Möller)
Arch Oboler (1909–1987) was a tirelessly inventive screenwriter, director, novelist, and playwright. He was an American radio household name in the 1930s and ’40s, making an estimated 850 radio dramas, including the weekly horror program Lights Out. Expanding into cinema, he made nine films as a director. His independent movie Five (1951), which was shot at his own Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Malibu home and was the first film to imagine life after nuclear war, influenced François Truffaut and Bertrand Tavernier. Bwana Devil (1952), also made independently, was not only America’s first 3D film in color but also sparked a Hollywood 3D craze and helped revive widescreen filmmaking—a trend that continues to this day. He would later revisit the 3D experience in his work The Bubble (1966).
Screenings
