Zoo in Budapest

This film was transmitted in the early hours on the UK's Channel 4 terrestrial channel. (5 Dec 1998). It was an unusual film set in a zoo in Budapest and concerned the relationship between an enlightened keeper (Gene Raymond) and an escaped orphan (Loretta Young). There was a little too much anthropomorphism as far as the animals were concerned but overall that was forgivable. Some of the shots involving the animals were realistic and I suspect the modern disclaimer about animals not being hurt during the making of the picture could not have been made. There was a dream and fairy-tale air about the film and I wonder if it was regarded as unusual when it was made in 1933. It does not fit easily into any of the usual categories. I would recommend any one having the chance of seeing this film to take that chance. They will be rewarded with a pleasant novelty of a film.

One of those rare, subversive films that skip through the Hollywood generic net. It has everything - a love story, filmed with all the delicate visual poetry of a silent melodrama; a bizarre social critique that compares a repressive social order (eerily foreshadowing life under capitalism) with the caged animals in the zoo. Climax one of the most extraordinary in all cinema - love story equated with social revolt; animals rebel in violent, Surreal chaos. Liberating and ravishing.

This rare film is one of the best of the 1930's. The story is very original and the way the director did it is simply amazing! Beautiful and creative piece of work. It's absolutely very unique!

The extreme naivete of the story and the characters led me to walk out on this film 20 years ago. Now, seeing it again, the delicacy and charm of the settings, the photography, the detail and care with which the imaginary world of the zoo and its visitors is created all engender my respect, if not real enthusiasm. The opening sequence, particularly, (isn't that so often true of early thirties films?) is a bravura combination of moving camera, imaginative sets, and crowd handling to create a sense of a time and place that may never have existed, but should have. The romance of the two lost souls is charming but just a little precious. The pandemonium of the escaped animals at the finale has some well edited, thrilling footage and is a satisfying conclusion to a story about characters who have no place in the real world and for whose situation it was hard to see any satisfactory resolution. As other viewers have commented here, this IS a unique film, with a unified artistic sensibility, and deserves a look by anyone at all interested in films of the early thirties.

It will take more than a little suspension of disbelief to buy the core fantasy: that fast talking Gene Raymond has lived his entire life inside the Budapest Zoo, ditto the idea that gorgeous Loretta Young is a poor orphan. But no matter, for the film is a marvelous and unusual piece of work, seldom seen and well worth finding. In fact, the sets alone make it a must see. As a side note, Raymond's character may be one of the sound era's first animal rights activists...I recall no previous studio film taking a stand against fur (though don't get your hopes up--the thrilling finale, featuring lions and elephants on the loose, surely traumatized the animals involved).