Révolte au zoo

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.

I have always wanted to see this: A friend's mother told me many years ago it was her favorite movie as a child.

It's a lovely creation. Gene Raymond, in surely his most appealing screen role, plays a Dr. Doolittle type who works at the zoo. Raymond wears a cap throughout, covering his marcelled blond hair. His character was decades ahead of PETA: When wealthy women come in wearing furs, he steals and burns them. And he has a very believable way with the animals.

The animals and birds are filmed gorgeously by Lee Garmes. In a later, better movie animals watch over the goings on of the human characters in a similar way: "The Night of the Hunter." But this is lovely itself.

Loretta Young, one of the screen's great beauties, looks ravishing as an orphan who slips away from the other girls and the evil matrons on their outing at the zoo. A child who does the same is thrown in, to little effect. Adorable children were in vogue at the time but his character is unnecessary and not especially appealing.

O.P. Heggie is likable and handsomely photographed as the sympathetic veterinary doctor. And Paul Fix is an effective villain.

Anyone who likes animals will be touched by this. Yes, opinion toward zoos has changed since the early 1930s. But we see them treated with nothing but love and understanding, other than by the villain. It is sure to win you over.

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.

Zoo in Budapest (1933)

*** (out of 4)

A young man (Gene Raymond) who's best friends are the animals in the zoo falls in love with a runaway orphan (Loretta Young). This is a nice romantic drama that has a lot of wonderful footage shot inside the famous Budapest zoo. All the stuff dealing with the animals is very nice and the ending is full of wonderful suspense as the animals escape from their cages and start a riot. Young is beautiful and very good as usual but there's very little chemistry with Raymond who is quite dull in the film. O.P. Heggie, the hermit in The Bride of Frankenstein plays the main doctor at the zoo. Directed by Rowland V. Lee who's best known for Son of Frankenstein and Tower of London.

Gene Raymond (he was the lead in Flying Down to Rio, opposite another unearthly beauty, Dolores Del)is only just bearable, but the female lead is Loretta Young, as a fragile, dreamy orphan held captive by the wicked witches of an orphanage. Her delicacy and sensitivity find a parallel in the imprisoned animals of the zoo, and their rage at the injustice of their captivity is embodied in the rage of the tiger. The climax of the movie (filmed, I should think, before animal-protection laws were passed to regulate filming) had me terrified almost to the point of screaming when I saw it many years ago in a cinema, and, not long ago, I found it, even on television, almost as powerful.

An exotic pleasure of the film that can be experienced first hand is the actual Budapest Zoo, which is somewhat altered since the filming, but which still has the fabulous Art Nouveau elephant house!