Up in Central Park

The dialogue and the overflowing production values of 'Up in Central Park' are two pleasurable surprises so many years afterwards to someone who is only just discovering the legacy of Deanna Durbin.

What never ceases to amaze me is the high standard of her films. They were, actually and in the flow of things, pretty run-of-the-mill, but the majority of them work incredibly well today, and 'Up in Central Park' is one of the most delightful. It has a magnificent script about a magnate, in actual fact a kind of dictator of New York City who whitewashes his money through Central Park, has the puppet mayor elected by bribing immigrants just off Ellis Island to vote in the names of dead constituents, and is just overall a very bad guy. He is played by Vincent Price, of course, soft-voiced, seductive and insinuating. An utter gentleman even at the end. "I wish more patriots like you would come to this country", he says, debonairly and hilariously. Deanna Durbin is the young Irish girl with dreams of becoming an opera star. She has just arrived in New York with her illiterate father who is given the position of superintendent of Central Park, because Vincent Price thinks his daughter overheard his evil plans for the city. Then enters young, ambitious reporter Dick Haynes with his lovely tenor voice, and he wants to bring the mighty down.

So we have young budding love, we have the older lecher, we have filial duty, and we have scathing political satire, believe me. "If you're strong enough to take something, it belongs to you", Vincent Price says, and the film takes him seriously as it well might, and the jokes aside Price's character is not too far off the mark.

The music is pleasant, the acting a sheer joy, and the pacing admirable.

Despite not featuring in the top billing, this film really belongs to the honest emigrant Irishman "Moore" (Albert Sharpe). Straight off the boat with his feisty daughter "Rosie" (Deanna Durbin) he bumps into a welcoming committee that lets him know how he can take part in the democratic process (for a new mayor) and make a few bucks at the same time. He excels at his task and by a quirk of fate finds himself superintendent of Central Park - on a wapping great $3,000k per year! He is hands on, so likes to feed the animals - an activity that is clearly prohibited and attracts the attention of journalist "Matthews" (Dick Haymes). Realising the man's job and the purpose of the feeding - geese, grouse, duck all destined for the table of kingpin "Tweed" (Vincent Price), he writes a column, gets "Moore" fired and rouses the wrath of "Rosie" who intercedes for her father and also manages to attract the attention of "Tweed" too. It's quite a fun tale of corrupt local politics, naivety and integrity this, with Sharpe delivering well and Durbin doing the lively characterisation that she always did engagingly, too. Price makes for a reasonable sophisticate-cum-power-broker and Hobart Cavanaugh also chips in nicely as the hapless Mayor just doing what he is told. The ending is all a bit rushed, the story is really quite incomplete on a number of fronts and the musical numbers don't do a great deal for maintaining the pace, but it has a certain plausibility to it. It's quite possible this is what New York might have been like at the start.

Durbin and Price are in top form; both are charming, and hit just the right light note in their acting style. Dick Haymes sings very well, but lacks charisma and spark as an actor. The actor playing Durbin's Irish father is strictly from the Barry Fitzgerald school of ersatz Blarney.

Contrary to what another reviewer said, this 100% soundstange shot film shows all to clearly that Universal didn't spend much money on it. Sets are unusually limited in scope for a musical. One example: In one number immigrant Durbin on the deck of a boat coming to America sings about the new countries glories. Not only is the boat deck tiny with the only backdrop a painted sky, but there is not one shot showing what she is singing about, what is supposedly inspiriting her song.

The plot and characters are hardly realistic, but work just fine for a musical. The dialog is well written, better than in the majority of musicals of this era.

The music, what there is of it, has big, well written orchestrations, and the fidelity is excellent on the VHS tape. Johnny Green is credited as composer- music director, and I believe he was head of MGM's music department at the time, so I suspect Universal farmed out musical duties to MGM (L.B. Mayor was father in law to Universal's chief). If so, it was a good decision.

As was standard practice in this era, only a few of the songs written for the stage show on which the film was based made it to the film. The glaring omission is "We'll Be Close As Pages In A Book", which I believe is the only song from the theater production to become popular and have a life outside of the show. It's not in the film, but is very prominently featured in the instrumental title music and is the music which closes the film. Makes me suspect they filmed the song, but cut it before the film was released.

As far as I know, this was the last time Deanna Durbin stood before the cameras (even though For The Love of Mary was released some months later, having been shelved for a while). She has gained a few extra pounds, but her voice has also gained weight: the one short operatic excerpt proves that she was becoming a proper soprano with rich, full, operatic voice. It's a pity she doesn't sing more in this film, and also a great pity she didn't pursue career in opera as she quit movies.

Why Universal didn't shoot this in full color and why they cast Dick Haynes, are beyond me. This shouldn't have been a project to save money with, but to spend spend spend! It's very well written and just plain interesting. The story runs smoothly and is quite multidimensional - you can understand most of the characters and their motives, and even the smooth villain becomes rather sympathetic once he explains his views on life to Deanna whom he really seems to cherish. But then again, Vincent Price is at his very best here, sexy and handsome as the Devil, and their scenes with Durbin are really sizzling, so one might turn a blind eye to his evil nature and be lulled into sleep by his silky voice and seductive manners. With Dick Haynes the things get to a halt - he's obviously miscast and seems rather uncomfortable. There's no electricity between him and Deanna.

This film would work well even as a straight picture. The musical numbers are only a few and even though not very memorable, they blend in well with the action. Not at all a bad pastime for Durbin / Price fans.

UP IN CENTRAL PARK (Universal-International, 1948), directed by William A. Seiter, stars Deanna Durbin in her next to last movie of her career. For her first 1948 release, she stars in a light-hearted period piece based on a popular 1945 musical play of the same name by Dorothy and Herbert Fields. Aside from some changes from stage to screen regarding both story and selected song tunes, the film in general is livably typical Durbin material which allows her to change from teenage Irish girl in pig-tails to attractive young woman. What's most interesting here is casting Durbin opposite Vincent Price (then not quite the horror film actor he was to become years later) in his rare occasion cast in a musical story. Though Price would have done very well in the singing category, all major vocals go to the pleasing voices by Durbin and 20th Century-Fox alumni, Dick Haymes.

In spite of the title, the 88 minute story is not set entirely in Central Park. However, it takes place in 1870s New York City where the plot introduces William Marcy Treed (Vincent Price), a corrupt political boss of the Tammany Hall Society advocating the re- election of weak and drunken candidate, Mayor Oakley (Hobart Cavanaugh,) back in office so to resume his crooked deals. Going against Treed is New York Times reporter John Matthews (Dick Haymes) out to expose him, but because of his lack of evidence that would stand up on court, he's unable to do so. Later on a boat arriving from Europe to Ellis Island are immigrants, including that of Rosie (Deanna Durbin) and her widower father, Timothy Moore (Arthur Sharpe) coming to their land of opportunity where Rosie hopes to become a great opera singer. Soon after, Mr. Moore is met by Regan (Tom Powers), one of Tweed's associates offering naive immigrants extra money voting straight candidate tickets under names of those unable to cast a ballot, namely the sick and deceased, even without being American citizens. Offered $2 a vote, Mr. Moore earns $50 for voting 23 times for Oakley. Having fallen asleep in Tweed's office while awaiting to meet with him, Treed, believing Rosie has overheard him discussing with the board about embezzling funds through unnecessary renovation of Central Park, gets on her good graces by offering her father a $3,000 a year job as park superintendent plus living accommodations inside Central Park. As much as Rosie feels Tread to be a great man of honor, it's up to Matthews, who has taken an interest in the young lady, to convince her otherwise.

With music and lyrics by Sigmund Romberg and Dorothy Fields, the motion picture soundtrack is as follows: "Vote for Treed" (sung by candidates); "Oh Say Do You See What I See" (sung by Deanna Durbinb); "Carousel in the Park" (sung by Dick Haymes and Deanna Durbin); "The Ice Skating Ballet" (photograph come to life sequence choreographed by Helen Tamiras); "When She Walks in the Room" (sung by Dick Haymes); "Pace, Pace Mio Mio" and Giuseppe Verdi's Opera LA FORZE DEL DESTINO (sung by Durbin); and "The Waiter/Can-Can Dance" (instrumental). Though the songs are proved satisfactory, including Durbin's "Oh Say Do You See" number and a couple of Dick Haymes song interludes, they are, in the most part, unmemorable.

While the legacy of Universal Studio rests mostly on its reputation for horror films and/or Abbott and Costello comedies, one of the biggest money makers for the studio since 1936 were those films starring Deanna Durbin. Making no attempt speaking with an Irish brogue, which is left to the Barry Fitzgerald sounding voice of co-star, Arthur Sharpe, Durbin's Rosie is less typical Irish stereotype than most, though her Irish temper does flare up on a couple of occasions with her giving face slaps to those who make her angry. When watching Durbin playing opposite Vincent Price, one would have to feel their missed opportunity for not being cast together in the sound remake of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1943), in place of the casting of Susanna Foster and Claude Rains. Interestingly with this combination for UP IN CENTRAL PARK that Price presence gathers the most attention with his scene stealing performance, while Arthur Sharpe gets some moments to himself in a scene where he attempts to get his education by learning to read by attending school seated in a classroom surrounded by third grade students.

A satisfactory presentation with authentic recreated costumes and settings that blend in perfectly with its time frame, it's a wonder why it wasn't produced in Technicolor. Though UP IN CENTRAL PARK did have some limited TV revivals in the 1980s, especially on public broadcasting television, it did become available on video cassette in 1998 and years later on DVD as part of the Deanna Durbin collection, simply indicating the Durbin name isn't as unknown or forgotten as legend may have it believed to be. (***)