User reviews

Set entirely in Central Park (albiet a studio bound, rear projection version of it), this is one of Warner's most fascinating 60-minute lightning rounds, with Joan Blondell as the out of work Roxy usherette who gets caught up with gangsters (in her first scene she steals a hot dog from a vendor, out of starvation). On hand are Wallace Ford as the "Forgotten Man" who falls for her, Guy Kibbee as a Central Park cop, and John Wray as a sociopath on the loose.

If that isn't enough plot for an hour, there's a lion that escapes from the Central Park Zoo, and I don't know if it's special effects or just brilliant editing, but I'd swear that the extras and stunt men where REALLY put in harm's way with this animal, especially in the horrifying scene in the cage.

I have to address another reviewer's question about the "appeal of Joan Blondell." I totally disagree. Blondell's pre-code output is worthy of its own book. She was a master of rapid fire dialogue and wisecracks, with excellent comic timing. She instilled energy into films that are now unimaginable without her (GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933, NIGHT NURSE, BIG CITY BLUES, DAMES, etc), and if nothing else was the best co-star James Cagney ever had (BLONDE CRAZY, FOOTLIGHT PARADE, HE WAS HER MAN). I'd vote that her performances survive intact, and haven't dated a bit in 75 years (which I cant say for Garbo, Shearer, Crawford and some other shining lights of the era).

Central Park is a short not quite an hour B film that starred Joan Blondell and Wallace Ford who meet in the famous park over a pair of purloined hamburgers. They are the leads in a series of interconnected incidents involving a robbery of the famous Central Park Casino, an escaped lion from the zoo, Guy Kibbee as a beloved patrolman who is slowly losing his vision and trying to stick it out until retirement and an escaped mental patient who happens to be the former zoo keeper.

Of course the zoo and the Sheep Meadow are there, but today's audiences unless they're read in the history of the times wouldn't know about the Central Park Casino or that there was gambling and a nightclub on the park grounds. And in 1932 when the film came out, the Central Park Casino was the favored hangout of Mayor James J. Walker. An added dimension that theatergoers of the day had that people watching on TCM can't appreciate.

The film is structured kind of like Boogie Nights or Crash with the separate elements all coming together at the end. For B film, Warner Brothers put a lot of care into this one.

A lightning-paced Grand Hotel knockoff that crams more incidents into its brief running time than most films twice as long. It's a marvel of fat-free story telling, hokey, predictable and rarely less than delightful. Manhattan's famous landmark is re-imagined as an urban Sherwood Forest filled with merry paupers, evil bandits, benevolent Irish cops, homicidal madmen, and even a herd of braying sheep. Destitute Wallace Ford and Joan Blondell meet in the park, trading flirtatious smiles and glib wisecracks in the face of hunger and homelessness. The action quickly shifts into overdrive when Joan is suckered into a gangster's robbery scam. Meanwhile, a vengeance-seeking psycho prowls the park and an abused lion escapes from the zoo. John Adolphi, director of George Arliss' screen vehicles, seems to bask in his freedom from stodgy period pieces, taking lurid pleasure in protracted fistfights, gory lion maulings, and Blondell's plunging décolletage. His lowbrow enthusiasm is infectious. With Guy Kibbee in a rare non-comic turn as a park patrolman dreading retirement, John Wray as the giggly, eye-rolling maniac.

In New York's Central Park, jobless Joan Blondell (as Dot) flirts with unemployed Wallace Ford (as Rick) as they ogle unaffordable hot dogs. When a wayward baseball strikes the vendor's window, Ms. Blondell swipes two juicy hot dogs, which she shares with Mr. Ford. The two are mutually attracted, and arrange a more proper date. Ford is acquainted with the park cop Guy Kibbee (as Charlie). Mr. Kibbee has one week of work until he is eligible for pensioned retirement. However, Kibbee is no longer a competent policeman - his vision is failing...

Blondell is duped, by gangsters, into working undercover in a "Most Beautiful Girl" contest. Ford smells trouble, and gets into danger of his own. Meanwhile, lunatic John Wray (as Smiley) escapes from his insane asylum. A former keeper at the "Central Park Zoo", Mr. Wray causes trouble for everyone by causing the zoo's killer lion ("Nebo") to escape from his cage, and threaten the environs. Henry B. Walthall (as Eby) is a Kibbee confidante. Harold Huber (as Nick) is the gang leader. Director John G. Adolfi and his cast make this creaky early talkie roar with all their might.

****** Central Park (12/10/32) John G. Adolfi ~ Joan Blondell, Wallace Ford, Guy Kibbee, Henry B. Walthall

A Warners B that crams a lot into just under an hour, and belongs to no genre. It's a comedy! It's a tragedy! It's a drama! It's Warner Brothers social consciousness! Joan Blondell and Wallace Ford, both unemployed and living in the titular park, meet, flirt, and get into adventures, mostly involving her being hired by thugs posing as cops to help throw a charity event at the Central Park Casino. Meanwhile, in the Central Park Zoo, a keeper is abusing a lion, and is about to be confronted by a former colleague, who has escaped from the loony bin. So we've got gangsters, Depression romance, a sympathetic cop going blind (Guy Kibbee, plunging deeper than usual), and a lion loose in the park. It's fast and lively, far livelier than the usual output of John Adolfi, who tended to drag scenes out. It may have been filmed in Burbank, but the combination of stock footage and studio footage is expertly assembled, and the mad-lion sequences are satisfyingly frightening--I wouldn't be surprised to learn that extras WERE harmed during the making. Blondell is in her beguiling sexy-sassy mode, and Ford may not have been her strongest lead ever, but he gives good Forgotten Man.

Enjoyable Pre-Code drama centering around activity in New York's famous Central Park. Of course, it's filmed mostly on sets with rear projection effects used to place it in the park but it's not cheesy or anything distracting. The primary focus of the plot is on a couple of young jobless people (Joan Blondell, Wallace Ford) getting mixed up with gangster Harold Huber and his associates. There's also some interesting side stuff going on with Guy Kibbee as an aging policeman with bad eyesight and John Wray as an escaped lunatic who unleashes a lion in the park. Kibbee's got a week to go until he can retire. We know what that means in modern films but does it mean the same in a movie made in 1932? Watch and see. It's a good B movie that gives you a look back at Depression-era New York. That little slice of history, coupled with a short runtime, some exciting action scenes, and a quality Warner Bros. cast makes this one classic film fans will want to seek out.

Crazy and fun 1930s picture, the way that all 1930s pics seem to be, with sometimes little control or care for the plot. Joan Blundell and Wallace Ford star as the most two attractive bums you could ever meet. Blondell gets a job being a pretty girl for a ball, but little does she know that she's ACTUALLY going to be a switcheroo in a planned robbery of the benefit money! Oh, there's also a lion that escapes and wanders around terrorizing everybody, a nearly blind policeman who fails to catch the insane past-zookeeper who lets the lion free, and Wallace Ford.. is just there responding to everything. It's all pretty crazy.. and pretty darn entertaining!

I wonder was it some sort of challenge at Warners back then to see who could stuff as much action and content into one of these fabulous little First National quickies. This one is overflowing with every trope, theme, cliché, and idiom that every early thirties WB film ever had. It's not going to stretch your brain, it's not going to challenge you but it is going to entertain your totally. As crazy as the fastest of fast moving plot is, the clever script manages to fit all the different stories together seamlessly.

What makes Central Park that little bit special is its charm. That charm is provided by its three main stars who are really natural and believable. The one scene which sets this is a beautifully endearing moment when Joan Blondell and Wallace Ford, our two heroes just about staving off starvation are sharing a stolen hot dog - this memorable moment epitomises the whole plight of the homeless during The Depression - it's so moving and touching.

Guy Kibbee who is usually used simply as light comedy support, really gets to shine in this one, He plays a loveable old policemen with just one week to go before he retires - hoping that nothing goes wrong (maybe this wasn't such a cliché back in 1932?) He doesn't account for the gangsters and the escaped man-eating lion of course!

Central Park (1932)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Dot (Joan Blondell) and Rick (Wallace Ford) are both as broke as broke can be when they meet each other in Central Park. After stealing a couple hot dogs to eat the two agree to meet up later in the day. They both end up getting small jobs by the police. Rick gets one from a nice policeman (GUy Kibbee) who is losing his vision. Dot thinks she's working for cops for a charity benefit but she's actually getting double crossed by a gangster.

CENTRAL PARK is without question one of the strangest films you're ever going to see from this era of Hollywood. I'm going to guess that the screenwriter had written four or five incomplete scripts and just decided to throw bits and pieces of all of them into one film. This movie starts off dealing with the depression, which is something rare for this era. It then turns into a cute romantic comedy. Then, out of nowhere, it turns into a bizarre murder film with a nut escaping from a mental hospital. Then it turns into a film about an escaped lion. Oh, then we get back to the woman being double crossed by gangsters.

As you can tell, there's all sorts of crazy stuff that happens in this film and what's even more shocking is that they pack it all into a short 58 minutes. Is this a good movie? Not really but with so much weird stuff going on you can't help but be entertained. The greatest thing going for the picture are the three leads who deliver fine performances. Again, with such a short running time they don't get too much to do but what's here is a lot of fun. Blondell and Ford have a lot of nice chemistry together and Kibbee is always watchable no matter what he's doing.

CENTRAL PARK isn't a well-known movie, which is a shame. I'm sure if more people watched it it could gain a cult following because of how nuts it actually is.

Joan Blondell and Wallace Ford meet when she steals a couple of hot dogs and offers him one. They're both broke. Guy Kibbee is a cop and one week from his pension. There's a maniac who's wants to kill one of the zoo keepers and set the lion free; and there's a fancy party at the Casino raising money for poor relief, and some hoods have worked out a clever scheme to rob it. Just another afternoon and night in New York's Central Park.

It's a nice idea for a movie, and once upon a time there ma have been more to it, but by the time John Adolfi's movie got to the theaters, it was less than an hour long. It's rather poor, but if you like to check off movies where certain performers appear, this is a good one for that exercise.

This movie is beautifully photographed. George Cukor did well by Central Park a couple decades later. In between (and after) -- has the beauty been paralleled?

In this Central Park, there are actual sheep in Sheep Meadow!

There are also the always marvelous Joan Blondell, Wallace Ford, a lion, gangsters, a touching cop losing his eyesight, and as many plots as there are in "Grand Hotel" (though this movie seems less dated than that more famous one.)

Never a dull moment, but all over the map. In its short 58 minute run time, it's got elements of the Depression, romance, gangsters, a psychopath on the loose, an aging cop with just one week to go before he gets his pension (gosh will anything go wrong?), a grisly murder straight out of Tod Browning, and some pretty scary stunt scenes involving a lion. Joan Blondell is as charming as always and she has good chemistry with Wallace Ford, but since this one tried to pack too much other stuff in, we don't get enough of it. While you can certainly do better if you're looking for a pre-Code film, it has a certain entertainment appeal in all of the things that go on. Much as I like Joan Blondell though, what stands out are the lion scenes, and I'd love to know more about how they were filmed.

Generally, Warner Brothers made terrific films--lots of fun and with some wonderful actors. However, this B-movie just never seemed to gel for me--mostly because the script was so bizarre and uneven. Even with Joan Blondell, Wallace Ford and Guy Kibbee trying their best, it's still a sub-par film.

The film is unusual for a Depression-era movie in that it actually acknowledges that their is a depression!! Too often, films throughout the 1930s were about rich society folks--yet most people in the country were barely scraping by. Here, the film finds Ford and Blondell homeless and without jobs. They manage to scrape by here and there but have to sleep in the park because they just haven't got enough money even to eat. Later, their need for a job manages to merge with another plot--this one involving a cop with bad eyesight (Kibbee) and an escaped maniac. Both plots (particularly the Kibbee one) are just weird and tough to connect with. How they later intersect is also odd. Now I like novel ideas--but they need to be realistic or at least enjoyable. However, I just kept waiting and waiting for some payoff but by the end of the film I just came to realize that this was a bit of a bust. Not terrible--but also not particularly good. Considering that Blondell was a very new starring actress, this sort of throwaway role isn't all that surprising. Most actors did a few turkeys like this on their role to stardom.

... and that's too bad because this film isn't shown much. It is classic Depression era Warner Brothers, with a meet cute scene involving two hungry homeless people - Joan Blondell and Wallace Ford - and a couple of sizzling sausages that are purloined by Blondell. They meet while eating the sausages.

I guess it is called "Central Park" because it has a little bit of everything, and the big scenes are set in Central Park. Blondell and Ford get in trouble because they really want jobs and unknowingly get mixed up with some gangsters' robbery plans in pursuit of said employment. Guy Kibbee has a poignant role as a cop who is going blind but just has to stay on the job a short while longer without being outed so he can retire and get his pension. He has an easy beat after all - Central Park. What could happen?

Well, there is an insane guy - John Wray always played such parts well, even if exaggerated - who busts loose from a mental hospital and locks a zookeeper he perceives as mean to the animals in the lion cage of the Central Park Zoo. Then the lion gets set free, and like in an Irwin Allen film, "The Beasts are in the Street". And suddenly Kibbee's blindness is highly visible.

Very fast moving with great dialogue and well worth your time if you can ever find it.

Joan Blondell is Dot, who meets Rick (Wallace Ford); they are hanging around Central Park in New York City, but will do anything for work. Guy Kibbee is Charlie, the almost-blind policeman, who has just one week left to retire, and we all know what that means... Dot and Rick accidentally get caught up in a robbery at a fund-raiser. meanwhile, Smiley, the crazy zookeeper has escaped from the asylum and is causing trouble at the zoo. everything happens at once! It's pretty good... the story is rather contrived, but a good snapshot of the rough and tumble 1930s. Blondell and Kibbee carry the show. Directed by John Adolfi, who did most of his work in silents, as actor and director. Worked with George and Florence Arliss, and even a couple with Bette Davis. Adolfi died quite young, just a year after making this film.

This starts with a bum on a bench and a sheep herder in NYC's Central Park. Rick gets into a fight with the hot dog guy and Dot steals a couple of dogs. Both are hungry and jobless. The 'cops' have a 'job' for her. Policeman Charlie Cabot gets Rick a job washing police motorcycles. Cabot has only one week before retirement, but he's losing his eyesight. Ex-lion keeper Robert Smiley escapes from the insane asylum.

Sometimes, following multiple stories can be a chore. All of these stories have something interesting. There is an old-school lion wrestling scene which doesn't get done today. The caper is a little confusing for me although I may be just that dumb. The escaped lion actually looked dangerous. The panic feels real even though the people and the lion are rarely together at the same time. My one suggestion is going back to the lion safely secured in the zoo as the last shot. Maybe they didn't want to be confused with the MGM lion.

Portmanteau originally referred to a large leather suitcase that would open into two hinged compartments. It was later used to describe a word formed by merging the sounds and meanings of two different words, e.g. Smog from smoke and fog. At some point, the movie industry began using portmanteau to describe a film with two or more parallel stories that shared a common unifying plot element; e.g. Grand Hotel (1932), Tales of Manhattan (1942), The Yellow Rolls Royce (1964), and The Red Violin (1998).

Central Park (CP) is a low budget version of a portmanteau film. It uses the famous city park as the unifying plot device to link several parallel stories into a very brisk and enjoyable 57 minute second feature. In that relatively brief running time, we are exposed to the failing eyesight of elderly cop Guy Kibbee and its possible effect on his impending retirement plans; an attractive young couple (Joan Blondell and Wallace Ford) who "meet cute" and unwittingly get involved with a gang of thieves: a lion that escapes from the park zoo and terrorizes a nearby night club; a beauty contest that goes very bad: and a lunatic who exited an asylum bent on revenge against the person he believes help to send him there---all in the space of less than one hour and to identify just a few!

Kibbee, Blondell and Ford shine in their early career roles. In particular, Blondell's endearing and likable screen presence---coupled with her youthful attractiveness---make her truly a treat to watch. The director in charge of this film was John Adolfo---now virtually unknown and probably best remembered for helming a few of George Arliss's early sound biographical pictures.

CP is rather obscure, but it occasionally turns up on Turner Classic Movies. It is worth your while to seek it out and realize how even a "B" film made quickly and economically under the Warner Brothers studio system.could nonetheless be fun, entertaining and--in its own way--memorable.

All the action in "Central Park" occurs during a single day and night, in Manhattan's Central Park and in the area immediately surrounding it. This film uses the "book-ends" structure which was employed in so many Warner Brothers films of the early 1930s. In the opening shot of the film, we see a vaudeville-comedy "tramp" yawning as he wakes up in Central Park to begin a new day. In the last shot of the film, we see the same tramp yawning again, in the same place, as he prepares to bed down for the night in Central Park. Except for these two "book-ends", the tramp never appears anywhere in the film.

Rick and Dot are two young people desperately trying to get through the Depression, one day at a time. Rick is so desperate for work, he agrees to wash several dozen policemen's motorcycles for an insultingly small amount of pay. Dot gets a job as a fashion model, but she doesn't know that the "fashion show" is a front for a criminal scam.

The film features the usual cast of Warners supporting players, each with their own subplot. Guy Kibbee is excellent as a veteran cop on the beat. Tonight is his very last tour of duty: as he straps on his holster for the very last time, he remarks that he's managed to get through all his years as a policeman without ever once firing his gun ... so you just KNOW something's going to happen tonight. John Wray, a character actor who played Lon Chaney-ish roles in the 1930s (without Chaney's subtlety), hams it up here as an insane zoo-keeper named Smiley, who escapes from the loony bin and returns to his job at the Central Park Zoo to release the lions and get revenge on the head zoo-keeper who got Smiley sacked from his zoo job. (This is almost a parody of the role Chaney played in "He Who Gets Slapped".) One of Smiley's lions ends up in a taxi cab, on the way to Joan Blondell's fashion show. Yes, it's THAT sort of movie.

Wallace Ford, always an under-rated actor, gives the best performance in this film. Blondell gives one of her usual bad performances. Most of Joan Blondell's early films feature a scene in which a bunch of men stand about, ogling Blondell and remarking on how gorgeous she is: there's a scene like that here, but I just don't get it. Blondell looked very cheap and common, and her appeal has always eluded me.

"Cental Park" can't decide whether it wants to be a comedy or a drama. It starts out funny, moves into serious territory with its Depression subject matter, dips into tragedy for the Guy Kibbee scenes, then just gets completely weird with its homicidal maniac zoo-keeper and taxi-taking lion. Fortunately, each of the individual plot elements is done well, with the usual Warner Brothers proficiency. But "Central Park" is like a mismatched jigsaw puzzle of good pieces from several unrelated films. One of the odder examples of a 1930s second-feature: enjoyable but weird. I'll rate it 7 out of 10.

Great chemistry between actors- and especially the bravery of the extras being chased by a lion! ..even get to see one fed to him ! The hour goes quick- it's not too predictable 👍 Don't forget the popcorn!