Central Park

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.

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.

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.

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).

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!