Musical Monday: Up in Central Park (1948)

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It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals.
In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 600. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals.

This week’s musical:
Up in Central Park (1948) – Musical #840

Studio:
Universal Studio

Director:
William A. Seiter

Starring:
Deanna Durbin, Dick Haymes, Vincent Price, Albert Sharpe, Tom Powers, Hobart Cavanaugh, Thurston Hall, Howard Freeman, Mary Field, Tom Pedi, Moroni Olsen

Plot:
Boss Tweed (Price) is a corrupt politician, who runs New York City politics from Tammany Hall with his political machine. Rosie Moore (Durbin) and her father, Timothy Moore (Sharpe), are Irish immigrants who arrive in New York City seeking a better life and quickly get entangled with Boss Tweed. As Timothy begins working for Boss Tweed, reporter John Matthews (Haymes) befriends the Moore family to expose Tweed’s corruption.

Trivia:
• Based on the Broadway musical, “Up in Central Park” that opened on Jan. 27, 1945, and ran for 504 performances. The show had book by Herbert Fields and Dorothy Fields, lyrics by Dorothy Fields, and music by Sigmund Romberg.
• Actor, dancer Fred Astaire considered making his directorial debut with this film. However, due to his new chain of dance schools, Astaire kept him from taking the project, according to the American Film Institute (AFI).
• Originally supposed to be filmed in color
• Universal bought the film rights to this story in 1946.
• The number “The Birds and the Bees” from the stage production was not in the film version, because it did not meet the production code.
• Deanna Durbin’s second to last film

Highlights:
• Deanna Durbin, because she’s great in every film
• The Stereoscope Courier and Ives dream sequence

Notable Songs:
• “Oh Say, Can You See (What I See)” performed by Deanna Durbin
• “Carousel in the Park” performed by Deanna Durbin and Dick Haymes
• “Pace, Pace Mio Dio” performed by Deanna Durbin

My review:
William “Boss” Tweed was a corrupt political boss who was involved in a political scandal in 1871 at Tammany Hall in New York. Obviously, this make an ideal topic for a Deanna Durbin musical.

UP IN CENTRAL PARK (1948) is a fictionalized story surrounding these events and is based on a 1945 Broadway musical by Herbert and Dorothy Fields.

In the film, Boss Tweed (Vincent Price) is a corrupt politician, who runs New York City politics from Tammany Hall with his political machine. Rosie Moore (Deanna Durbin) and her father, Timothy Moore (Albert Sharpe), are Irish immigrants who arrive in New York City seeking a better life and quickly get entangled with Boss Tweed. As Timothy begins working for Boss Tweed, reporter John Matthews (Dick Haymes) befriends the Moore family to expose Tweed’s corruption.

If you only know Vincent Price from his horror films, films like this (others included LAURA, LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN, DRAGONWYCK, THE BRIBE) are always great fun to watch. Though Price is still a villain as corrupt Boss Tweed, he’s awfully charming in this film as he does the best he can with the script he was given.

Price said he only took the film, because he heard Fred Astaire was going to direct. When Astaire dropped from the film, Price quipped that he must have read the script.

Deanna Durbin always gives her best, but this is far from her best film. She is still in beautiful voice and has the same sincerity. She’s still luminous and wonderful, but my only complaint is that they had 27-year-old Durbin acting with her same teenage exuberance. Her husband later said she hated her last three films, including this one.

Price and Durbin surprisingly have wonderful chemistry together and it’s fun to see two incredibly different actors together. I’m almost said that Price is the villain in this, because it means there would be no chance of them ending up together.

The dud of the film is Dick Haymes. He and Durbin sing a nice duet on a carousel, but that’s the best thing Haymes does in this film. They are more of an odd pairing than Durbin and Price.

This film features a few dance numbers, including a dream sequence, which seems unusual for musicals produced by this studio, so that made them all the more interesting.

While this movie isn’t very good and has a very strange plot basis, if you love Deanna Durbin, you’ll probably watch it anyway like I did. If you don’t, then it’s not mandatory viewing.

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