Budapest Zoo

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Movie
German title Revolt in the zoo
Original title Budapest Zoo
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1933
length 85 minutes
Rod
Director Rowland V. Lee
script Melville Baker ,
Jack Kirkland
production Fox Film Corporation
music Louis de Francesco
camera Lee Garmes
occupation

Budapest Zoo (Alternative Title: Revolt in the Zoo ) is an American film with Loretta Young directed by Rowland V. Lee .

action

The action takes place during one day at the Budapest Zoo. The zoo director Dr. Grünbaum is informed by a visitor that her precious fur coat has been stolen. Dr. Grünbaum immediately suspects who the perpetrator could be: Zani, the son of a former guard, who lived in the zoo all his life and grew up there. Zani immediately confesses to the theft. Nobody, according to the young man, should wear the fur of an animal just for fashion purposes. The friendly Dr. Grünbaum gives Zani another chance, to the displeasure of Garbosh, the brutal second director.

Meanwhile, a group of orphan girls from the nearby orphanage comes to visit the zoo. Eve, who has just turned 18, wants to have one last good day before she is sent to work in a tannery. On the advice of her friend, Eve tries to escape. She hides and meets Zani, whom she already knows from previous visits to the zoo. Just as Eve escapes from the group of girls, Zani overhears Baron Adolf telling Countess Felica that he would buy her a particularly beautiful fox from the zoo to have a fur stole made out of it. Zani is so angry that he steals the countess's fur without further ado when she is inattentive for a moment.

Dr. Grünbaum is forced to turn Zani over to the police. Garbosh is looking for the young man who has now discovered Eve. The two young people fall in love on the spot. Zani hides Eve in an empty animal cage and wants to get her something to eat. As soon as he has left Eve, the brutal guard Heinie tries to do violence to Eve. Before it comes to extremes, Zani manages to overpower Heinie. During the fight, the elephant's enclosure is opened and the animals break out. The resulting mass panic leads to the outbreak of almost all zoo animals. In the end, the two young people are rescued and married to live on a farm in the country.

background

Loretta Young began her 25-year film career at the age of 15 with the film Laugh, Clown, Laugh in 1927 with Lon Chaney and Nils Asther . With the merger of First National , the actress soon came to Warner Brothers and sometimes appeared in up to 8 films per year. Over the next few years, Young established herself as a heroine in numerous comedies and socially critical films without participating in high-quality productions. One of the few exceptions was his participation in Frank Capra's comedy Before blondes is warned in 1931 . In 1933, however, Loretta Young shot four of her best films of the 1930s in quick succession: in addition to the Budapest Zoo , Employees' Entrance , in which she is exposed to the sexual harassment of her employer, Midnight Mary , the Young, directed by William A. Wellman as the lover of a gangster who only finds a way out of crime and sexual bondage through her love for Franchot Tone , and Frank Borzage's melodrama Man's Castle , which she presented alongside Spencer Tracy .

Budapest Zoo was produced with some effort and the trade press repeatedly reported about bites and other mishaps that the actors had to endure while working with the animals used.

The film received some excellent reviews, placing Rowland V. Lee's director on a par with Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau , and above all praising the use of light and shadow, which created an almost lyrical atmosphere of innocence around the two young lovers.

Reviews

In his April 28, 1933 review of the New York Times , Mordaunt Hall wrote an ardent review of the film:

“(The picture) is a splendid example of cinematic art, in which imaginative direction and lovely photography vie for supremacy. Its narrative is for the most part simple and beguilingly slothful, but it winds up in a blaze of excitement. Often the smoothness of the scenes and the effortless fashion in which they are set forth remind one of the work of the late FW Murnau […] The beauty of some of the scenes, especially those in which pelicans and cranes are beheld, often remind one of Japanese decorations. There are the dark lines edged with silver, the water glistening in the sun, the waving reeds and here and there a bird. And, it might be said, Mr. Lee adroitly employs some of the glimpses of the zoo inmates to get a laugh, for the expressions on human faces are contrasted with those of birds and beasts […] ”

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