Central Park (Warner Bros.) (1932)

MORE HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES Current Feature Section of Famous N.Y. Park Reproduced In Film Studio New York’s Central Park in a pink dawn is a fairyland of meadows and bowers and artificial lakes, punctuated by gravel Current Feature A Movie Star Growls at Social Ostracism on Set ‘‘Jackie,” the Lion, Seemed Willing to Be Friendly, But Even Extras in “Central Park” Went High Hat Socially that lion sequence in the picture ‘‘Central Park,”’ wasn’t any great success. Not even the lion had a good time when the picture was being taken on the Warner Bros. lot in North Hollywood, and he was a social lion too, if there ever was one. He grumbled a little about it on the way back to the lion farm. People had been respectful but not friendly. No one had exactly turned a back on him — having been advised not to as a safety measure — but then, no one had taken time out to tickle his stomach either, even when he lay down in the middle of the dance floor and rolled over, just begging to have it tickled. Altogether the lion didn’t have a good time and in that he shared opinion with a hundred and fifty extras and Joan Blondell, Wallace Ford, Guy Kibbee, Patricia Ellis, Henry B. Walthall, Charles Sellon and other principals of the cast: of “Central Park,” the First National picture which is now being shown at: the-2.48 Theatre. They were all glad when the lion sequence was over. To begin with, it was a hot day at the studio, one of the hottest of the summer. In addition, no one on the set made any attempt to fraternize with “Jackie.” All Strictly Business _ “In fact, “Jackieruhadmerrr seen Hw stevens venti SITS psuup OL pet a AOL, -——,s#His friendliest gestures were almost invariably misunderstood. As, for instance, that time when he had obediently walked toward the camera and then had gone to stand with his trainer and Director John Adolfi behind the cameras while the scene was completed. He had, at that moment put his wet nose into Adolfi’s hand, the idle hand, hanging limply at Adolfi’s side. Now Adolfi had been second only to “Jackie’s” master in assuring everyone that the lion was tame and perfectly harmless, for all practical purposes just a pet. So “Jackie” felt he had a friend in Director Adolfi and he laid his wet nose in the director’s hand. The scene was over but Adolfi didn’t call out “Cut” as he generally does, in a loud voice. That hand at Adolfi’s side wasn’t limp any longer either, but the director would have been, if he had dared. “Jackie” looked up to see Director Adolfi i r <i SS talking out of the side of his mouth, toward the trainer. “Get Him Away!”’ “Get him away from here,” he was saying, but not moving a muscle while saying it. “Get him away from here, I know he’s harmless but get him away. Get him away.” So “Jackie” and his trainer went back to the cage and rested while the cameras set up for a new take and Adolfi went over to the water cooler and drank five cups of ice water. It was like that all through the picture, so far as the lion was coneerned. Everybody trusted him, it seemed, but nobody wanted to be a real pal. It was, in fact, the first time “Jackie” had really been turned loose among so many people. He felt very good about it and wanted to go around and rub himself on people’s legs. But the legs kept giving away with him, and he din’t get a good scratching all the week he worked with the picture except from Melvin Koontz, his trainer and once from Wallace Ford, the lead 3. Joan Blondeil had some photographs made with “Jackie,” but she excused herself promptly, once they were taken, and didn’t appear again for hours. A Social Failure Now “Jackie” is, in his own way, the most remarkable lion in the world, despite his rather ridiculous name. He is five years old, which makes him a full grown but only middle-aged lion. He is tame. He will, if you'll let him, eat off of your hand as advertised. And he is the first lion ever to be turned entirely loose in the midst of nearly two hundred people and told to do his stuff. There is absolutely no. fake in the lion sequences in “Central Park,” a “one location” screen play of unusual character, by Ward Morehouse and Earl Baldwin. “Jackie” is a good actor. Dramatically, artistically, histrionically he wasa success. Socially, he was a failure. Every member of the east from Joan Blondell on down, was glad when “Jackie” went home. But his best friends wouldn’t tell him. Advance Feature Author of “Central Park” Made Study of Subject Ward Morehouse, Famous Newspaper Columnist Knows Everybody Though Not New York Born If you want to know anything about Central Park, ask Ward Morehouse. _ Im fact, if you want to know anything about New York City in general, no better authority can be found than the man who wrote ‘‘Central Park,’’ the new First National feature film which commis to tie > | For Ward Morehouse is a New Yorker of the New Yorkers. His knowledge of the big town, like Sam Weller’s knowledge of London, is Theatre. Fa SH Ee OS “extensive and peculiar.” His daily article, under the heading “Broad (Continued in next column) walks, riding paths and wide, smooth asphalt roads. Flower gardens and landscaping have made it one of the show-spots of America. The zoo, ever attractive to children, is attractive to grown-ups Special Publicity Art é 13 3 8 Cut No. 10 Cut 30c Mat roc Joan Blondell and Wallace Ford, appearing in the Theatre’s new hit, “Central Park.”” Ward Morehouse, famous New York columnist is the author and First National Pictures, the producer. too, and thousands journey there daily to view the animals. But lately, the Park hag grown less and less a place to take children h6 Fe) 3 6) an in their perambulators, white-capped “2 “ng beside. An — one of them escapes and runs riot through the town. If you think that can’t be exciting you’d better see the picture to learn how well it can. But lion scenes can’t, unfortunately, be shot in the park, Poliea_ army of the unfortunate and unemployed have drifted into the park, and no one has the heart to refuse them sanctuary there. And yet they brought with them something quite as valuable as the gentle virtuous life with which the park flowed before they came. They brought life in the raw, life out at elbows, life hungry and alone and miserable. But life, for all that, shot through with the comedy of daily things, pleasures and mishaps and little furtive joys in merely being alive. Life with an edge of tragedy, too, as you may suppose. Kaleidoscopically, something of all this has been eaptured for the First National picture, “Central Park,” which is now at the ....... Theatre. It is in the park that Joan Blondell and Wallace Ford, the featured players, accidentally meet, stranded and broke, and have their adventures together. Although the action takes place in Central Park, the happenings are s0 human, so universal, so down-toearth, that they might have occurred to you or yours in any one of America’s metropolitan grassplots. With the exception, of course, of the lions, Central Park is unique in that respect. And in the picture laws and a lot of other rulings forbid. So a lot of the park had to be built on Warner Bros.-First National stages in North Hollywood, California. And lions from the Selig Zoo, and specially fitted trainers had to be used too. The idea originally was to do quite a bit of the park stuff on stages, but this was found impracticable, and a company was despatched post haste to New York to shoot in the park. But a lot of fancy and assorted trees, fancy and assorted bushes, plain and solid rock and good green grass had to be built upon the stages in California for those scenes. So real trees and real bushes and boulders had to be hauled by the hundreds, in great wooden buckets, to fill the stage. “Central Park” is based on an original story by Ward Morehouse, and was written for the screen by Ward Morehouse and Earl Baldwin, both of whom are native New _ Yorkers and know their Central Park well. John Adolfi directed. Supporting Miss Blondell and Mr. Ford in the notable cast are Guy Kibbee, Patricia Ellis, Henry B. Walthall, Charles Sellon, Spencer Charters, Harold Huber, John Wray, Holmes Herbert and many others, euN0e0a3anao0s6—60—0—60—#0—30@“$0—=$—@=$=—$—$—_—_—_OoO_Oo_Oo®O=Oo0=0@O0qoQq$>QDoo eo way After Dark,” syndicated in newspapers throughout the country reveals a familiarity with the sights and sounds, the people and the atmosphere, of Manhattan ‘which stands alone in modern journalism. Ward Morehouse seems to know everybody in New York, and to carry in his head every single inch of the island. Yet, like so many outstanding New Yorkers, he is not a native son. He was born as far away as Savannah, Georgia, and got his first serious newspaper training in Atlanta. Then he heard the call of the metronolis and became a big town reporter, and one of the best. His interest in the theatre led to the formation of a large circle of acquaintances along Broadway, and that in turn developed into the widely distributed newspaper column. Before he wrote “Central Park,” Morehouse made an intensive study of the Park itself — its topography, its history and traditions, and its human elements—the policemen, the keepers in the menagerie, the vendors of hot dogs and sandwiches, the habitues of the benches and all the variegated cast of characters whose prototypes appear in the new picture. Among the leading players in “Central Park” are Joan Blondell, Wallace Ford, Guy Kibbee, Patricia Ellis, Henry B. Walthall, Charles Sellon, Spencer Charters, Harold Huber, John Wray and Harry Seymour. The film was directed by John Adolfi and Ward Morehouse was on the set during the “shooting” of many of the scenes. So far as modern studio technique could contrive, “Central Park” is authentic down to the very animals in the park zoo. Ward Morehouse knows them — the lions and tigers, the monkeys and leopards. He knows everybody! Page Seven