Up in Central Park

Question: Who is the most famous/infamous political boss in U.S. History? I suspect that out of ten informed people, the name pops up is William M. Tweed, Tammany Hall Sachem from 1863 to 1874 (when circumstances forced him to resign). Tweed held many important posts in his years of ... public service. He was a city Commissioner, an alderman, a New York State Senator. He was even (for only one term in the middle 1850s) a Congressman in Washington. He was also a bank director and a corporation director. He is, of course, best remembered for supposedly looting the city of New York out of between forty and two hundred million dollars in fraudulent contracts and kickback schemes. Tweed was sent to prison in 1874, escaped in 1875, was recaptured in Spain in 1876 and returned to the U.S., and died in prison in 1878.

There have been dozens of political bosses in our nation's history. Senator Marcus Hanna, who helped make his friend William McKinley President, can be an example of a successful boss (although a relatively honest and honorable one). Matt Quay of Pennsylvania was another. But only historians remember Hanna or Quay or Frank Hague of New Jersey or Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island. Tweed stands out because of one man: the cartoonist Thomas Nast. Nast was a genius in political cartooning (even now his best work is still effective, 102 years after his death and 133 years after his Tweed cartoons got really underway). He took the fat, somewhat vulgar looking Tweed and made him look like the human image of greed (it helped that the name and the word rhymed). It immortalized cartoonist and subject no matter what. Tweed had three or four successors as head of Tammany Hall. At least two of them, Richard Croker and Charles Murphy, were more important and powerful than Tweed ever was. Nobody thinks of them when the term "TAMMANY HALL" comes up - they think of Tweed.

Is this image fair? Most historians follow Gustavus Myers account of the Tweed Rings rise and fall to this day (from Myers book on Tammany Hall). Only recently has a dent been put into this account. In 1977 TWEED'S NEW YORK was written by Leo Hershkovits, and he pointed out that Tweed was working for the interests of all the newly arriving immigrant groups struggling to get settled in the U.S. He was also backing civic improvements like the Brooklyn Bridge, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Prospect and Central Parks, the first attempt at a New York Subway system. His enemies suggested that his interest was in the boodling contracts he and his cohorts gave out, but those same enemies were quite hostile to immigrants (many were former Know Nothings)and most came from the rich part of society. Also many were Republicans, or ambitious Democrats with shady pasts they tried to hide (Samuel Tilden, the future Governor of New York and Presidential Candidate, had been a supporter of the southern Democratic views of slavery and states rights in the Civil War. Tilden and Tweed were enemies). Herkovits may overstate the case but he does reduce the legend a bit. The nature of political life in Tammany was to make profitable deals, and they depended on the immigrants for votes. However the evidence of the large scale thefts is simply not there. The worst example of it, the "Tweed" Courthouse behind City Hall in Manhattan, overran the original two million dollar cost estimate by thirteen million dollars more. It still suggests great corruption, but not the two hundred million losses Myers throws out. I might add that Tweed Courthouse more than has repaid it's original costs. If you watch LAW AND ORDER in one of its various guises, scenes in the courts are shot in that building.

Believe it or not there have only been two films dealing at all with Boss Tweed. More recently Jim Broadbent played Tweed in Scorsese's GANGS OF NEW YORK. He played him as in cahoots with powerful thug (and nativist!) Bill the Butcher Cutter (Daniel Day-Lewis). Bill the Butcher was based on a real thug and killer, Bill "the Butcher" Poole, who was killed by rival gangsters at the Stanwix Hall Saloon in 1857 (six years before the Civil War Draft Riots the film presents). Tweed would never have been allied with Poole, as Poole belonged to the American Party, not the Democrats. However, Broadbent's Tweed at least looked more like the genuine article physically than his one predecessor.

Tweed weighed over three hundred pounds (his death was hastened by diabitis). The actor playing Boss Tweed in UP IN CENTRAL PARK was Vincent Price, playing him like a handsome, powerful (and powerhungry) man. In his dressing gown, entertaining Deanna Durbin (an Irish immigrant lass with education, who learns that Tweed is out for his own good before anyone else), Price is smooth and cultured. No doubt Tweed was intelligent, but his taste in art and literature probably did not match Price's characterization. One wishes Price had tackled the role later in his career (say about the time he did Matthew Hopkins in THE CONQUEROR WORM), and possibly he could have fit the role properly. It is hard to say. He did not match the real Tweed. This is not to say that he is acting poorly. His performance gives the film some zest, and even honesty (when he falls he admits to Durbin that he was brought up to believe that you took what you want). And to be fair, Price's Tweed has enough guts to remain and face the consequences while his accomplices, Governor Motley (Thurston Hall) and Mayor Oakley run off. By the way, Tweed's allied Governor was Governor John T.Hoffman (the last New York City Mayor to rise to the state's Governorship) and the Mayor was Mayor Oakley Hall.

The Sigmund Romberg score for UP IN CENTRAL PARK is not one of his best, and parts of it have been deleted. There was a number about Central Park (where Durbin's father has a job through Tweed) called, "It's the Big Backyard of the City". Price also has a song, "Would You Like to See MY CURRIER & IVES" which is reduced to the song cue in the dialogue, before a scene ends. Durbin does her best, but it is not her best film. It is a mediocre movie, which is best seen to remind oneself of the story of Tweed and his fall, and how it still needs a master film maker to tell it properly.

Despite not featuring in the top billing, this film really belongs to the honest emigrant Irishman "Moore" (Albert Sharpe). Straight off the boat with his feisty daughter "Rosie" (Deanna Durbin) he bumps into a welcoming committee that lets him know how he can take part in the democratic process (for a new mayor) and make a few bucks at the same time. He excels at his task and by a quirk of fate finds himself superintendent of Central Park - on a wapping great $3,000k per year! He is hands on, so likes to feed the animals - an activity that is clearly prohibited and attracts the attention of journalist "Matthews" (Dick Haymes). Realising the man's job and the purpose of the feeding - geese, grouse, duck all destined for the table of kingpin "Tweed" (Vincent Price), he writes a column, gets "Moore" fired and rouses the wrath of "Rosie" who intercedes for her father and also manages to attract the attention of "Tweed" too. It's quite a fun tale of corrupt local politics, naivety and integrity this, with Sharpe delivering well and Durbin doing the lively characterisation that she always did engagingly, too. Price makes for a reasonable sophisticate-cum-power-broker and Hobart Cavanaugh also chips in nicely as the hapless Mayor just doing what he is told. The ending is all a bit rushed, the story is really quite incomplete on a number of fronts and the musical numbers don't do a great deal for maintaining the pace, but it has a certain plausibility to it. It's quite possible this is what New York might have been like at the start.

Durbin and Price are in top form; both are charming, and hit just the right light note in their acting style. Dick Haymes sings very well, but lacks charisma and spark as an actor. The actor playing Durbin's Irish father is strictly from the Barry Fitzgerald school of ersatz Blarney.

Contrary to what another reviewer said, this 100% soundstange shot film shows all to clearly that Universal didn't spend much money on it. Sets are unusually limited in scope for a musical. One example: In one number immigrant Durbin on the deck of a boat coming to America sings about the new countries glories. Not only is the boat deck tiny with the only backdrop a painted sky, but there is not one shot showing what she is singing about, what is supposedly inspiriting her song.

The plot and characters are hardly realistic, but work just fine for a musical. The dialog is well written, better than in the majority of musicals of this era.

The music, what there is of it, has big, well written orchestrations, and the fidelity is excellent on the VHS tape. Johnny Green is credited as composer- music director, and I believe he was head of MGM's music department at the time, so I suspect Universal farmed out musical duties to MGM (L.B. Mayor was father in law to Universal's chief). If so, it was a good decision.

As was standard practice in this era, only a few of the songs written for the stage show on which the film was based made it to the film. The glaring omission is "We'll Be Close As Pages In A Book", which I believe is the only song from the theater production to become popular and have a life outside of the show. It's not in the film, but is very prominently featured in the instrumental title music and is the music which closes the film. Makes me suspect they filmed the song, but cut it before the film was released.

"Up in Central Park" is set in New York City in the 19th century. Boss Tweed (Vincent Price) and his political machine (Tammany Hall) have been in charge of the city for years...and cheating, graft and voting irregularities will keep him in power. At the time of the election, an Irish man and his daughter, Rosie (Deanna Durbin), arrive in the city...and are paid to vote the Tammany Hall candidates even though they aren't citizens. Tweed himself takes a special interest in them...mostly because he finds Rosie to be gorgeous. She, in turn, is smitten with him...unaware or perhaps unwilling to accept the man's evil reputation might just be true. A reporter (Dick Haymes) is fighting Tammany Hall and he tries to get Rosie to see the light...but getting her attitude to change will be a tall order, as around her he's the perfect gentleman. What's going to come of naive Rosie and Boss Tweed?

This is an enjoyable film but not without its problems. The first one I noticed was that although Rosie's dad has a thick Irish accent, Rosie sounds like a native-born American! She didn't even attempts a trace of the Irish accent...and it made little sense. The second was that even for a Durbin film the musical numbers were dull and too high brow...especially the ballet sequence. Third, and worst of all, the ending was very abrupt and unsatisfying. On the positive side, Vincent Price was great as the slimy Tweed and the story mildly interesting. But to me, the negatives slightly outweigh the positives.

The dialogue and the overflowing production values of 'Up in Central Park' are two pleasurable surprises so many years afterwards to someone who is only just discovering the legacy of Deanna Durbin.

What never ceases to amaze me is the high standard of her films. They were, actually and in the flow of things, pretty run-of-the-mill, but the majority of them work incredibly well today, and 'Up in Central Park' is one of the most delightful. It has a magnificent script about a magnate, in actual fact a kind of dictator of New York City who whitewashes his money through Central Park, has the puppet mayor elected by bribing immigrants just off Ellis Island to vote in the names of dead constituents, and is just overall a very bad guy. He is played by Vincent Price, of course, soft-voiced, seductive and insinuating. An utter gentleman even at the end. "I wish more patriots like you would come to this country", he says, debonairly and hilariously. Deanna Durbin is the young Irish girl with dreams of becoming an opera star. She has just arrived in New York with her illiterate father who is given the position of superintendent of Central Park, because Vincent Price thinks his daughter overheard his evil plans for the city. Then enters young, ambitious reporter Dick Haynes with his lovely tenor voice, and he wants to bring the mighty down.

So we have young budding love, we have the older lecher, we have filial duty, and we have scathing political satire, believe me. "If you're strong enough to take something, it belongs to you", Vincent Price says, and the film takes him seriously as it well might, and the jokes aside Price's character is not too far off the mark.

The music is pleasant, the acting a sheer joy, and the pacing admirable.