ZOO IN BUDAPEST
Sc.: Dan Totheroh, Louise Long, R. V. Lee, da una storia di Melville Baker e Jack Kirkland. F.: Lee Garmes. M.: Harold Schuster. Scgf.: William Darling. Ass.R.: William Tummel. In.: Loretta Young (Eve), Gene Raymond (Zani), O.P. Heggie (dr. Grunbaum), Wally Albright (Paul Vandor), Paul Fix (Heinie), Murray Kinnell (Garbosh), Ruth Warren (Katrina), Roy Stewart (Karl), Frances Rich (Elsie), Niles Welch (Mr. Vandor), Lucille Ward (Miss Murst), Russ Powell (Toski), Dorothy Libaire (Rosita). P.: Fox Film Corp. 35mm. L.: 7452 feet. D.: 83’ a 24 f/s Bn. Print made in 1990 from a safety dupe negative (made as well in 1990). This print, made at Cinetech, came from an dupe acetate negative which was made from a tinted nitrate print.
Film Notes
Zoo in Budapest has an extremely simple story. This admirable film is soaked in such distinctly oneiric poeticism that you almost have the impression you dreamed it. Few are the films that can be complimented in this way. The mise-en-scène is almost invisible. Rowland Lee, specialist in terror, was honest enough to respect this praiseworthy script, contenting himself with exalting Loretta Young’s eyes. […] When hiding in the bears’ den, Loretta Young is joy in the flesh, with her huge green eyes framed by blond braids. Escaping imprisonment, breaking the chains, finding your other half, is a fairytale that can come true. This story has ferns and water-lilies for scenery, and flaming roses and elephants for guardian angels. After thousands of dangers and adventures (including the most terrifying attempted rape of all American cinema), the lovers find enchantment once more in a place never touched by civilization, the Budapest zoo.
A. Kyrou, Amour-erotisme & Cinéma, Paris, Le Terrain Vague, 1966
I had just returned from England where I had taken part in two films, one I directed [That Night in London] and one I produced [Sign of the Four]. Since I had a story I wanted to make, I called Lasky. I was under contract with Paramount for five years, and Lasky had asked me to read a script that was giving him trouble. I read it, and the next day I went back to him, enthusiastic about the project. I told Lasky: “I think the conception is completely wrong: the zoo director hates animals, the male lead is a thief, and the girl’s mother is a whore. I cannot conceive of the film in this way”. But I had a real desire to make the film, and I even had in mind how. Lasky was a very nice man. He would get very enthusiastic, and on those occasions his face would turn red. He walked towards the side door, where his screenwriters – who I knew – were fighting it out with the script, and he told them what I thought. So, right then, I signed up to direct the film. And I worked closely with the screenwriters.
R. V. Lee, in Positif, nn. 220-221, 1979