Up in Central Park

Up in Central Park (1948)

"It's a Carousel in the Park!"

A newspaper reporter and the daughter of an immigrant maintenance man help expose political corruption in New York City.

Date of release
1948-07-09
TMDB
6.4 / 10 (7)
Runtime
1h 24m
Genres
Music
Director
William A. Seiter

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: Up in Central Park

Up in Central Park is a 1948 American musical comedy film directed by William A. Seiter and starring Deanna Durbin, Dick Haymes and Vincent Price. Based on the play Up in Central Park by Herbert Fields with a screenplay by Karl Tunberg, the film is about a newspaper reporter and the daughter of an immigrant maintenance man who help expose political corruption in New York City in the 1870s.

Production

In February 1946, Universal announced they had bought the film rights to the musical as a vehicle for Deanna Durbin. It was to be produced by Felix Jackson. The studio paid $100,000.

In April 1946, Dwight Taylor was assigned to write the script. In October Universal's then head of production William Dozier said he wanted Fred Astaire to direct the film which was going to be made in Technicolor in January 1947. "This depends a lot on how Fred can arrange his other business interests," said Dozier. "I know Fred is anxious to do it but since we plan it as a big production it needs plenty of time and preparation.

In November Jackson left Universal and Joseph Sistrom became the producer. Filming was delayed because Technicolor lab would be unable to handle the demands of making the movie for several months (they had been particularly hit hard by a strike). Eventually Sistrom would be assigned to another project and Karl Tunberg would write and produce the movie.

Tunberg changed the names of some characters in the script based on real people in order to avoid legal hassles with their descendants. Mayor A. Oakley Hall was changed to "Oakley", Big Jim Fisk was changed to "Fitz", Governor Hoffman was changed to Governor Morley, Sheriff O'Brien and Controller O'Conner were combined into "Schultz".

In March 1947, William Seiter was signed as director. In June Dick Haymes ended his contract with 20th Century Fox and signed a two-picture deal with Universal, one of whom would be the lead in up in Central Park. The following month Vincent Price was cast as Boss Tweed; Noah Beery Snr had played the part on Broadway but the role was reconfigured so Tweed could be a romantic rival for Durbin's character.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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