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Sigmund Romberg and Dorothy Field's mid-tier score but first tier wartime Broadway hit (504 performances at the New Century and Broadway Theatres from 27 January 1945 to 13 April 1946, which the movie trailer included on the VHS inflated to "a thousand") made an unusual but surprisingly pleasing transfer from stage to screen under the banner of Universal International. Because the stage show blended a tale of Irish immigration and crusading reporting with the graft and corruption of New York political boss William Marcy Tweed (made infamous by editorial caricaturist Thomas Nast, who more or less invented the Republican elephant and Democratic donkey) and "improvements" to New York's "big back yard," Central Park, Universal promoted one side of the central love triangle between the reporter (Dick Haymes), the female lead (an Irish colleen, Rosie, played by Durbin) and one of Tweed's nefarious henchmen (who on stage MARRIED Rosie only to desert her when the inevitable scandals came, but died in a street brawl to free Rosie to marry her true investigative reporter love) to an affair between Rosie and the already married TWEED (played with suave assurance by Vincent Price at his best - but looking *nothing* like the famous Nast caricatures. While the trailer proclaims the movie boasts "ALL THE SPECTACLE AND SONG OF BROADWAY'S HAPPIEST MUSICAL," the claim is typical Hollywood hyperbole. Much of the best known music from the show has been omitted. Although the biggest hit from the show, "Close As the Pages In A Book," is prominently played through out the Overture under the opening credits, it was cut from the film itself - apparently the robust seduction song for the rich baritone of Wilbur Evans on stage was felt wrong for the lighter instrument of big band singer Dick Haymes who was wrapping up a mid-level 40's film career. Because of video releases, he may be best remembered for the films of STATE FAIR and ONE TOUCH OF VENUS, but he does a nice enough job with Evans' other hits, "Carousel In The Park" and "When You Walk In The Room," here. The casting of the still satisfying Durbin (in her last filmed role - if next-to-last released) in the lead was another minor problem. Romberg was a fine composer for her, and added an excellent opening number for her character, the proto-patriotic "I Like What I See," as her ship enters New York Harbour, but the film ALSO adds an aria for the colleen with operatic singing ambitions (Tweed will open the door for her in addition to getting her father - Albert Sharpe, "star of the Broadway stage hit, FINIAN'S RAINBOW"; a decade later, Sharpe was "Darby O'Gill" for Disney - a job as his henchman had on stage). The number is there to show off Durbin's excellent voice, and it does, but since Rosie is dramatically supposed to be unready for a big opera break, Durbin's obviously BEING ready undercuts Haymes' plot important contention that we need to earn what we receive. On another level however, UP IN CENTRAL PARK preserves a significant part of the hit stage production it rarely gets credit for: Universal International hired famed Broadway choreographer Helen Tamaris to recreate some of her Broadway staging and to judge from the production photographs of the original production, she did that admirably. Tamiris, veteran of more than a dozen Broadway shows, is only credited on two Hollywood films - this is the best. Very much of its time, but enjoyable.Read full review