Adventure in the Bronx (1941)

I’m not sure if this young lad’s adventures in the zoo are supposed to be emblematic of his adventures in the wider Bronx community given he meets lions, warthogs and bears? In any case, this mischievous and curious young boy explores enthusiastically the vast array of animal life that lives in this extensive facility right in the heart of New York City. It’s as if he has strayed onto the set of “Daktari” where he meets the chimps, polar bears - he even tries to feed a giraffe. For many urban children, especially pre-television, this might be their only exposure to the variety of nature with all it’s shapes, sizes and colours on display here for him and for us, and seeing them in what purports to be a natural habitat is bound to have made a favourable and hopefully inquisitive impression on an urban population whose experience of wildlife probably doesn’t go much beyond pigeons and feral cats. The production is basic, it’s essentially just an assembled edit of animals at play that uses Michael O’Connell as it’s glue, but it’s an interesting perspective on how city-types experienced nature in 1941.