Murders in the Zoo

Murders in the Zoo is 1933 Paramount horror film directed by A. Edward Sutherland (The Invisible Woman), from a screenplay by Philip Wylie and Seton I. Miller. It stars Charles Ruggles (Bewitched, The Munsters), Lionel Atwill (The Vampire Bat, Mark of the Vampire, Son of Frankenstein), Gail Patrick, Randolph Scott, John Lodge, Kathleen Burke (Island of Lost Souls), Harry Beresford (Doctor X).

Plot teaser:

Eric Gorman (Atwill), a monomaniacal zoologist, is pathologically jealous of his beautiful but unfaithful wife Evelyn and will not stop short of murder to keep her…

Reviews:

“The cold-blooded and surprising murders are capped with the use of actual dangerous animals. One scene couldn’t be done today, when the cheetahs, lions and tigers all start fighting with each other – no way of faking that! What also adds to the film are the leading actors interacting with the animals, not always using stand-ins. The story still holds up today with it’s clever ‘perfect murder’ method… ” Black Hole

“It isn’t often that a movie is so much fun in its on moments that it is able to survive in the face of vast amounts of stock footage and painfully unfunny comic relief, and I generally find that the older a movie is, the less likely such survival becomes. But Murders in the Zoo is just such a survivor. Maybe it’s the pre-Hays Code frankness about sex and violence. (Not only does the movie open with a scene of unusually nasty torture, its very sympathetic heroine is a serial adulteress!) Maybe it’s Lionel Atwill’s Vincent Price-like portrayal of Eric Gorman. Maybe it’s the sheer lunacy of seeing the severed head of a venomous snake used as a murder weapon.” 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting

“This film really is a very odd mixture. The bits that work, work brilliantly; and the bits that are painful, are so very, verypainful…. Perhaps unusually, I find that one of the real strengths of this film is the acting. It’s a classic psycho role for Lionel Atwill, of course, and his contribution is one of this film’s main pleasures.” And You Call Yourself a Scientist

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“Murders in the Zoo is by no means a flawless horror-comedy film, bumping around between two tones with impunity and with nowhere near the grace or atmosphere as the amiable Doctor X… However, Atwill and Burke make the movie’s moments of horror truly memorable set pieces and demonstrate how true human predators can operate outside cages. The rest, thankfully, will fade.” Pre-code.com

” … a particularly gruesome specimen. Judged by its ability to chill and terrify, this film is a successful melodrama.” The New York Times, 1933