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Murders in the Zoo

Murders in the Zoo
Murders in the Zoo.jpg
Directed by A. Edward Sutherland
Produced by E. Lloyd Sheldon
Written by Seton Miller
Philip Wylie
Milton H. Gropper
Starring Charlie Ruggles
Lionel Atwill
Kathleen Burke
Gail Patrick
Music by Rudolph G. Kopp
John Leipold
Cinematography Ernest Haller
Production
company
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date
  • March 31, 1933 (1933-03-31)
Running time
66 minutes
Country United States

Murders in the Zoo is 1933 Pre-Code horror film directed by A. Edward Sutherland, written by Philip Wylie and Seton I. Miller. Considered particularly dark for its time, film critic Leonard Maltin called the film "astonishingly grisly."

Big-game hunter and wealthy zoologist Eric Gorman (Lionel Atwill) is an insanely jealous husband who uses his animal knowledge to dispose of his impulsive wife’s lovers. The film opens in an Indian jungle with Gorman using a needle and thread to sew a colleague’s mouth closed after having discovered that he had kissed his wife, and then he seals the man’s fate by abandoning him in the jungle with the wild beasts. Gorman later pretends to be surprised at hearing that the man had been eaten by tigers. Both Gorman and his wife Evelyn (Kathleen Burke) then return to America aboard a ship packed with captured animals he intends to add to his collection at a major zoo. On the ship, Evelyn starts to develop promiscuous relations with Roger Hewitt (John Lodge), which she makes little effort to hide from her husband. Naturally, the murderously jealous Gorman takes notice. So once back in the States, he begins to plot a way to get rid of Hewitt.

The zoo is beginning to run into financial trouble and the new press agent, Peter Yates (Charles Ruggles), a man terrified of most of the zoo’s animals and considered to be an alcoholic, decides to host a fundraising dinner. Gorman takes this as a perfect opportunity to dispense his vengeance by poisoning Hewitt with mamba venom. He had obtained the poison after asking the zoo’s laboratory doctor, Jack Woodford (Randolph Scott), to work on finding an antitoxin for the snake’s fatal bite. When Hewitt unexpectedly dies at the fundraising dinner, Evelyn accuses her husband of being the murderer. Outraged, Gorman attacks her, but she is able to escape into his office where she finds a mechanical mamba head seeping with real mamba poison in his desk. She now knows for a fact that he killed Hewitt and takes the snake head with the intention to find Dr. Woodford. However, Gorman finds her and prevents her from revealing his crime by throwing her to the alligators, where she is torn to shreds.


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