Murders in the Zoo (1933) a really good surprise, this seem like way before it's time, Really opening scene in the movie, we see someone being tired up and left in jungle or something and then we see his lips sowed up as well. As the movie was about just hour long, it was kind of fast movie, There were dome dark moments in the movie and i did find this movie to be very funny in some placesI liked how movie flowed, there some really great scenes for it's time and I liked how the movie ended, Really good acting from the cast 8 out of 10

When rogue sunspot activity grants the chimps at the zoo hyper-intelligence, they quickly rebel against their human captors, forcing the humans to ride tricycles while wearing ill-fitting bell boy outfits and smoking cheap cigars while mocking the humans' pale, unswollen buttocks. In an attempt to befriend the chimps, the humans refer to them as mere "monkeys" which sends the chimps into a face eating frenzy that transforms the zoo a cotton candy coated abattoir!Okay, maybe not. This is actually a lean and mean tale of obsession and revenge. I don't want to spoil it for you by giving away any details except to say that this type of story, the pathologically jealous husband who views his wife as property, and the brave wife trying to escape him, has been told many times over.This version however, is stripped down and raw, and the zoo setting gives it a slightly bizarre twist, just enough to jar you yet not so much it detracts from the emotional impact of the story. The acting is good on all sides with Atwill especially frightening as a man both driven and intelligent enough to exact a horrible fate on anyone he even suspects of crossing him. The opening scene is actually pretty disturbing and but does it's job well in that it lets the viewer know exactly how far Atwill will go to impose his retribution.

(There are Spoilers) Mad zoologist and big game hunter Eric Gorman has this thing about anyone who as much as looks at his wife Evelyn, Kathleen Burke, that has him simply go wacko! We get to see a glimpse of Eric's murderous jealousy at the start of the movie when he has fellow big game hunter and trapper Bob Taylor's mouth sewed up and, with his hands tied, left in the jungle to be eaten by the wild animals that live there! What was Taylor's crime? He was caught, by Eric, giving Evelyn a friendly kiss!Back in the states with a shipload of wild animals from India and South East Asia, including at least a dozen African lions, Eric is now obsessed in doing in fellow boat passenger Roger Hewitt, John Lodge, whom he knows is having an affair with Evelyn. It's Evelyn who's seriously considering divorcing her dangerous and unstable nut-job of a husband, whom she's just about had it with, and marrying Roger. Not wanting to be implicated in any murder that he's planing Eric decides to use the wild animals that he brought to the local zoo to do the dirty work for him!The wild eyed and bushy hair, as well as a little bit nuts, Eric gets to the unsuspecting Roger at a dinner for the opening of his zoo exhibition with a deadly green mamba whom he uses, under the table, to bite the poor guy as he's having his dinner. Dropping dead almost on the spot, mamba venom is among fastest acting and deadliest of all killer snakes, it becomes apparent that the mamba was accidentally released by Dr. Jack Woodford who was at the time milking the killer mamba of it's venom, in his laboratory, to develop a antidote for it! Knowing that he had the mamba security locked up in its cage Dr. Woodford suspects that Eric, in the way he behaved at the murder scene, may well have used a second deadly mamba to murder Roger!**SPOILER ALERT** As it soon turned out the mamba was in fact totally Innocent of killing Roger! Eric used its venom, in some weird contraption he invented, to stick it to Roger and get him both out of his hair and is wife's Evelyn's life! It's when Evelyn found out what Eric did in having her lover Roger killed, and threatening to go to the police, that later that evening Eric had her dumped into the crocodile pool at the zoo where she ended up as the hungry crock's moonlight snack! It's when Eric tried to murder, with the mamba venom, Dr. Woodford that his crazy plan finally backfired on him. Not knowing that Dr. Woodford had already developed an antidote to the venom and his girlfriend and lab. assistant Jerry Evens, Gail Patrick, on the scene to administrate it to the unconscious Dr. Woodford Eric was caught flat footed and exposed for his crimes. Knowing that the jig is finally up for him Eric tried to make his getaway by releasing all the caged animals to be used as cover for his escape. Ending up in the safety of a cage himself with the lions leopards tigers as well as hyenas tearing the entire zoo apart Eric found to his surprise and shock that he wasn't the only one locked in! He had a cage-mate who hasn't eaten for weeks if not months and Eric couldn't have come at a better time for him, or it, to finally have its long delayed meal!

This is a good pre-code example of a horror film that must have shocked audiences in the early '30s and still carries enough punch to find favor with today's horror addicts.LIONEL ATWILL is at his wickedest as a cold-blooded owner of a zoo full of wild animals, everything from snakes to panthers. The story starts overseas with him doing an unusual sewing job on one of his victims after catching him kissing his wife, then switches to their return on a ship where his wife is fearful that a young man who has taken a shine to her (JOHN LODGE) will be his next victim.Atwill catches them having an intimate chat and we know he's found a man he must eliminate in a cruel way. It goes on in this fashion with the criminal getting away with murder until a clever lab technician (RANDOLPH SCOTT) and his assistant (GAIL PATRICK) are able to turn the tables on him.TCM features a good print of this little thriller, way ahead of its time in some of its subject matter, a film that any fan of Lionel Atwill's kind of villainy will want to catch. And incidentally, Randolph Scott and Gail Patrick are excellent in good supporting roles.Only drawback is the "comic relief" given to CHARLES RUGGLES who gives his weak material a good try but becomes more of an annoyance than anything else in the role of the zoo's new publicity agent.