Black Mamba Noir: Murders in the Zoo

What would you do if you thought someone kissed your wife? Obviously, you'd sew the guy's mouth shut and send him off into the jungles of French Indochina with his arms tied behind his back to be mauled to death by lions while you ride back to base camp on your elephant.

Obviously.

What would you do if you suspected the man you met on the steamer back to America had designs on your wife as well? Well, you do have that black mamba head laying about...

Try to unsee it.

Welcome to MURDERS IN THE ZOO, one of the more bizarre movies you'll ever see.

Eric Gorman (Lionel Atwill) is a big game hunter and procurer of animals for the municipal zoo. He is also married to a younger woman with a wandering eye (Kathleen Burke, the panther woman from ISLAND OF LOST SOULS). He is also insane. This does not bode well for Mrs. Gorman, or the suave player she meets on the way back from safari with a boatload of beasts in the hold.

Meanwhile, back at the zoo, preparations are being made for Gorman's arrival. The administration has hired a new public relations man (Charlie Ruggles for some reason) to make sure everyone comes to see all the new animals. There are lions, jaguars, bears, snakes; everything a growing zoo needs to thrill the masses.

With the animals in place, and the PR push in full swing, one would think all would be well in the house of Gorman. Alas, it is not as Evelyn Gorman and seagoing suitor Roger Hewitt (future Connecticut Governor John Lodge) are growing closer all the time. When Ruggles' PR man decides to throw a big soiree at the zoo to give guests cage-side tables for the evening, Eric Gorman sees it as an opportunity to mark his territory once and for all.

Released in 1933 by Paramount Pictures, MURDERS IN THE ZOO is ostensibly a horror movie that predates the unofficial beginning of the noir age by seven years, but many of the themes, and some of the visuals, are clear precursors to those we'd see plague Noir City throughout the 40's and 50's.

The municipal zoo is a sort of shadowy, Art Deco grotesque that isn't the least bit inviting. It may well be the zoo we see in ruins at the end of BATMAN RETURNS. Within it, you will see an actual lion fight an actual jaguar in a scene that would blow any shot the film might have of getting Human Society approval today. If ever an environment took on the look and attitude of the man who filled it, it's Eric Gorman's municipal zoo. Even the name is cold and off-putting.

One of these men is going to be snaked to death.

Speaking of shadow, Gorman brings it with him wherever he goes, particularly in his confrontation with the zoo's noble research scientist (a young Randolph Scott, of all people). It adds a noiry look to the proceedings almost a decade before the the movement crystallized into something tangible.

The wholly underrated Atwill is fairly brilliant as Eric Gorman, and his decent into demented desperation is the foundation on which Noir City would later be built. The more Gorman does to try to hang onto his wife and punish her pursuers, the further he drifts from ever being able to possess her himself. There's really only one fate most of these characters can find, and they get there by way of tooth, claw and venom.

As cool and twisted as MURDERS IN THE ZOO is, it's not without its problems. We're never really shown how or why a beautiful young girl like Evelyn would have ended up with a man like Eric Gorman in the first place. He is a millionaire, and she does seem to be a less than moral person, but the script just sort of drops them into a loveless tangle of jealousy from the start and doesn't do anything more with it. It's not that big a deal, but even THE DISEMBODIED was able to explain its doomed May-December couple's origins with a well-placed bit of dialog.

The much bigger problem with MURDERS IN THE ZOO is the comedy relief of Charlie Ruggles, who actually received top billing. I guess the idea was to use him as a way to break up the unpleasantness that soaks the rest of the film, but Ruggles' fastidious fussbudget persona plays like a series of church farts. His performance is completely out of place with the rest of the film, and, thankfully, his character is Jar Jarred down considerably as the death and violence ramp up.

So, yeah, MURDERS IN THE ZOO, which is available from Turner Classic Movies, by the way, isn't noir; it's pre-code horror. But its Art Deco look, cynical bleakness and bursts of gruesome violence serve as early indicators of what was to come a decade later.

Only with alligators instead of revolvers; a black mamba instead of a sap.

-J

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