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Eric Gorman (Lionel Atwill) is a rich philanthropist and a big game
hunter - but he is also extremely jealous, and ready to kill
everyone who comes too close to his pretty young wife Evelyn (Kathleen
Burke) ... who has learned to despise him long ago and now tries to find
love in the arms of other men. However, back in French Indochina, that
already cost one of her admirers his life, when Gorman tied him up, sewed
his mouth shut and left him as tiger food in the jungle. Still, now back
in the USA, Evelyn plans to elope with Roger Hewitt (John Lodge) - so
Gorman sees to it that he dies from the bite of a (fake) mamba during a
zoo banquet. As an alibi, Gorman also sees to it that a real mamba escapes
from her cage, and then he blames the whole incident on the zoo he has
been supporting so far. Evelyn though is not convinced by Gorman's
story, and she soon finds evidence - a stuffed Mamba head with fangs
dipped in poison - to prove ghis guilt ... however, she wants to hand the
evidence over to Woordward (Randolph Scott), the zoo's biochemist, and
crossing the zoo at night, she is ambushed by Gorman, who throws her into
the crocodile's den ... with the expected results - ouch. Again, Gorman
blames his wife's death on the zoo, which now faces a permanent shutdown -
when Woodward finds the mamba that was supposed to have killed Hewitt, and
examining it he finds conclusive evidence that the snake could not have
bitten the man - but Gorman is already onto Woodward and tries to do him
away by having him bitten by his mamba in his lab, believing he cannot be
saved ... but only a short while ago, Woodward himself has developed an
antitoxin, which his girlfriend Jerry (Gail Patrick) is able to inject him
just in time - and now the tide seems to have turned against Gorman, who
tries to make a daring escape by releasing all the wild animals from the
zoo, but ultimately he falls victim to his own trickery. Comedian
Charles Ruggles is first-billed for playing the zoo's incompetent PR-man. Almost
forgotten today, Murders in the Zoo is actually an extremely
entertaining and sometimes quite violent horror/murder mystery, with
Lionel Atwill at his evil best, some extremely macabre ideas (like Atwill
sewing his wife's suitor's mouth shut right at the beginning of the film),
and a very exciting finale. Only nominal lead Charles Ruggles seems a bit
out of place here (expecially since his role is all but instrumental for
the plot), but even he isn't by any means destroying the film. Recommended,
actually.
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