Murders in the Zoo (A. Edward Sutherland, 1933)

A pre-Code obscure gem, Murders in the Zoo is a dark, funny, unusual horror film with a witty script, a great villain, a brisk pace, and the cinematography talents of Ernest Haller, who also shot Blonde Crazy, Jezebel, Gone with the Wind, Mildred Pierce, Rebel without a Cause, Man of the West, and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, among many others, in a career that stretched from 1920's Mothers of Men to an episode of Star Trek in 1966.

Murders in the Zoo opens, without any messing around or general tomfoolery, in the Chinese countryside, as our villain, millionaire sportsman/psycho killer Eric Gorman (Lionel Atwill), sews shut the mouth of a fellow American who tried to kiss Gorman's wife Evelyn (Kathleen Burke, most famous as the Panther Woman in Island of Lost Souls). Gorman is a nasty piece of work in his best moments, but his insane jealousy of any man who has anything to do with Evelyn pushes him into homicidal territory almost immediately. The Gormans are in China to capture wild animals for an American zoo. On the ship back to the States, Gorman spies another American from the expedition, Roger Hewitt (John Lodge), taking an interest in Evelyn, which doesn't bode well for our man Roger.

Back at the zoo, times are tough. In the fallout from the Great Depression, the zoo has suffered four separate budget cuts, and the owner, Professor G.A. Evans (Harry Beresford), hires an alcoholic publicity man, Peter Yates (Charlie Ruggles), in a desperate attempt to drum up some business. Two more important characters include Evans' daughter Jerry (Gail Patrick), who helps her father manage the zoo, and her fiance Dr. Jack Woodford (Randolph Scott), a scientist who studies animals and keeps a laboratory at the zoo. Wow, I typed the word "zoo" a lot in this paragraph.

When the Gormans return with their animals after the long trip abroad, Evans laments the cost of the new arrivals' upkeep. Gorman suggests pressing his millionaire buddies for funding, and Yates has the idea to hold an elaborate dinner for the big shots at the zoo, in front of the new animal arrivals, with the press invited to cover the whole shebang. Everyone loves the idea, but Gorman has some murderous ideas of his own, with the zoo and its animals taking the blame.

My wife and I were both expecting some goofy man-in-gorilla-suit shenanigans, which were extraordinarily popular in horror and adventure films of the '20s and '30s, but Murders in the Zoo avoids that corny business altogether, using real snakes, big cats, and alligators and the homicidal hijinks of Gorman, with Atwill doing a tremendous job as the creepy psycho millionaire. Director Sutherland creates and maintains an unsettling atmosphere, and the comedic moments nicely offset the extremely dark turns the film takes, creating a constant tension and release. A section of the film involving a cat-and-mouse chase in the Gormans' home that moves to the zoo at night is particularly effective and beautifully lit by Haller. I also want to mention the opening credits sequence that shows a zoo animal, followed by a member of the cast posing in a similar manner.

I was pleasantly surprised by Murders in the Zoo and think it deserves a bigger cult audience. It's weird, dark, creepy, and funny, with a running time of 62 minutes. I wish Hollywood would once again embrace the 60-90 minute running time. As a big fan of horror and film noir, I love the leanness and economy of these genres at their best. It's no surprise that Hollywood's two worst periods, the mid-1960s and the last twenty years, are full of bloated two-and-a-half-hour running times. I love long films, too, when their lengths are justified, but I'm sick of all the padding and bloat in modern mainstream filmmaking. Give me a tight 60-90, baby! 

Bury Me an Angel (Barbara Peeters, 1971)

Bury Me an Angel, Barbara Peeters' second film as director (following lesbian sexploitation movie The Dark Side of Tomorrow), is a fascinating and unusual woman-centered biker film/road movie that subverts genre expectations and creates its own unique vibe, even when it's paying tribute to Easy Rider or hitting familiar narrative beats. Distributed by Roger Corman's New World Pictures (Corman changed the name from The Hunt because most of his biker movies had the word "angel" in the title), Bury Me an Angel rides the line between the art film and the drive-in/exploitation movie, a line I'm generally happy to see ridden. Audiences expecting nonstop action, violence, sex, and motorcycle chases will definitely be disappointed (though there's a little of all these things), but if you're looking for an atmospheric, rough-and-tumble, low-budget, feminist B-movie slice of early '70s weird America, Bury Me an Angel is worth your time.

Dispensing with most of its violence in the opening scene, Angel begins with a raging biker party set to a pretty kick-ass garage-fuzz obscurity by East-West Pipeline (who also handle the film's score). When Dag and her brother Dennis (real-life sister and brother Dixie and Dennis Peabody) enter their home after leaving the party, a weirdo with a shotgun turns up at the front door and blows Dennis's brains out. Dag fixes up the motorcycle Dennis stole for her, buys a rifle from a firearms store called Gun Fighter, lets her goofball friends Jonsie and Bernie (Terry Mace and Clyde Ventura) ride with her after they invite themselves along, and hits the open road looking for her brother's killer before he bolts to Canada.

After talking to some local bikers and a guy known as the Peaceful Preacher who have some dirt on where the killer went, Dag and her buddies get on their bikes and start tracking him down. Along the way, they enjoy some California highway riding to the rock stylings of East-West Pipeline, camp out under the stars, and meet a bunch of weirdos, including future star of Grizzly Adams Dan Haggerty, a self-described witch at an isolated and empty country restaurant/bar who makes them cannabis stew and reads their minds, and a small-town redneck cop with a Munchkin voice who utters the immortal line, "What in the cornbread hell is going on out here?" (I appreciate this film's healthy disregard for the police.) As a Cassavetes freak, I also can't forget to mention Joanne Moore Jordan, who appeared in Faces and A Woman under the Influence. She plays Dag's stepmother Annie and spends most of her time knitting in front of a blaring television set while avoiding eye contact with Dag. There are so many fascinating faces and personalities in this movie. 

One of my favorite scenes takes place at a dive bar called The Sportsman. Everyone in the place is a lovable weirdo (and most of them seem like locals who were already there drinking when the film crew showed up), including an old guy with a deep, froggy voice who complains that the lack of rain is making the soil hard as concrete. After asking around about the killer, Dag beats a bunch of guys at pool, two of them get into a fight over which one gets to buy her a drink, and the whole place erupts into a satisfyingly bonkers bar fight.

When Dag, Jonsie, and Bernie finally catch up with the man who killed Dag's brother, she has to wrestle with her desire for revenge, the man's reasons for doing what he did, her own dark memories of possible sexual abuse committed by her brother, and doubts about her moral justifications for revenge. Quite a bit more to chew on than your usual biker flick.

Peeters would become a more technically gifted filmmaker, and Bury Me an Angel can be a little stiff and awkward, but that rawness is also part of its charm. This is real, seat-of-the-pants, independent filmmaking, and everyone in the movie has a face with character and life. I really liked this oddball movie.

Barbara Peeters was one of a handful of women directors in Roger Corman's New World Pictures stable of '70s drive-in/exploitation filmmakers (Stephanie Rothman is another notable peer at New World). Starting as a secretary for Corman after PA work on Soul Train, she quickly became a valued member of Corman's filmmaking team, working as a crew member, writer, assistant director, and director throughout the 1970s. She's probably most famous for her last Corman movie, the wildly entertaining 1980 amphibious monster movie Humanoids from the Deep. Her other directing credits include Summer School Teachers and Starhops. Peeters spent the 1980s directing network television, including episodes of Cagney & Lacey, Matt Houston, Remington Steele, Falcon Crest, and two short-lived science fiction series I loved as a small child, The Powers of Matthew Star and Misfits of Science. That's where Peeters' IMDB page ends, but her film career continued. She moved to Oregon and started her own production company, making music videos and commercials and providing resources and assistance for other filmmakers. Peeters has also spent several years working on a personal project, a documentary about domestic violence. I hope that film sees the light of day soon.