History of Edinburgh the meantime the Old Town continued to decay into an increasingly dilapidated, overcrowded slum with high mortality rates, and was practically segregated socially from the rest of the city. This was especially true where the sub-division of tenements offered the cheapest lodgings in narrow alleyways that formed the backdrop to the infamous 'West Port Murders' of Burke and Hare. In 1865 Alexander Smith wrote of one of the poorest districts, The Cowgate is the Irish portion of the city. Edinburgh leaps over it with bridges: the inhabitants are morally and geographically the lower orders. They keep to their own quarters,
Murders in the Zoo for comfort…[and judging] by its ability to chill and terrify, this film is a successful melodrama." Mark Clark wrote an article on Lionel Atwill as an actor and says that "Murders in the Zoo" was the "quintessential Lionel Atwill film." In the article Clark claims that "Atwill performs here with the quiet, coiled striking power of a beast tracking its prey. He glides effortlessly across the screen, speaking volumes with a barely perceptible change in tenor in his voice, unveiling his character's hidden passions with a simple, unguarded glance." Murders in the Zoo Murders in the Zoo is 1933 Pre-Code