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The Most Dangerous Game
by Frank Campbell
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*** WARNING! CONTAINS SPOILERS! ***
I first encountered Richard Connell's classic short story, "The Most Dangerous Game" in elementary school. The story was in one of those anthologies of mystery/suspense/horror stories for young readers that Alfred Hitchcock lent his name to in the mid-1960s. Truth be told, the Master of Suspense had absolutely nothing to do with the selection of those stories and the publication of those books. He was merely the brand name that helped sell the collections and it worked. I bought several of them.
"The Most Dangerous Game" was also a standard entry in many of the short story anthologies from which we read in junior high and high school. I don't know if it's still included in today's tomes. It's a bit too pulpy and outrageous and flat out fun to be included in the more angst-ridden, navel gazing fare that passes as "modern literature" these days.
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For those of you who may have come in late, "The Most Dangerous Game" is the story of a man who becomes shipwrecked on a mysterious island. The island's sole inhabitant, the mad Russian Count Zaroff, likes to hunt. Specifically, he likes to hunt humans or as he likes to refer to the rest of us, "the most dangerous game". The entire island is his private game reserve and the hero of the story must fight for his life as Zaroff tracks his prey through the jungle.
Short answer question: is this story an example of: a.) man against himself, b.) man against nature or c.) man against man?
Fay Wray and Joel McCrea |
The story was turned into a crackerjack adventure film in 1932 by Ernest Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper, the gentlemen also responsible for the immortal masterpiece KING KONG (1933). In fact, while some of the elaborate, stop-motion animation special effects sequences for KONG were being filmed elsewhere by Willis O'Brien, Schoedsack and Cooper staged most of the hunting sequences for GAME on many of the existing KONG jungle sets (including the log bridge and swamp). They also used two of the three leads from KONG, Robert Armstrong and Fay Wray as players in GAME. That's economical filmmaking at it's' best.
While not as ambitious as KONG, GAME still works as a first-rate, fast-paced, action-adventure film. The original short story is opened up slightly and the film starts with our hero, a professional hunter played by Joel McCrea and his companions experiencing a shipwreck. McCrea is the only survivor to wash up on the shores of Count Zaroff's island.
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There he finds a mysterious castle (a wonderful glass-painting effects shot). The castle is home to Zaroff and his exotic and sinister man servants. McCrea makes a great action hero and with his shirt torn in several scenes, provides a visual template for what a DOC SAVAGE movie might have looked like if one had been filmed in the 1930s with McCrea in the lead as that classic pulp fiction hero.
Count Zaroff has two other "guests", a brother and sister duo played by Robert Armstrong and Fay Wray. Armstrong is bereft of the swagger and bravado that made his Carl Denham character in KONG so indelible. Here, he's a comic relief drunk who meets a grisly fate at the hands of Zaroff. Wray is of course, quite lovely. She has a wonderful ripeness and sensuality that many leading ladies exhibited in the pre-code films of the 1930s. She is one of the great "scream queens" in film history and while KONG made her immortal, she holds her own in GAME. Note: these characters do not exist in the original story.
*** WARNING! CONTAINS SPOILERS! ***
But the real star of the film is Leslie Banks who delivers a baroque, over-the-top performance as Zaroff that dances along the edge of camp. Dressed in formal evening wear, Banks constantly strokes his scarred forehead and imparts an air of madness with more than a slight whiff of poofery. He leers at both McCrea and Wray with equal amounts of desire and lust and one gets the impression that after he hunts and kills McCrea, he will have his way with Wray. Or vice versa.
Armstrong soon meets his gruesome fate and McCrea and Wray discover Zaroff's deadly secret in a hidden trophy room full of mounted heads. Human heads. Zaroff turns the pair loose on the island and gives them a one hour head start. The duo flees over, across, around and through some great jungle sets with Zaroff (armed with a bow and arrow) in pursuit. This is the visual highlight of the film and it's delivered with fast paced, breakneck speed. GAME is only sixty-three minutes long and it flat out moves.
McCrea appears to be killed by Zaroff but manages to survive and return to the castle for the climactic battle with the mad Russian. Zaroff meets his doom, the couple escapes the island and that's it. End of show. As the saying goes, when the monster's dead, the movie's over.
If you're in the mood for some fast, pulpy fun, check out THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME. It's time well spent.
Frank Campbell, an Austin writer, is the Community Relations Manager for Barnes & Noble in Round Rock, Texas. A native Austinite and graduate of Austin High School and the University of Texas, he is one of Austin's most astute film buffs and is considered by many to be the city's foremost expert on James Bond films.
Campbell lives in Manor, Texas with his wife Judy and their three children, Andy, Barney and Grady.
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