The Most Dangerous Game
About The Most Dangerous Game
Big-game hunter Bob Rainsford is wrecked off a South American channel and swims to Count Zaroff’s island, where Eve Trowbridge and her brother Martin are already guests. Zaroff, bored with animals, hunts people. Martin is killed. Zaroff then gives Rainsford a knife and the day, and hunts him and Eve through the jungle. At a waterfall Zaroff’s shot drops Rainsford and a hound. Zaroff takes Eve back, thinking Rainsford dead. Rainsford returns to the chateau, fights Zaroff, and leaves with Eve by boat. The dying count falls to his own dogs.
Cast & crew
More about The Most Dangerous Game
Ernest B. Schoedsack and Irving Pichel directed. James Ashmore Creelman adapted Richard Connell’s 1924 story. Merian C. Cooper, David O. Selznick, and Schoedsack produced. RKO cut the budget and the schedule, so planned cast and effects were dropped. Most of it was shot on a jungle set built by Thomas Little, later used for King Kong. Henry W. Gerrard photographed it. Archie Marshek edited. Max Steiner wrote the music. The United States release was September 16, 1932. In Britain it was called The Hounds of Zaroff.
Themes
Background
It is a pre-Code picture. The story asks a hunter whether he would change places with the animal.
Making
The shorter running time is what was left after the cuts in cast and effects. The chase is staged on Little’s indoor jungle rather than on an island location.
Reviews
Mordaunt Hall, in the New York Times, called it a highly satisfactory melodrama and praised Leslie Banks as Zaroff. Other opening reviews treated the idea of hunting a person as an odd subject and found the rest of the acting thinner than Banks.
Audiences
It returned a profit of $75,000 in its first year.
Look
Henry W. Gerrard shot the film on Thomas Little’s jungle set, including the night chase to the waterfall.
Music
Max Steiner wrote the score.
Preservation
The film survives. Copies are on the Internet Archive and on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- Joel McCrea plays Rainsford. Fay Wray plays Eve. Leslie Banks plays Zaroff. Robert Armstrong plays Martin.
- Noble Johnson and Steve Clemente play Zaroff’s servants. Hale Hamilton and James Flavin appear as well.
- It is the first film of Connell’s story.
- Fay Wray, Cooper, and Schoedsack went from this set to King Kong.
- English and Russian are both heard.
Scenes
- The yacht is drawn onto the reef by false channel lights and explodes.
- Eve and Rainsford find human heads in the trophy room, and Zaroff arrives with Martin’s body.
- At the waterfall Zaroff fires, and Rainsford and a hound go over.
- Zaroff, dying, falls from the window into the pack.
Influenced by
- Richard Connell's story The Most Dangerous Game (1924)
Also available
- Internet Archive (TheMostDangerousGame)
- Wikimedia Commons (The Most Dangerous Game (1932).webm)
