The Most Dangerous Game
Short description
A shipwreck leaves big-game hunter Robert Rainsford stranded on a remote island, where he is taken in by the wealthy and cultured Count Zaroff. The count proves to be a fellow hunting enthusiast, but his hospitality hides a darker purpose: bored with ordinary prey, he stalks human beings instead. Rainsford and two other survivors, brother and sister Eve and Martin Trowbridge, become the quarry in a hunt across the island, with their freedom promised if they can last until morning.
Ernest B. Schoedsack and Irving Pichel directed this 1932 release, working from a screenplay by James Ashmore Creelman, with Merian C. Cooper producing. It was the earliest of Schoedsack's listed features, preceding King Kong and The Son of Kong, and the first in Pichel's filmography before She and Quicksand. Joel McCrea plays Rainsford, Fay Wray plays Eve, Leslie Banks plays Zaroff, and Robert Armstrong plays Martin, with Noble Johnson and Steve Clemente in supporting roles. The film runs just over an hour.
On IMDb it holds a 7 out of 10 from roughly 15,000 votes, and on TMDB a 6.9 from 326 votes, fairly consistent audience scores. A critics' rating of 7.8 from 25 reviews sits above both audience averages, suggesting the film has been regarded more strongly by critics than by general viewers.
What's left behind the scenes
- In the initial version of the film, lasting 78 minutes, the scene in the trophy room was longer, and the contents of the room were shown in more detail. At least two human dummies and more heads in glass jars were shown than in the final version. After seeing all this and hearing explanations of how each victim died, the audience at the preview began to leave, so the scene in the trophy room was shortened.
- It is believed that this film inspired the crimes of the Zodiac Killer – a serial killer who operated in the United States in the late 1960s. The identity of the criminal remains unknown.
- Noble Johnson (1881-1978), an African American and childhood friend of actor and director Lon Chaney (1883-1930), played the Cossack Ivan. This is the first known case in cinema where an African American played a representative of the European race.
- Many of the sets from this film were also used in the film "King Kong" (Merian C. Cooper, 1933). This even applied to the gates, which later burned during the filming of the first episode of Victor Fleming’s melodrama "Gone with the Wind" (1939). The fact is that the filming of "The Most Dangerous Game" and "King Kong" was happening simultaneously, although "King Kong" was released later (the delay was apparently due to work on the special effects).
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
