5 Star

Feel the Fear of the Prey.

THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME comes from the short story of the same name by Richard Connell (Meet John Doe, Two Girls and a Sailor). This film differs from other films, as it was shot on the set of another film that was being made at the time, Merian C. Cooper‘s (The Four Feathers, The Last Days of Pompeii) and Ernest B. Schoedsack‘s (Son of Kong, Trouble in Morocco) King Kong, filmed at night in the jungle section of the soon-to-be colossal horror film.

Starring in both films is the scream queen Fay Wray (Doctor X, Mystery of the Wax Museum), and Robert Armstrong (Mighty Joe Young, The Penguin Pool Mystery). Now presented in 1080p, It is part of The Masters of Cinema series #269. THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME is a cracking short story from the days before the pre-Code (source Wikipedia), and views were very different back then.

Starting with foreboding music, we are transported to the Pacific islands where Bill (Hale Hamilton, The Drums of Jeopardy, The Girl from Missouri) is aboard his yacht with a few friends. Also along for the pleasure trip is Robert “Bob” Rainsford (Joel McCrea, Foreign Correspondent, The Virginian) and ‘Doc’ (Landers Stevens, Hell Divers, Men of Steel). Bob and Doc have history as Bob is a ‘Big Game’ hunter and Doc is his photographer.

Doc. “I was thinking of the inconsistency of civilisation. The beast of the jungle killing just for his existence, is called savage. The man, killing for sport, is called civilised.”

Upstairs, the captain and his first mate are confused by the channel markings in these dangerous waters, as they don’t show the same channel as the maps. But Bill says follow the lights. This was the wrong decision, as disaster strikes and the boat hits a reef and sinks, leaving Bob as the only survivor. Bob makes it to an island jungle, where he stumbles through the undergrowth until he spies a huge building in the distance.

I ask you if there’d be as much sport in the game if you were the tiger instead of the hunter.

This is the home of Count Zaroff (Leslie Banks, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Debt of Honour) a Russian exile. He gets his Cossack servant Ivan (Noble Johnson, The Mummy, Murder in Trinidad) to get him to a room to dry off and have a change of clothes. When he comes downstairs, Zaroff is entertaining his other guests, Brother and sister Eve (Fay Wray) and Martin Trowbridge (Robert Armstrong), also survivors of a shipwreck. Something fishy going on here, me thinks.

Why are there more than one shipwreck survivor in this fortress, and why is it that when people visit Zaroff’s ‘Trophy Room’ people disappear? These are the questions Bob must find the answer too.

Outdoor Chess, Mr Rainsford.

The Most Dangerous Game, 1932 is the first adaptation of the short story and in my opinion the best, now as a Master’s of Cinema release a great addition to your Adventure, Horror collection.

The Most Dangerous Game is available on Blu-ray

SPECIAL EDITION BLU-RAY INCLUDES

Limited Edition O-Card Slipcase (First print-run of 2000 copies only) | 1080p presentation on Blu-ray from a 2K restored scan | Optional English SDH | Brand-new audio commentary with author Stephen Jones and author / critic Kim Newman | Brand-new interview with author / critic Kim Newman on the “hunted human” sub-genre | Brand-new interview with film scholar Stephen Thrower | PLUS: A collector’s booklet featuring a new essay by Craig Ian Mann, illustrated with archival imagery | *All extras subject to change