The wolf eats the lamb. The fox raids the henhouse. Man picks up a gun and stalks his brother across one, many battlefields; both figuratively, and literally, as well. It's all kill, kill, kill, every day, all day.
The world is not a happy place, though I hardly need to remind anyone of that.
Man has ascended to his pinnacle of development by killing and eating his brother. Figuratively, and sometimes literally. (See, "Man--The Carnivore," a chapter in the forbidden, banned book Might is Right by Ragnar Redbeard.)
Once, mankind, men in general, understood the basic equation of survival--kill or be killed. Hunt or be hunted. The strong animal, the predator, always devours the weak animal, that the strong animal may "propagate, survive, and thrive." And this is the eternal way of things, from cradle to grave.
Count Zaroff has his own little island from which to practice and pursue what he terms "The Most Dangerous Game." The word "game" here is employed in the sense of both a competition, a sport, and in the sense of what is sought--game, prey. Dinner. A trophy to hang on a wall.
A head, perhaps, stuffed and mounted.
In this 1932 pre-Code classic, Bob Rainsford (Joel McCrea) is the last survivor of a yacht run aground mysteriously while crossing a channel off the coast of South America. The disaster that prefigures this is horrific, and punctuates Bob's observation that, "There are [...] two kinds of people in this world. The hunter and the hunted. And thankfully, I'm a hunter."
Then the ship runs aground, men are boiled alive below deck when the tanks explode (or something), and survivors clinging to the wreckage are devoured by sharks. As we said before, it's not a happy world.
Swimming ashore, he finds a mansion of gothic proportions atop this pugnacious bit of rock in the water, one inhabited by Russian expatriate Count Zaroff (Leslie Banks) who joins two sailors, the alcoholic Martin Trowbridge (Robert Armstrong), and his sister Eve (the beautiful Fay Wray, who would later be carried by giant gorilla to the top of the Empire State Building in King Kong, which utilized many of the same jungle sets). Zaroff is a charming pulp fiction madman living in his far-off mansion hideaway, but he alludes darkly to Rainsford, an internationally famous big game hunter who has authored bestselling books on the subject, about his own love of hunting being enhanced by his pursuit of "the most dangerous game." That being, of course, the two-legged, furless variety of big game, the most dangerous, the most ruthless and deadly.
(Or, as I like to refer to man, using that appellation in the non-generative sense, the "upright furless monkey with a god complex".)
Later, Eve and Bob discover the trophy Room, after her brother and the sailors mysteriously disappear.
The horrifying secret is unveiled.
Zaroff's madness is exposed.
And the hunt begins.
The combatants run through the jungle, chased by dogs, howling hounds who bark and whose slavering jaws drip with the venomous spittle that requires the admixture of living BLOOD to satiate the eternal thirst. Perhaps we wax a bit melodramatic; it's in our purview to be entertaining.
There is poetic justice here. It's a sad, and shocking, classic little story, belonging firmly in the pulp fiction tradition of 1924, when it was published in Collier's and became a pulp sensation. It is perhaps Richard Connell's only well-known tale; we'd have to check that. Right now, we're too infernally lazy.
What can I say?
People can be so beastly these days.
Directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack, and Irving Pichel. Written by James Ashmore Creelman, who also wrote the screenplay for King Kong. From the story by Richard Connell.
The Most Dangerous Game (1932) | Full Movie | Joel McCrea, Fay Wray | Restored HD
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Tom Baker
Author of Haunted Indianapolis, Indiana Ghost Folklore, Midwest Maniacs, Midwest UFOs and Beyond, Scary Urban Legends, 50 Famous Fables and Folk Tales, and Notorious Crimes of the Upper Midwest.: http://tombakerbooks.weebly.com
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