In the 21st century, when just about any kind ofsex and violence can be downloaded at the click of a mouse, and torture-packedfilms such as Saw pull in plenty at the box-office, I often have a tendencyto forget how brutal and kinky horror films have always been to some extent,even those made nearly 80 years ago. The Most Dangerous Game is a classicexample, a tightly paced mix of cruelty, grisly horror, and deviant sexualdesires.
The script stays fairly faithful to the short story by RobertConnell on which it is based, but also adds one detail which subtly adds a newlayer to the plot, without losing the straightforwardness that makes the sourcematerial so gripping. After his ship is wrecked, world famous big game hunterRobert Rainsford manages to swim to a nearby island. Taking shelter in thecastle of the mysterious Count Zaroff, Rainsford meets Eve Trowbridge and herbrother Martin, survivors of another wrecked vessel. The guests soon findthemselves sucked into the insane games of their host. Zaroff, bored withstalking animals, has decided to go hunting the Most Dangerous Game of all -man...
The film was made in 1932, in the era sometimes known as"Pre-Code Hollywood". At this time, film censorship rules were in place in theform of the Hays Code, the stated aim of which was to ensure that "nopicture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who seeit", and explicitly banned any depiction or even hint of sexual perversion or"low forms of sex"1.The MPAA adopted the code in 1930, but rarely bothered with it until 1934, whenthey came under pressure from high profile groups such as the Catholic Legionof Decency. Until then, producers felt that the public were more interested inwatching films containing the very things that moral guardians were trying toprevent them from seeing2.
The Most Dangerous Game has sexual undercurrents runningthrough whole of the film, with the first two minutes hinting nicely at what isin store. The opening credits are superimposed over a shot of the front door ofZaroff's castle, with its carved door knocker depicting a frenzied faced Satyrcarrying a scantily clad woman in his arms. This same image crops up later inthe tapestries adorning Zaroff's wall.
Count Zaroff himself acts as if he is constantly horny,twirling his cigarette in an unsubtly phallic manner and talking like he'sconstantly on the point of orgasm. His dialogue is peppered with lines such as "kill then love, when you have known that, you have knownecstasy", explicitly stating his belief in the linksbetween violence and sex. The intensity of Banks's performance is helped by asubtle detail I have only recently noticed. While serving in the British armyin World War One, he sustained injuries which left one half of his facecompletely paralyzed.3 This isutilized to great effect in the film, as nearly all scenes where he is playingthe charming host are shot with only one side of his face showing to the cameraso that you don't see the disparity between his eyes. However, any scene where heis being menacing or lecherous is shot full on, with the injured half of hisface having a bulging leering eye that feels as though it could almost pop outof his head at any moment.
A further sexual element is found in the character of EveTrowbridge, who was not in the original short story. There, the face-offbetween Rainsford and Zaroff was merely a battle for survival. In the film,while a combination of the brief running time and her character's generalpassivity leads to her not making a massive impression beyond her looks, hermere existence means that the duel now takes on an air of two animals fightingfor possession of a mate. When Zaroff, just before loosing his guests into theforest to be hunted, says that "...one does not kill the female", the implication(bearing in mind he prefers to "kill, then love") is that after capturing and murderingRainsford, he intends to rape Eve.
But enough about sex, what about the horror? While the filmstays close to its literary source material as far as plot goes, for nearlyevery other aspect (shot composition, cinematography, dialogue, productiondesign, and acting style) it draws heavily on the tradition of "Grand Guignol".This means4dispensing, at least on the surface, with subtlety and playing up thegruesomeness of the subject matter, the distorted viewpoints of the characters,their cruelty and sadism. Therefore we get lotsof ripe dialogue from Zaroff (when he offers to "take care" of Eve's brother,we all know what's really going to happen) as well as sweeping tracking shotsleading to bulging eyed facial expressions in close up, and a score thatdoesn't hold back on volume and pace, especially during the chase sequences."Grand Guignol" also dispenses with the supernatural, in favor of the horrorthat man can inflict on his fellow man or as the philosopher Noël Carroll said"though gruesome, Grand-Guignol requires sadists rather than monsters."5 This issummed up perfectly in the scene where Eve and Rainsford discover Zaroff's trophyroom, which consists entirely of human heads, both mounted on the wall andfloating in glass tanks, their mouths frozen forever in permanent silentscreams. These aren't needed for black magic rituals or pseudo-scientificexperiments. This is purely Zaroff boasting of his ability to hunt and kill hisfellow human beings.
As is sometimes the case (Bela Lugosi's Dracula or JackNicholson's Joker spring to mind), the bad guy far outshines the good guy, bothin complexity of character, sex appeal and charisma, and the film does notreally spring into life until Zaroff appears. With his complete lack of empathytowards the human beings he murders, he is the progenitor of all those slashermovie maniacs to come, although his intelligence and cunning rationalization ofhis actions (as well as his suaveness and initial charm) make him more HannibalLecter than Michael Myers. He clearly does not see what he does as murder, butas a game (which perhaps gives the film's title an interesting double meaningas well) with strict rules to abide by, and it seems perfectly plausible thathe would let people go if they survived his pursuit.
So what about our hero? Rainsford is no square-jawed FlashGordon type. Although he is just as genuine as Zaroff in his love of huntinganimals, having written many books on the subject (Zaroff has read them all,naturally), he clearly feels no empathy for his prey, feeling that they enjoybeing hounded to their deaths. However, here he is given the chance to find outhow the hunted feels, and despite his initial qualms about taking human life hesoon learns that if he is going to get off the island alive, there is no roomfor nobility, and he is going to have to be as vicious and ruthless as thehunter.
But aside from the more explicit subject matter in the film,there is a second, more subtly chilling strand of horror at work here. If thethrill of the chase is the one thing that keeps Zaroff going, then therealization that he is bored of it has pushed him over the edge into insanity.In other words, he is having something of an existential crisis. The theme ofexistence and its meaning or meaninglessness is a vital part of the horrorgenre. Dracula explored the horror of living forever, Frankenstein the horrorof being born without being asked (as well as the consequences for the"parents"). Here Zaroff is up against a classic paradox; if our goals andambitions are the only things that give our life meaning, what do we do when weachieve them? Should we set more goals and ambitions? But what about when wehave achieved those? How many fresh goals can we set? And what if we don'tachieve those? Does that make us failures? The Most Dangerous Game did notprovide any easy answers, but, having watched it countless times over theyears, it has always left me with plenty to think about.
Many people have remade the story officially, such as inRobert Wise's A Game of Death (1945) and many, many more haveripped it off (Bloodlust, The Woman Hunt, Turkey Shoot, and Surviving the Game toname a few). Some are more successful than others butnone of the versions I have seen pack anywhere near the kind of punch, andcapture the sense of sexually charged violence and madness that The MostDangerous Game does.
This review is part of our Shocktober Classics 2009: Staff Screams event.
1 "The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 (Hays Code)." ArtsReformation.com. Updated 12 April 2006. Retrieved 05 October 2009.
2 Hunt, Paula. "Sex and Politics: Mixed Reviews." MovieMaker.com. Published 02 September 1999. Retrieved 05 October 2009.
3 Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 05 October 2009.
4 Hand, Richard J. and Michael Wilson. "The Grand-Guignol: Aspects of Theory and Practice." Theatre Research International. Autumn 2000: 266-275. Available online at GrandGuignol.com.
5 Carroll, Noël. "The Philosophy of Horror, or, Paradoxes of the Heart." Routledge, 1990. Page 15.
Trivia:
As well as sharing sets with King Kong, The Most DangerousGame used many of the same cast (Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, NobleJohnson, and Steve Clemente) and crew (producerMerian C. Cooper, co-director Ernest B. Schoedsack, editor Archie E. Marshek,composer Max Steiner and screenwriter James Ashmore Creelman).
Noble Johnson was actually African American and playsZaroff's manservant Ivan in "whiteface".
The trophy room scene was reportedly much longer inthe original version of the film with Zaroff giving a guided tour of his museum.However, weak stomached preview audiences began heading for the door, so it wascut back to the length we have now. None of this footage is known to havesurvived. (Source: IMDb)