Rental of the Week
Rental of the Week: The Most Dangerous Game
Posted by H. Stewart (hstewart@filmschoolrejects.com) on April 5, 2007
On-line rental companies now offer democratized, unprecedented access to the annals of film history, but the copious selection can be a bit daunting and counterproductive: what, exactly, should you watch? This column hopes to help steer you towards good film and away from the bad.
Rainsford, played by a young Joel McCrea, is a famous big game hunter and a writer of adventure-memoirs who finds himself stranded on a mysterious island after being the sole survivor of a suspicious shipwreck. Thought to be uninhabited, the island is in fact home to Count Zarloff, a Cossack who successfully fled the Revolution with his fortune in tact, and his macabre retinue. Zarloff, too, it turns out, is a passionate hunter, but he has an appetite for the biggest, most dangerous game of them all—Joel McCrea.
It’s a potent, oft-worked premise, but the filmmakers don’t really take it anywhere. Is The Most Dangerous Game an animal rights polemic that deglamorizes sport-hunting by turning the tables? Or is it a subversive socialist allegory for the barbarity of the ruling class? At only a little more than sixty minutes, it’s over too quickly to find out. The film does have its moments—a gruesome collection of “trophiesâ€, some creepy close-ups and a ravishing final shot—but doesn’t nearly every movie have something nice to be said of it when one tries hard enough? (And Lord, Criterion, I’m trying!)
The Most Dangerous Game’s historical significance is that it was made at the same time, and by the same people, Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoesdsack, who brought us King Kong, using many of the same sets, crew and actors—including Fay Wray. But in relation to its sister film, The Most Dangerous Game is like a turkey soup made from the remnants of a Thanksgiving dinner. As Wray runs for her life through the jungle from Zarloff the mad hunter, I found myself wondering: where’s Kong when you need him?
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2 Comments
April 5th, 2007 at 10:14 am
I’ve always avoided seeing this film and I think I’ll continue to avoid it. Thanks for the heads up. As much as I love Criterion, they have put out a few stinkers, but I’ll never complain about it because they are so intent on giving the world the opportunity to catch the best that cinema has to offer.
April 6th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
I’m excited about Criterion’s new Eclipse label, which looks like it’ll allow them to put out a lot more stuff even if it doesn’t have the great bonus features. There’s a lot of movies, especially Criterion kind of stuff, that’s still not on DVD, and though–at least right now–I don’t really want to spend a weekend going through Early Bergman, I’m glad it’s Netflixable if I ever need it.
Criterion’s laserdiscs were much better than their DVDs because they seemed to be able to get the rights to anything they wanted (Casablanca, Magnificent Ambersons). Now it seems they just put out anything they can get their hands on, like this one. But I shouldn’t be a brat about it, they’re still an invaluable company!