The Most Dangerous Game [The Hounds of Zaroff] ***** (1932, Joel McCrea, Fay Wray, Leslie Banks, Robert Armstrong) – Classic Movie Review 1,724

The chilling 1932 horror thriller film The Most Dangerous Game stars an inspired Leslie Banks as Count Zaroff, who arranges for a ship to be wrecked on his remote island to enjoy hunting and killing the surviving passengers.

Directors Ernest B Schoedsack and Irving Pichel’s still haunting, potent and chilling RKO Radio Pictures 1932 horror thriller film The Most Dangerous Game stars an inspired Leslie Banks as Count Zaroff, a mad Russian nobleman who arranges for a ship to be wrecked on his remote island where he can enjoy the hunting and killing of the surviving passengers.

Making a sterling, handsome, dashing hero in peril, Joel McCrea also stars as Bob Rainsford, who is washed ashore on the island after his luxury cabin cruiser crashes on a reef. He finds a fortress-like house, where the owner Zaroff at first seems to be welcoming. He also finds other shipwreck survivors Eve Trowbridge (Fay Wray) and her alcoholic brother Martin (Robert Armstrong).

The left side of his face paralysed in World War One in real life, Leslie Banks makes a superior villain and is haughtily, camply and sniffily creepy in the manner of Vincent Price, making a lip-smacking meal of the insane hunter who is soon stalking human prey on his island. He’s splendidly deranged.

Bob, Eve and Martin are now in big trouble, leading to some of Fay Wray’s best King Kong-style screaming. She shows why she was the queen of the screamers. Banks is the show-stopping turn, but all the other actors are ideal too, with always underrated Joel McCrea a fine leading actor.

This exciting, good-looking movie is imaginatively photographed in black and white by Henry W Gerrard, handsomely dressed by set designer Carroll Clark, and stirringly scored by Max Steiner.

Schoedsack directs in style and tops it off with a memorable great chase, and it is all done and dusted in an incredibly spare and economical 63 minutes.

The Jean-Claude Van Damme version Hard Target (1993) takes nearly twice as long to tell the same story in the Nineties (the Director’s Cut version runs 116 minutes).

Like the same team’s King Kong, The Most Dangerous Game has achieved the rare distinction of permanently maintaining its aura and iconic status, and reputation as a legendary all-time great horror thriller film classic.

Richard Connell’s prize-winning short story The Most Dangerous Game was first published in Collier’s magazine on January 19 1924 and has often been remade, including A Game of Death (1945), Run for the Sun (1956), John Woo and Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Hard Target (1993) and Surviving the Game (1994) with Rutger Hauer.

James Ashmore Creelman writes the 1932 screenplay, with Richard Connell credited on screen for his story, which is one of the most anthologised short stories of all time.

The Merian C Cooper /Ernest B Schoedsack producer-director team – plus stars Wray and Armstrong, actors James Flavin and Noble Johnson, and composer Max Steiner – were making King Kong simultaneously, filming this one in the daytime and Kong at night, with the same large jungle sets created by Thomas Little. Two enduring antique classics for the price of one.

When RKO cut the budget and shooting schedule, Cooper and Schoedsack had to reduce the cast and special effects for a shorter (just 63 minutes), tauter, more streamlined film. So, on a budget of $219,869, it took $443,000 at the box office, and was a success.

Noble Johnson plays Zaroff’s servant Ivan the Cossack – the earliest known instance of a black actor working in whiteface to play a Caucasian character.

Steve Clemente, Oscar Dutch Hendrian, William B Davidson, James Flavin and Hale Hamilton are also in the cast.

The British title was The Hounds of Zaroff.

The Count’s dogs are Great Danes borrowed from comedy star Harold Lloyd, with their fur darkened to look menacing. 

RKO musical director Max Steiner commissioned W Franke Harling to write the score, but Cooper said it sounded like a Broadway show, so Steiner composed the final score. The scoring and recording of the soundtrack cost $13,720, way over the $5,900 budget, but RKO re-used it for other films.

The failure of the original copyright holder to renew the film’s copyright resulted in it falling into public domain.

The year 2022 brings ANOTHER The Most Dangerous Game – and this time starring poor old Tom Berenger, Judd Nelson, Bruce Dern, Casper Van Dien.

The cast are Joel McCrea as Bob Rainsford, Fay Wray as Eve Trowbridge,  Leslie Banks as Count Zaroff, Robert Armstrong as Martin Trowbridge, Noble Johnson as servant Ivan, Steve Clemente as servant Tartar, Dutch Hendrian as Achmed, William B Davidson as Captain James Flavin as First Mate, Hale Hamilton as Bill, and Landers Stevens as Doc.

The Most Dangerous Game is directed by Ernest B Schoedsack and Irving Pichel, runs 63 minutes, is made and released by RKO Radio Pictures, is written by James Ashmore Creelman, based on 1924 story in Collier’s The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell, is shot in black and white by Henry W Gerrard, is produced by Merian C Cooper and Ernest B Schoedsack, and is scored by Max Steiner.

Release date: September 16, 1932.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1,724

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