The Most Dangerous Game

The Most Dangerous Game (1932)

Directed by: Irving Pichel & Ernest B. Shoedsack
Written by: James Ashmore Creelman, based on a short story by Richard Connell
Starring: Joel McCrea, Leslie Banks, Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Noble Johnson, Steve Clemento, Dutch Hendrian, William Davidson

King Kong's sister production, using many of the same actors (Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Noble Johnson) and sets (I think I recognized that tree chair thing, and I'm positive I saw that bridge in there).

This movie is about a big game hunter who shipwrecks on an island and gets taken in by the island's owner. The owner also happens to be a big game hunter, only he hunts people (who are, apparently, the most dangerous game) rather than tigers and elephants and shit like that. So he and the girl (the survivor of a different ship wreck) have to run away from the crazy count for the rest of the movie.

So not a whole lot happens in the movie, which makes it seem a little bit longer than it is (it's actually only about an hour long. You couldn't make a 90 minute movie with this story, I don't think. Well, maybe you could. I don't know). But most of it is pretty good.

Some of the writing is a little bit... not good (a lot of it was kind of obvious. I can't think of any examples at the moment, but there's a lot of 'as you know, Bob' kind of lines). Although a lot of the movie has no dialogue whatsoever.

It's pretty gruesome for the time, though. I mean, the guy has a room full of pickled heads and crap like that. Of course, Kong was also pretty nasty, what with all the squishing and twisting and munching.

I'm not all that crazy about the original Kong. I prefer either of the remakes for some reason (I know, the one with Jeff Bridges sucks major ass, whatever, but Jeff Bridges is cool), but I did kind of like this movie. It looked nice.

And it had cute dogs! I love dogs. Big dogs, Great Danes, they were (Great Danes aren't all that scary. They're sweeties, really). People who don't like dogs are half people.

Anyway, I like movies with dogs in them. Obviously. I think they could make a remake of this movie that would be pretty good. Mind you, they practically have already. I mean, there are lots of movies like this. Never mind that then.

Anyway, there's that whole moral question in there somewhere. Like, if it's okay to murder tigers and elephants and other good natured creatures of the forest, why not people? I try not to get into anything deep like that, but it's an interesting question. I think they should kill people.

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