Features: DVD, Black & White, Commentary
One of the best and most literate movies from the great days of horror,” The Most Dangerous Game stars Leslie Banks as a big game hunter with a taste for the world’s most exotic prey: his houseguests. Before making film history with 1933’s King Kong, producers Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack wowed audiences with their adaptation of this famous short story.Click here for more Criterion favorites!
Editor's Note
After a shipwreck, a big game hunter washes up on a remote island only to discover that its owner, also a hunter, has tired of tracking animals and has developed a taste for a new prey...humans. Co-Director Shoedsack performed the same duty on KING KONG, as did producer Cooper. The film also used the same jungle sets and star Wray. Based on Richard Connell's famous, oft-filmed story.
Plot Summary
Count Zaroff, a megalomaniac big game hunter, bored with shooting animals, has turned his attentions to other prey: human beings. He has yet to lose one of his unfair competitions (his less-than enthusiastic participants are armed with only a knife, while the Count is allowed a high-powered rifle) and eagerly waits for the next unfortunate soul to get shipwrecked on the small island he calls home. However, the Count doesn't expect to meet a man like Robert Rainsford, who proves to be more than a worthy match for the mad hunter.
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