Beware of Fog Hollow

THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME (1932)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Resembling a diabolical Gothic melodrama more than a survival picture, 1932's
The Most Dangerous Game" is still a stunning, magnetically potent tale of man's inhumanity to man. The inhumanity comes in the form of Russian Count Zaroff who has ideas for his beleaguered guests stranded on his island, and hospitality is not high on that list.

As the film opens, a shipwreck occurs where one survivor, a big game hunter named Bob Rainsford (Joel McCrea), manages to make it safely on a remote Portuguese island. Lo and behold, an isolated Gothic-like mansion owned by Count Zaroff (Leslie Banks) is seen on the horizon, resting on a hill. The menacing guards are not very welcoming yet Zaroff is nothing if not charming yet charmingly devious. He is the type of Count that welcomes one with good food and good wine yet has something up his sleeve - (HINT:  Zaroff  loves to hunt but is growing bored of hunting animals). Other shipwrecked guests are staying with Zaroff (apparently this happens a lot on this island), including a hard-drinking Robert Armstrong and the one and only Fay Wray, playing Armstrong's sister. There is something askew about this place, and it is not just Zaroff's facial scar. There are hungry hunting dogs right outside the entrance. A peculiar trophy room does not contain the heads of animals. I think you can see where this is going.

Zaroff traps his shipwrecked guests, wines and dines them, and then sets them up as his latest sport for hunting and killing. He gives his guests a head start through the thick of the jungle, always with the intention of using their hides to decorate his trophy room. Just beware of Fog Hollow, and steep mountainous crevices.

At a fast-paced 63 minutes from directors Irving Pichel and Ernest B. Schoedsack, "The Most Dangerous Game" is unrelenting and thick with tension. What is most remarkable is how much suspense is accomplished in such an extremely tight running time. And the cardinal rule in this type of survival-of-the-fittest-tale is having not only protagonists you care about (though Fay Wray's character has less to do than in 1933's "King Kong," which was shot simultaneously) but also a deliciously quick-witted, eerily charming, suave villain like Banks' Zaroff (he also played the role on stage, though notes on the Broadway production are vague on which role he played). When Zaroff and Rainsford finally square off against each other, your pulse will quicken and your heart will beat at a buffalo stampeding rate. "The Most Dangerous Game" is a thriller in more ways than one.