The Most Dangerous Game (1932)

An old review from my personal blog, Perfectly Swell.

 Yesterday I watched The Most Dangerous Game (1932) starring Joel McCrea, Fay Wray, and Leslie Banks. I watched this immediately after seeing Joel McCrea in Bird of Paradise with Delores Del Rio and Most Dangerous Game is way better. And at just over an hour, it gets to the point and doesn't drag its feet. Avid hunter Bob (Joel McCrea) gets shipwrecked and finds himself on an island inhabited by the bizarre piano-playing, hunting-obsessed Count Zaroff (Leslie Banks) and his other shipwrecked "guests." It's eventually discovered that Zaroff has grown tired of hunting conventional targets, and is moving on to a more "dangerous game" (get it? get it?): man! It seems that this nutcase Zaroff arranges these accidents at sea and makes a deal with the survivors: if they can survive from midnight until dawn without getting caught, they are free to leave. Count Zaroff hasn't lost yet. Aaaaaand go! Joel McCrea is pretty awesome ("This world's divided into two kinds of people: the hunter and the hunted. Luckily I'm the hunter. Nothing can change that."), and it turns out that Fay Wray is even hotter as a brunette, and she does that early-30s acting so well (make your eyes wider! Now tremble, dammit, TREMBLE!). But dude, Leslie Banks as Count Zaroff. This guy's face is insane. Don't stare too long, or you'll go absolutely mad! This film used many of the same sets as the classic King Kong, but I almost enjoyed this more than that old gorilla movie. Is that blasphemous? You have to admit...a crazy guy hunting people is a little more interesting than a giant monkey. Besides being an enjoyable, if not predictable, 30s romp in the woods (jungle?), it has a relevant message against hunting. As Joel McCrea says as he flees for his life, "Those animals I hunted: Now I know how they felt…" Hunting for sport is not cool, people. Hey! I've got a scathingly brilliant idea (thanks Haley Mills): why don't we put Sarah Palin on an island with a loony hunter and see how she likes it? Who's with me?! Netflix this little treasure, you'll enjoy it!