ORIGINS OF AN OVERUSED PREMISE The Most Dangerous Game (1932) **

This world's divided into two kinds of people: the hunter and the hunted. Luckily I'm the hunter. Nothing can change that. Bob Rainsford


The Most Dangerous Game when it was released was perceived clearly a deep and ponderous film. By today's standards, unfortunately, there's not much to praise. Leslie Banks as Count Zaroff hunts Bob Rainsford (Joel McCrea) on an isolated island. Undoubtedly, there's a lot of Nietzschean/nihilism contained in Zaroff's madness but the overacting is so severe (even by the period's standards). Still, the film is bearable but it's primary value is seeing as the first of many films exploiting the slick premise of poor people hunted by overrich hunters. The Ice-T version is much more effective - though not by much.