Well, this was a bit of a disappointment, nothing like the incredible reviews national critics have always given it. Watching this yesterday, I did find out why one big reason this is held in such regard. Critics are overwhelmingly left- wingers and most liberals hold animals in higher esteem than they do human beings. Hurt a human? No big deal. Hurt an animal? Why, Liberals think you should be executed!
In this movie, the tables are turned on a hunter. He finds out what it's like to be hunted, like those poor animals. "Oh, wow, this is great," says the liberal critic. "This is exactly how I feel." (By the way, I have never hunted and never will, either.)
Anyway, the fun doesn't start until the last 24 minutes in this very short (62 minutes) but mostly talky film. Before that, we have to endure a lot of obnoxious ramblings by a drunk played by Robert Armstrong. He plays "Martin Trowbridge," a guest at the island castle of "Count Zaroff" (Leslie Banks). Armstrong's voice is irritating. I put up with it in "King Kong" because the film is so entertaining, start to finish, but that's not the case here. Thankfully this loud, boorish "Trowbridge" disappears halfway through. That still leaves his sister "Eve," played by another "Kong" star, Fay Wray. She looks lovely again and, when called upon, plays the usual screaming, hysterical and helpless woman so often portrayed in the 1930s films.
Wray and Joel McCrea ("Bob Rainsford") star in the what really counts in this film: those last 24 minutes. That's when "The Most Dangerous Game" begins to be played. Bob had been the lone survivor of a ship wreck off the island and managed to find his way up to the castle, where he met the others including "Zarloff," who is the villain. The Russian Count is the guy who hunts humans instead of animals, for sport and sexual pleasures. (That comes afterward and why Zaroff won't kill Wray.) The Count explains the whys and wheres and soon, Bob is off and running, deciding to take Fay with him, dress, high heels and all, into the jungle. She was a big help, as you can imagine.
The actual 15-minute hunt scene in the jungle with the Count, a couple of his cronies and a pack of dogs all hunting down Bob is very suspenseful. It is well-photographed and especially good considering the film was shot 75 years ago. It's easily the best part of the movie. There are good closeups and some nice low-angle shots. The action scenes don't look as hokey as you might assume for a film so old.
In case you didn't get the anti-hunting messages earlier, McCrea, in the middle of the suspense, proclaims: "Those animals I cornered; now I know how they felt!"
The manhunt is not the end of the action, as McCrea turns into "Rambo" for the last 5-10 minutes back in the castle, killing all the villains in sight and rowing off the island with the girl.
It's hard for a film to be intolerably boring when it is this short, but that middle part could have edited down, the jungle scenes expanded, and then it might have been a true classic