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The Most Dangerous Game (1932); Combined thread
Topic Started: Aug 24 2008, 11:22 AM (543 Views)
Laughing Gravy
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On a jungle island somewhere off the coast of somewhere else, mad Dr. Zaroff (Leslie Banks) hunts human prey that he lures to his preserve via shipwrecks. His latest targets are Joel McCrea, Fay Wray, Frank Fay, Stubby Kaye, Doris Day, Elaine May, Turhan Bey, Marvin Gaye, Martha Raye, and... Oy vey! I got carried away! That's not his prey!

Okay, well, Joel and Fay are there, and so is Robert Armstrong. Apparently, Miss Wray and Mr. Armstrong were hanging around the sets of King Kong and decided to make THIS movie while they were there (Ernest Schoedsack is one of the directors; Irving Pichel is t'other). Like another movie I saw recently (Three on a Match), this film is only a couple of minutes past an hour long, so everything happens really, really quickly. The excitement never lets up, the cast is excellent (I really like Joel McCrea, although he looks so much like his son Jody that I think of "Deadhead" from the Beach Party movies EVERY time I see th' guy), Miss Wray had the best scream in the business, Leslie Banks' Zaroff is one of the great nutjobs in movie history, and the film is amazingly well photographed -- check out the Swamp of Fog! Top-notch film, and the cheap Alpha DVD is the best offering I've ever seen from that company.
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
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AndyFish
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Another one of my favorites!
I'd read that McCrea was the first choice for King Kong but Bruce Cabot ended up with the part.

Great sets-- great action-- fast paced and exciting. If Bela Lugosi had played the villain this would have been even better-- although Leslie Banks was fine.
Noble Johnson (Ivan the Bodyguard) was the lead native in King Kong, and the great danes at the end actually belonged to Harold Lloyd-- and apparently they were the furthest thing from ferocious!

The reason the Alpha DVD looks so good is that they copied the Criterion print-- I have both and they are the same!
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riddlerider
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AndyFish
Aug 26 2008, 06:57 AM
Another one of my favorites!

Andy, I think this film is probably one of everybody's favorites. Even more than 30 years ago, when all you could get on this title was a 16mm dupe of lousy quality, most collectors were dying to buy prints.

Although GAME isn't a horror movie, strictly speaking, it has horror-movie trappings that align it with the other films making 1932 my candidate for the best year in the history of American fantastic cinema. (WHITE ZOMBIE, THE MUMMY, FREAKS, THE OLD DARK HOUSE, CHANDU THE MAGICIAN, DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE, DR X, THE MASK OF FU MANCHU, etc., etc.)

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panzer the great & terrible
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The reason everybody loves this picture is the story. Isn't that a novel concept?
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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Black Tiger
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Absolutely one of my favorite films. Leslie Banks is demonic. Based on the superior short story of the same name by Richard Connell. The film is a mostly faithful adaptation of the story and maintains it's fast-pace and thrills.

Amazing how a movie well-told can clock in at a little over an hour and still be great. A lesson that Hollywood can take note of with their overbloated 2 1/2 hour plus opuses.
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Laughing Gravy
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Odd that I'd never seen this film before. It's a great one. I SHOULD mention, I guess, that -- sadly -- I am quite familiar with its early 1960s remake, a dreadful piece of crap called Bloodlust that replaces Joel McCrea and Fay Wray with (you better sit down) Robert "The Father on the Brady Bunch" Reed and June "Earth vs. the Spider" Kemmer. I don't recall who played the insane hunter, but he was made up to look just like Leslie Banks. Or maybe Cap'n Mephisto. I have trouble telling those two apart. Anyway, it was a particularly delightful episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000.
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
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Vornoff
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That's June Kenney, LG, a very cute actress who worked mostly in the 50's in such flicks as TEENAGE DOLL and SORORITY GIRL to name two. She was also in ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE as well as EARTH VS THE SPIDER. I always liked her so am going to bite the bullet and have placed BLOODLUST on my Netflix list, just to see her! :P It's a double bill with ATOM AGE VAMPIRE, which I haven't seen in a long time.

The insane hunter was played by Wilton Graff who was in a bunch of movies in the 40's then went crazy doing tons of tv show appearances in the 50's.

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The Batman
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Laughing Gravy
Aug 27 2008, 06:02 AM
Odd that I'd never seen this film before. It's a great one. I SHOULD

So, have you watched this classic film, yet?

Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman!
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Sgt Saturn
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This film shares cast and sets with King Kong. I was watching it recently and kept hoping that a giant hand/paw would descend and rescue our heroine from the villain. Didn't happen, of course, but it would have been fun to watch McCrea and Banks fight the big ape rather than each other. (Expectations the original audience could not have shared. The two were filmed simultaneously, but MDG was released before KK.) I don't think time has been as kind to this as to Kong, but it is still a fun adventure flick from the days of old.
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The Batman
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Sure, it's no KING KONG, but I still like this one a lot. Classic story, told well.


Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman!
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riddlerider
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I don't think it's fair to compare Game with Kong just because they were shot simultaneously using the same resources. They're different in theme, scope, and budgetary class. I also don't think any apologies need be made for Game. It's a classic in its own right, and IMO time has been just as kind to it as to Kong.
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The Batman
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Thanks, RR, much better put than how I said it. It still holds up for me, too, just watched it again a couple of months ago.



Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman!
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JazzGuyy
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There's been at least a couple of remakes of this movie but none are equal to the original IMO. McCrea is an underrated actor.
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The Batman
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Agree on both counts, Jazzy.



Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman!
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panzer the great & terrible
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I certainly agree that it's a classic. Banks is as far over the top as you can possibly be-- but he gets away with it. McRae is a charmer, and Fay Wray is delectable as ever. The story is irresistible. What's odd for me is Robert Armstrong as a drunken lout, but when I first saw the film I didn't know it came out before KONG.
Edited by panzer the great & terrible, May 21 2014, 02:48 PM.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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