WARNING: SPOILERS

What weren’t sadistic megalomaniacs doing on jungle islands in the early 1930s? In Paramount’s “Island of Lost Souls,” released in December 1932, Dr. Moreau was taking animals and turning them into humans. Here, in RKO’s “The Most Dangerous Game,” released just three months earlier, Count Zaroff (Leslie Banks) takes humans and turns them into animals—into hunted prey.

I think we all know the short story by Richard Connell, right? It was published in Collier’s magazine in 1924, won an O. Henry Award, was anthologized everywhere. I think I read it in … junior high? I remember enjoying it but not being shocked. Humans as prey? I was a short, smart kid in junior high; I got it. 

Apparently RKO did the filming concurrently with another little picture it was working on: “King Kong.” They did this one during the day, with Fay Wray a natural brunette, and that one at night with Fay in a blonde wig. When did the poor girl sleep? I guess when she wasn’t screaming or looking frightened. For what it’s worth (not much), I like her better as a brunette. She’s not a great actress, not a great beauty (as Hollywood beauties go), but she’s got something.

Lousy businessman
That’s one of the differences with Connell’s version, by the way. There was no girl in the short story, but Hollywood don’t play that.

Another difference: In Connell’s work, big-game hunter Sanger Rainsford simply falls overboard; that’s how he winds up on the island. Here, despite the cost of special effects, big-game hunter Robert Rainsford (Joel McCrea) is in a shipwreck. The movie begins with a disagreement between the captain and first mate over two light buoys that seem out of place but indicate a safe channel near an island. They don’t. They were placed there by Zaroff to create shipwrecks and thus victims. Bit of a waste, though, isn’t it? He loses like 90% of his inventory to the sharks. What a lousy businessman.

Before the shipwreck, the movie’s themes are teed up:

Doc: I was thinking of the inconsistency of civilization. The beast of the jungle, killing just for his existence, is called savage. The man, killing just for sport, is called civilized.
Rainsford: What makes you think it isn't just as much sport for the animal as it is for the man? Now take that fellow right there, for instance. There never was a time when he couldn't have gotten away, but he didn't want to. He got interested in hunting me. He didn't hate me for stalking him, anymore than I hated him for trying to charge me. 

This is a movie for famous last words. “I’m the hunter, nothing can change that,” Rainsford says, and a second later, CRASH. “Don't worry,” a drunk Martin (Robert Armstrong) tells his sister Eve (Wray), “the Count will take care of me.” Yes, he will.

Was the trophy room in the short story? It’s integral here. Rainsford washes up on shore, tramps through the jungle, finds a fortress run by two Cossacks: Zaroff, and Ivan (Noble Johnson), a huge, creepy deaf-mute assistant. He also finds two other guests. Martin is in his cups, but Eve signals to Rainsford that something is really, really wrong. Two sailors washed up with them, but after each was shown the trophy room they were never seen again! And then that night, Martin disappears. That’s why Eve and Rainsford sneak into the trophy room.

From IMDb’s trivia section:

The trophy room scenes were much longer in the 78-minute preview version. There were more heads in jars. There was also an emaciated sailor, stuffed and mounted next to a tree where he was impaled by Zaroff's arrow, and another stuffed figure posed in a tableau with hunting dogs bringing him down. Preview audiences cringed and shuddered at the head in the bottle, but when they saw the mounted figures and heard Zaroff’s dialog describing in detail how each man had died, they began heading for the exit. So these shots disappeared.

I like how, when Eve an Rainsford hear someone coming, they hide in the shadows, but when it’s revealed to be Zaroff and Ivan returning with a body, Eve, for some screwed-up reason, decides to forthrightly accuse Zaroff. Yeah, that’ll do the trick. The body is Martin’s, of course, which kind of gives the lie to the title. A soused Martin is the most dangerous game? Hardly. Humans are dangerous in almost every context but the one Zaroff creates. Someone should’ve mentioned this to him … along with how he’s wasting his inventory. 

Initially, Zaroff, a fan of Rainsford, wants to hunt humans with Rainsford. It’s only when Rainsford refuses in that stalwart, insulted Joel McCrea way that he goes, OK, now you’re prey. Eve demands to go along because the movie demands a beautiful woman in a slinky gown in the jungle. And they make a go of it. Rainsford takes out Ivan with a firmly planted stick, then creates a Malay man-catcher and a Burmese tiger pit but Zaroff manages to sidestep both. We also get some not-bad shots from either of the directors, Ernest B. Schoedsack or Irving Pichel, of our heroes looking back frightened as they run away from the camera, and Zaroff looking determined as he marches toward the camera. We’re in that lush “Kong Kong” forest, too, and at one point Eve and Rainsford rest on that soon-to-be famous tree bridge.

To infinity and beyond
In the end, cornered near a waterfall, Zaroff fires and both hound and Rainsford go over the side—like Holmes and Moriarty. And like Holmes, Rainsford isn’t dead. He returns, fights, wins, gets the girl.

This was the first time the story was adapted for the big screen but hardly the last. In 1945, they did it as “A Game of Death,” with John Loder the hero, Edgar Barrier the villain, Audrey Long the girl. Eleven years later, it was “Run for the Sun” with Richard Widmark, Trevor Howard, Jane Greer. In the ’70s, they began hunting women (“The Woman Hunt”), and in the ’80s they began hunting women in outer space (“Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity”). In the 2020s, Connell’s work has already been adapted a few times, maybe because it recently entered the public domain. Or because everyone feels hunted lately.