Adaptations of The Most Dangerous Game

"The Most Dangerous Game" is a highly influential short story by Richard Connell. It tells the story of a big-game hunter, Sanger Rainsford, becoming the hunted when trapped on a jungle island owned by General Zaroff, a Russian aristocrat who has turned to hunting man after growing bored of hunting animals. This story has been adapted into many works across many forms of media, including film, radio, television, and others.

Theatrical release poster for The Most Dangerous Game (1932)

Film

• The Most Dangerous Game (1932) was produced by RKO Pictures and is the first major film adaption of the original work[1][2]
• A Game of Death (1945), directed by Robert Wise and produced by RKO Pictures, changes Zaroff into "Erich Kreiger", a Nazi, and is set in the aftermath of World War II[3][4][2]
• Run for the Sun (1956) stars Richard Widmark, Trevor Howard and Jane Greer[5][6][2]
• Bloodlust! (1961) was directed by Ralph Brooke and stars Wilton Graff as the Zaroff-type character, and Robert Reed as the leader of a band of youths who become stranded on the island[7][2]
• Confessions of a Psycho Cat (1968), an early sexploitation film taking place in New York City. Zaroff is replaced with a woman known as Virginia Marcus (played by Eileen Lord) who offers three acquitted murderers $100,000 if they can survive a night of her hunting them down. It takes little from The Most Dangerous Game apart from the concept of hunting humans for sport.[8]
• The Woman Hunt (1972) stars John Ashley and Sid Haig and was made for Roger Corman's New World Pictures. The Woman Hunt is an unofficial remake of the story.[9][2]
• The Suckers (1972) tells a sexploitation version of the story, with the hunter using models as his prey[10]
• Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity (1987) transports the story to an alien world using scantily-clad women as the hunted and a mad scientist, Zed, as the Zaroff character[11][12][2]
• Deadly Prey (1987) tells the story of a former soldier who is kidnapped by mercenaries who train by hunting innocent people.[13]
• Hard Target (1993) shifts the location to 1990s New Orleans, with homeless Vietnam war veterans voluntarily serving (in return for potential payment from a shady businessman) as human prey[14][2]
• Surviving the Game (1994), directed by Ernest Dickerson and starring Rutger Hauer, Ice-T, and Charles S. Dutton, depicts a homeless man who is hired as a survival guide for a group of wealthy businessmen on a hunting trip in the mountains[15][2]
• The Pest (1997) is a comedic parody of the story, with German huntsman Gustav Shank accidentally bringing Puerto Rican teenage hustler Pestario "Pest" Vargas to his island instead of the skilled man he had intended to hunt, only to decide to hunt the Pest anyway due to his sheer obnoxiousness[16][2]
• The Eliminator (2004) shows seven captured people who are hunted at night for sport on an island as a betting game for the wealthy[2]
• Beyond the Reach (2014) depicts a young man who witnesses a hunter inadvertently kill someone must run from the killer. It was a remake of the 1974 television film Savages.
• The Most Dangerous Game (2017) is directed by Steven LaMorte and stars WWE wrestler John Hennigan.[17]
• The Hunt (2020) is a modern version of the story involving liberal elites hunting "deplorables" in and around a manor in Croatia.[2]
• Tremors: Shrieker Island (2020) follows Burt Gummer and several other unlucky people who are trapped on an island with a trophy hunter, who hunts graboids for sport.[18][19]

Radio

"The Most Dangerous Game" has been presented four times as a radio play:[20]

• The CBS radio program Suspense featured two separate adaptations of the story. The first, airing September 23, 1943, starred Orson Welles as Zaroff and Keenan Wynn as Rainsford.[21] A second episode, aired on February 1, 1945, starred J. Carrol Naish as Zaroff and Joseph Cotten as Rainsford.[22] Both Suspense productions presented an adaptation by Jack Finke in which Rainsford narrates the story in retrospect as he waits in Zaroff's bedroom for the final confrontation.[23][11]
• The CBS radio program Escape also featured an adaptation of the story, airing October 1, 1947.[24]
• The radio show Tales of Fatima aired an adaptation on September 24, 1949, featuring Basil Rathbone and Rex Harrison.[25]

Television

Influence of "The Most Dangerous Game" is commonly seen in television.

• In Have Gun Will Travel episode "The Black Bull" Paladin is forced to play the part of a black bull against an insane matador (Ned Romero).
• In The Wild Wild West episode, 1/4 "The Night of Sudden Death", Jim West and a circus girl are trapped inside an Africa Reserve wild animal Park in Colorado and are hunted by an insane big-game hunter Warren (Robert Loggia).
• In the Get Smart episode, "Island of the Darned", Agents 86 and 99 are trapped on an island with a mad KAOS killer, Hans Hunter (Harold Gould).
• This trope is used in the season 3 (1968), episode 22 of I Spy, "The Name of the Game".
• In the Gilligan's Island episode "The Hunter", big-game hunter Jonathan Kincaid (Rory Calhoun) turns his sights on Gilligan when he realizes there are no wild animals on the island.
• In season 1, episode 18 of Star Trek: The Original Series, "The Squire of Gothos", a childlike, seemingly all-powerful being named Trelane kidnaps and hunts Captain Kirk.
• In the series finale of Bonanza, entitled "The Hunter", a deranged killer, Corporal Bill Tanner (Tom Skerritt), who is a former tracker for the United States Army, hunts Little Joe (Michael Landon).
• In the 1977 pilot episode of Fantasy Island, a big-game hunter comes to the island to be hunted by a man, a twist on the usual version, in which the hunted participates against his will.
• The Simpsons Halloween special "Treehouse of Horror XVI" contained a segment titled "Survival of the Fattest" which parodied the story closely. In this segment Mr. Burns invited much of the cast to his hunting lodge on a private island, only to reveal that he intended to hunt them all for sport. Another episode makes a reference to "The Most Dangerous Game" when Rainier Wolfcastle says that he bought a YMCA to demolish it and install a hunting ground dedicated to "hunt the most dangerous animal of all... Man."
• In an episode of the animated sitcom American Dad!, the Smith family and a young woman become stranded on an island after Francine jumps off a cruise. Stan goes up to the mansion on this island to ask for help, but the inhabitants say that they are going to hunt the family. The Smiths and the young woman become trapped in a cave, where the young woman dies and they eat her to survive. The hunters then break into the cave and shoot the family. Stan sits up, realizing it is paint. At a party later, the hunters reveal that nobody really dies on The Most Dangerous Game Island.
• The Incredible Hulk episode "The Snare" has Banner trapped on a private island owned by an insane hunter who not only craves the challenge of hunting humans, but considers the discovery of Banner's powerful Hulk form as a sign of a quarry who is even more of an appealing challenge.
• In Season 2, Episode 21 of Criminal Minds, "Open Season", two brothers capture people stranded in a remote region of the wilderness outside Challis, Idaho, release them into the hills, and hunt them with compound bows for sport, referring the men as "bucks" and the women as "does."
• In Season 13, Episode 15 of Law and Order: SVU, "Hunting Ground", a serial rapist and killer lures female escorts after their date to a remote area where he sets them free while he hunts them down to recapture them again.
• In the Disney animated series The Mighty Ducks "The Most Dangerous Duck Hunt" episode, the heroes are trapped on an island and hunted.
• In a "Dial M for Monkey" segment of the animated series Dexter's Laboratory, the hero, Monkey, is trapped by an alien big-game hunter named "Huntor," who also makes a cameo among a league of Hunters of "Sumarai Jack" in the Cartoon Network cartoon series Samurai Jack.
• In Season 1, Episode 15 of Supernatural, "The Benders", a family has been behind disappearances in a city. The family snatches victims to hunt and kill. Sam and a police officer are taken, but Dean finds them and helps them subdue the family before it can cause them any harm.
• In Season 7, Episode 12 of Futurama, "31st Century Fox", Bender becomes the target of a fox hunting club and is referred to as "the most dangerous game."
• In Season 2 Episode 6 of The Blacklist, Elizabeth Keen and her FBI task force encounter a family in Idaho who trained the mother's youngest son to hunt and kill humans kidnapped by the eldest son.
• The Outer Limits 1998 episode "The Hunt" is a story in which the hunting of animals has been banned by environmentalists and black market hunting of obsolete androids takes its place.
• In the Season 3, Episode 5 episode of Archer, "El Contador", Lana and Archer are hunted by a drug lord.
• Influence is seen in Season 3, Episode 22 episode of Riverdale, "Chapter Fifty-Seven: Survive the Night".
• In Season 4, Episode 2 of Game of Thrones, there is a scene in which Ramsay Bolton hunts a woman. She is cornered by the hunting party and eaten alive by Ramsay's dogs. It is implied that this was not the only time Ramsay indulged in human hunting "for sport."
• In Season 3, Episodes 21 and 22 of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Ahsoka Tano, Chewbacca and a group of Jedi Padawans are hunted on an island.
• An episode of the animated series Johnny Bravo entitled "Hunted!" is a parody of the story. The titular Johnny is forced to go through the same ordeal, but his stupidity and foolishness greatly frustrates the hunter, who eventually allows him to leave.
• Season 6 episode 11 of Xena: Warrior Princess, "Dangerous Prey", is also inspired by The Most Dangerous Game. In this episode, Prince Morloch is a hunter who has grown bored of hunting animals, saying he's "killed one of every creature that walks this earth." He started hunting Amazons which grabbed the attention of Xena.
• In season 3 of Wrecked, the plane crash survivors land on another island, where four wealthy men make them hunt each other, then hunting the survivor.
• The Kids Next Door episode "Operation: S.A.F.A.R.I" is based on The Most Dangerous Game.
• The short-form mobile video platform Quibi released an adaptation called Most Dangerous Game starring Liam Hemsworth and Christoph Waltz.[26] It takes place in modern-day Detroit where a dying man named Dodge agrees to be hunted for sport over a 24-hour period to earn money to leave his wife and unborn child.
• In the Netflix series W/_Bob_&_David, episode 3 has a skit based on The Most Dangerous Game. [27]

Other adaptations

The story has also served as an inspiration for books and films like Seventh Victim, Battle Royale, Predator, Predators, The Running Man and The Hunger Games. In the film Westworld, humans are allowed to hunt and kill androids until one, played by Yul Brynner, starts hunting them.

• In the comic book issue Daredevil #4, Daredevil fights a mad manhunter on a remote island.
• The well-known Spider-Man villain, Kraven the Hunter, is based on the character of General Zaroff.
• In Clive Cussler's book Dragon Dirk Pitt is chased by "Kamatori" on Soseki Island.
• In the comic-book story "A-Hunting We Will Go", Scrooge McDuck and his relatives are on a jungle island hunted by a baron with his hounds.[28]
• In the video game Hitman: Contracts, the mission "Beldingford Manor" takes inspiration from this story.
• In the video game Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, the character Count Razoff takes inspiration from General Zaroff, even sharing similar names.
• In the video game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, the quest "Caught in the Hunt" is inspired by this story.
• In the online game Poptropica, the five-part Survival Island features the player in a situation much like the one in the original story. At the end of the third episode, the player is rescued by a hunter known as Myron van Buren. The fourth episode revolves around the player in van Buren's cabin, finding out that van Buren plans to hunt them. In the fifth episode, the player teams up with another victim of van Buren to defeat him by trapping him in a waterwheel.
• In the anime series Psycho-Pass, episodes 10 and 11 feature a wealthy cyborg tycoon who dons gentleman's hunting gear and hunts people in an underground maze with his robotic hounds.
• In Don Pendleton's The Executioner series, book #441, called Murder Island, has a similar plot to The Most Dangerous Game. The protagonist, Mack "The Executioner" Bolan (a vigilante/government agent) encounters a rich businessman hunter on an island while on a mission and ends up in a similar position as the Rainsford character, while the rich hunter takes a similar role as Zaroff.
• In the comic-book story "The Second Most Dangerous Game" (serialized in Martian Comics #8–10), Martians possess humans to continue their tradition of hunting other humans, after the practice has been outlawed. Richard Connell is a character.
• In a song called "Fly on the Wall" by Joey Pecoraro, the opening interaction between Rainsford and General Zaroff is used as a prelude to the actual song.
• In 1987, American Metal band Lȧȧz Rockit retold the story in their song "Most Dangerous Game" on their album Know Your Enemy.[29]
• The Rooster Teeth series "Let's Play Minecraft" featured an adaptation of the story into a game played by the show's cast members in the video game Minecraft, where one player was given a map and hunted by the other five in and around the in-game world created by the Achievement Hunter cast members.
• A translated version was published in Malayalam as an audio book by Kathacafe in 2017.[30]

References

1. Senn 2013, p. 13.
2. "The Hunt: 10 Other Movies Inspired By "The Most Dangerous Game"". ScreenRant. 2020-04-06. Retrieved 2020-06-05.
3. "A Game of Death (1945)". American Film Institute. Retrieved 2020-04-28.
4. Senn 2013, p. 23.
5. Jewell, Richard B.; Harbin, Vernon (1982). The RKO story. Arlington House. p. 206. ISBN 0-517-54656-6.
6. Holston, Kim R. (1990). Richard Widmark: A Bio-bibliography. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 59. ISBN 9780313264801.
7. Senn 2013, p. 33–36.
8. Senn 2013, p. 42.
9. Senn 2013, p. 60–64.
10. Senn 2013, p. 50.
11. Graysmith, Robert (2007-01-01). Zodiac Unmasked: The Identity of America's Most Elusive Serial Killer Revealed. Penguin. pp. 455, 516. ISBN 9780425212738.
12. Pitts, Michael R. (2002). Horror Film Stars. McFarland. p. 470. ISBN 9780786410521.
13. Hanke, Ken (August 27, 2008). "Deadly Prey". Mountain Xpress.
14. Hall, Kenneth (1999). John Woo: The Films. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-0619-4. OCLC 41017552.
15. "Surviving the Game". EW.com. Retrieved 2020-06-05.
16. LaSalle, Mick (February 8, 1997). "'The Pest' Is Annoying". SFGate. Retrieved 2020-06-05.
17. "The Most Dangerous Game (2017)". Retrieved 2020-10-28.
18. Scott, Ryan (December 12, 2019). "'Tremors 7' Wraps Production, Michael Gross Shares Final Set Photo". MovieWeb. Retrieved January 5, 2020.
19. Scott, Ryan (April 21, 2020). "'Tremors: Island Fury' Is Still Targeting a Halloween Release Assures Michael Gross". MovieWeb. Retrieved April 30, 2020.
20. Connell, Richard (2020). The Most Dangerous Game. Wildside Press LLC. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-4794-4670-4.
21. DeForest, Tim (February 10, 2017). Radio by the Book: Adaptations of Literature and Fiction on the Airwaves. McFarland. ISBN 9781476607597 – via Google Books.
22. "Suspense". RadioGOLDINdex. Retrieved 2014-02-17.
23. DeForest, Tim (2017-02-10). Radio by the Book: Adaptations of Literature and Fiction on the Airwaves. McFarland. p. 225. ISBN 9781476607597.
24. "Escape". RadioGOLDINdex. Retrieved 2014-02-17.
25. "The Definitive The Tales of Fatima Radio Log with Basil Rathbone". www.digitaldeliftp.com.
26. "Everything Coming to Quibi in April, Including '50 States of Fright', 'Dishmantled', and Much More". /Film. 2020-03-27. Retrieved 2020-04-08.
27. "A hilarious With Bob and David tackles tech giants, police brutality, and more". 2015-11-17. Retrieved 2020-10-28.
28. A-Hunting We Will Go at Inducks
29. "Lȧȧz Rockit - Know Your Enemy - Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives". www.metal-archives.com.
30. "ഒളിപ്പോര്". Kathacafe.

Sources

• Senn, Bryan (2013). The Most Dangerous Cinema: People Hunting People on Film. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-3562-3.