A Game Most Dangerous, Part 1: Introduction

In 1924, Richard Connell wrote a fine short story titled "The Most Dangerous Game". The plot concerns a hunter named Rainsford who is washed overboard at sea and finds himself on a Caribbean island inhabited by General Zaroff, a Russian hunter. Zaroff is a great fan of Rainsford and treats him with the utmost hospitality, but as they talk about hunting it comes out that Zaroff has tired of hunting big game as he no longer finds it suitably challenging; eventually Rainsford learns Zaroff's new passion is hunting men. When Rainsford refuses to join in the hunt, Zaroff makes him his next prey.

It's a simple story but certainly effective; I have the short story as part of a terrific anthology called Great Tales of Action and Adventure. I've seen it claimed on the internet that it is the most heavily-anthologized short story of all-time -- but that sounds over-zealous. More anthologized than Poe, Wells, Doyle? It has definitely been republished more often than most, especially considering Richard Connell was never a huge name as an author. Today, "The Most Dangerous Game" is the only work of his which is remembered at all.

A large part of why the story is remembered is due to the thrilling 1932 motion picture adaptation, starring Joel McCrea as Ransford and Leslie Banks as Zaroff. The film did quite a bit to popularize the "man is the most dangerous game" trope and I dare say most adaptations of the story look first to the film, not Connell's story. The film version added Fay Wray as a love interest who is similarly stranded on the island and gave her an inebriated brother to provide comic relief. The brother's death isn't treated in a satisfactory manner since it requires Zaroff to break his code (the whole reason he hunts men is because of the sport and he always give them a fair chance; the drunken brother has no chance at all). The film also visualizes something which was only hinted at in the story -- that Zaroff keeps his victim's bodies as trophies.

Being a great fan of old-time radio, I enjoyed the adaptations on Suspense and Escape. The Suspense version from September 23, 1943 stars Orson Welles as Zaroff and Keenan Wynn as Rainsford. The Escape version from October 1, 1947 has virtually the same script but features Paul Frees as Rainsford and Hans Conreid as Zaroff. You may be surprised to learn that although I count myself an enormous fan of Orson Welles, I prefer the Escape version! Largely, I prefer it because Paul Frees is such an excellent Rainsford, capturing the hero's shifting moods from cunning to desperate to determined. You can hear the Suspense version on archive.org here and the Escape version here.

Anyway, I'm kicking off this series "A Game Most Dangerous" because I noticed there were quite a few comic book stories which (*ahem*) borrowed liberally from "The Most Dangerous Game", particularly during the 1940s. For fun, I'm going to review a few of those stories and give them a rating out of 100 based on how similar they are to the original source material. My scoring will be based on:

The Hunter:

• A Russian nobleman (/4 points)
• Who is a big game hunter (/4 points)
• But is no longer challenged by big game (/4 points)
• So he hunts men on his secluded island (/4 points)
• Justifying this through a eugenics/Darwinian philosophy (/4 points)
• He is aided by his servants, including a disfigured mute (/4 points)
• And his vicious hunting dogs (/4 points)
• He obtains his prey by scuttling nearby ships (/4 points)
• His victims are given a time limit of 3 days; if they are alive at the deadline, they win the hunt (/4 points)
• As a further example of his sense of "sportsmanship", he will deliberately prolong the hunt if he finds it interesting (/4 points)
• His victims are placed on display in his trophy room (/4 points)

The Hunted:

• A famous big game hunter (/4 points)
• Who philosophizes about what (if anything) animals sense while being hunted (/4 points)
• He is cast overboard and finds himself on the hunter's island, alone (/4 points)
• The hunter knows him because of his reputation (/4 points)
• When he learns the hunter's scheme he refuses to hunt alongside him (/4 points)
• Hunted by the hunter, he flees into the wilderness trying to avoid detection (/4 points)
• His only tool is a knife which the hunter gave him (/4 points)
• In time he constructs traps to kill the hunter or his servants (/4 points)
• He survives the ordeal by leaping over a cliff (/4 points)
• Although the hunt is over, he confronts the hunter and duels him to the death (/4 points)

The Island:

• Is a tropical island in the Caribbean (/4 points)
• Surrounded by dangerous reefs which wreck ships (/4 points)
• The island has a dangerous swamp (/4 points)
• And high cliffs (/4 points)

Join me as I begin A Game Most Dangerous! I expect rather fair sport.