The Most Dangerous Game

Richard Edward Connell, Jr. (October 17, 1893 – November 22, 1949) was an American author and journalist best remembered for his 1924 short story "The Most Dangerous Game." Connell was one of the most popular American short story writers of his time. His stories were often published in The Saturday Evening Post and Collier's magazines. He had equal success as a journalist and screenwriter. Connell was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Story for the 1941 movie Meet John Doe.

"The Most Dangerous Game," also known as "The Hounds of Zaroff," was first published in Collier's magazine on January 19, 1924. Click here to read "The Most Dangerous Game."

My oldest brother introduced me to this story when I was a youngster. I was watching a Lost in Space rerun, specifically "Hunter's Moon," the fourth episode of the third season. My brother cruised into the room and handed me a collection of short stories by Richard Connell. He said, "Read 'The Most Dangerous Game' first. That episode is based on it."

I also remember an episode of Hart to Hart that used the story as its basis. "Hunted Harts" was the eleventh episode of the show's fourth season.

Connell's gem of a story, winner of the O. Henry Memorial Prize for Best Short Story, has been adapted numerous times, most notably for the 1932 RKO Pictures film The Most Dangerous Game, starring Joel McCrea, Fay Wray and Leslie Banks, and for two episodes of the CBS Radio series Suspense. On September 23, 1943, it aired on Suspense, and starred Orson Welles as Zaroff and Keenan Wynn as Rainsford. On February 1, 1945, it was presented with J. Carrol Naish as Zaroff and Joseph Cotten as Rainsford.

"The Most Dangerous Game" on Suspense: September 23, 1943 - Orson Welles, Keenan Wynn



"The Most Dangerous Game" on Suspense: February 1, 1945 - J. Carrol Naish, Joseph Cotten



Other film adaptations include a 1945 RKO version, A Game of Death, directed by Robert Wise, starring John Loder, Edgar Barrier, Audrey Long and featuring Noble Johnson, and a 1956 United Artists film, Run for the Sun, directed by Roy Boulting and starring Richard Widmark, Trevor Howard and Jane Greer.

My oldest brother died on a long ago Halloween. In his memory, I just reread "The Most Dangerous Game" and rewatched the 1932 RKO Pictures film of the same name. We watched the film together every Halloween.

I consider The Most Dangerous Game one of the best and most literate movies from the great days of horror. It stars Leslie Banks as a big-game hunter with a taste for the world's most exotic prey—his houseguests, played by Fay Wray and Joel McCrea. Before making history with 1933's King Kong, filmmakers Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack wowed audiences with their chilling adaptation of Richard Connell's short story.

Bruce Kawin on The Most Dangerous Game: "It is a superbly paced, sexually charged, tightly constructed, no-holds-barred adventure film with moments of dark, Germanic horror that stick in the mind, a movie that moves."

According to studio production files, some sets used in The Most Dangerous Game were shared with King Kong. Ernest B. Schoedsack, who co-directed King Kong with Merian C. Cooper, directed Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong in this production during the day, and then at night, he and Cooper directed them in King Kong.

The Most Dangerous Game Info

• Directed by Irving Pichel and Ernest B. Schoedsack
• Writing Credits:  James Ashmore Creelman (screenplay) and Richard Connell (short story)
• Produced by Merian C. Cooper (associate producer), Ernest B. Schoedsack (associate producer) and David O. Selznick (executive producer)
• Production Company: RKO Radio Pictures
• Distributed by RKO Radio Pictures
• Run Time: 63 minutes. The preview ran 78 minutes.
• Release dates: U.S. September 16, 1932 and September 20, 1932 in New York City
• Music by Max Steiner
• Cinematography by Henry W. Gerrard (as Henry Gerrard) (photographed by)
• Film Editing by Archie Marshek (as Archie E. Marshek)
• Art Direction by Carroll Clark
• Set Decoration by Thomas Little (uncredited)
• Costume Design by Walter Plunkett (uncredited)
• Makeup Department: Wally Westmore - makeup artist (uncredited)
• Art Department: John Cerisoli - special props (uncredited), Byron L. Crabbe - art department technician (uncredited), Marcel Delgado - special props (uncredited), Mario Larrinaga - art department technician (uncredited), Steve Rez - paint boss (uncredited)
• Sound Department:  Clem Portman - recordist, Murray Spivack - sound effects (uncredited)
• Special Effects by Lloyd Knechtel - photographic effects (uncredited), Harry Redmond Jr. - special effects (uncredited), Vernon L. Walker - photographic effects (uncredited)
• Visual Effects by Linwood G. Dunn - optical effects (uncredited), Orville Goldner - miniatures (uncredited). Donald Jahraus - miniatures (uncredited), Bud Thackery - process photography (uncredited)
• Stunts:  Buster Crabbe - stunt double: Joel McCrea (uncredited)
• Camera and Electrical Department: Willard Barth - assistant camera (uncredited), Robert De Grasse - camera operator (uncredited), Russell Metty - camera operator (uncredited), Gaston Longet - still photographer (uncredited)
• Music Department:  Norma Drury Boleslavsky - musician: piano (uncredited), Emil Gerstenberger - orchestrator (uncredited), Bernhard Kaun - orchestrator (uncredited)

Cast
(in credits order)

• Joel McCrea as Sanger "Bob" Rainsford (Sanger = blood from the Latin sanguis)
• Fay Wray as Eve Trowbridge
• Robert Armstrong as Martin Trowbridge
• Leslie Banks as Count Zaroff
• Noble Johnson as Ivan
• Steve Clemente as Tartar (as Steve Clemento)
• William B. Davidson as Captain (as William Davidson)
• Oscar "Dutch" Hendrian as Tarter Servant (as Dutch Hendrian)

Rest of cast listed alphabetically:

• Buster Crabbe as Sailor who falls off boat (uncredited)
• James Flavin as First Mate on Yacht (uncredited)
• Arnold Gray as Passenger on Yacht (uncredited)
• Hale Hamilton as Bill - Owner of Yacht (uncredited)
• Landers Stevens as "Doc" - Passenger on Yacht (uncredited)
• Phil Tead as Passenger on Yacht (uncredited)

Did You Know?

Merian C. Cooper was a pilot in World War I. Ernest B. Schoedsack was a news cameraman. They were known for their reckless bravery.

Cooper and Schoedsack were explorers, both geographically and cinematically. With Marguerite Elton Harrison, they joined the migrating branch of the Bakhtiari tribe of Lurs to film one of the greatest silent documentaries, Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life (1925), the record of their hazardous six-week trek across the mountains of Iran.

For the 1927 film Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness, Cooper and Schoedsack shot much of the footage in the jungles of Thailand. Chang was nominated for the Academy Award for Unique and Artistic Production at the first Academy Awards in 1929, the only year when that award was presented.

Leslie Banks served with the Essex Regiment during World War I. He received injuries that left his face partially scarred and paralyzed. In his acting career he would use this injury to good effect by showing the unblemished side of his face (the right) when playing comedy or romance and the scarred, paralyzed side of his face (the left) when playing drama or tragedy.

The trophy room scenes were much longer in the preview version of 78 minutes: there were more heads in jars. But there was also an emaciated sailor, stuffed and mounted next to a tree where he was impaled by Zaroff's arrow, and another full-body figure stuffed, with the bodies of two of the hunting dogs mounted in a death grip. Preview audiences cringed and shuddered at the head in the bottle and the mounted heads, 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.

Noble Johnson plays "Ivan." He was a multi-talented African American who was a childhood friend of Lon Chaney. This is the earliest known instance of a black actor working in "whiteface" to play a Caucasian character.

Zaroff's dogs were Great Danes borrowed from Harold Lloyd. While big, Great Danes are not especially threatening, so with their coats subsequently darkened and they were filmed at an especially low angle to appear more menacing.

One of Rainsford's shipmates quotes the first lines from The Wreck of the Hesperus by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The drunken Armstrong is a loaded script element: he's supposed to be annoying. At the time this film was released, Prohibition was still in effect, but the law was widely ignored. Producer Merian C. Cooper was strongly critical of alcohol use and of the glamorization of drunkenness in movies. There is a similar scene in both Mighty Joe Young (1949) (where inebriated nightclub patrons precipitate the creature's escape and rampage) and The Son of Kong (1933) (where drunkenness proves disastrous for the heroine's father). Zaroff's reveling in his hunting exploits was also deliberate beyond the needs of the story, downplaying its glamorization in other movies of the period.

The second of three film collaborations involving Ernest B. Schoedsack, Merian C. Cooper, and Fay Wray. The three films are: The Four Feathers (1929), The Most Dangerous Game (1932) and King Kong (1933).

Watch 1932's The Most Dangerous Game

Maureen O'Hara Passes Away at 95

Maureen O'Hara (born Maureen FitzSimons) on August 17, 1920 was an Irish-American film actress.

Born to Charles Stewart Parnell FitzSimons (a Catholic) and Marguerite Lilburn (a Protestant) in Ranelagh, County Dublin, Ireland not long before partition, the famously red-headed beauty was noted for playing fiercely passionate heroines with a highly sensible attitude. She often worked with director John Ford and longtime friend John Wayne.

Her father was part owner of Ireland's leading football club the Shamrock Rovers.

Maureen was the second of six children. Her siblings were Mary Margaret (Peggy), the oldest, and younger Charles, Florrie, Margot, and James. Peggy dedicated her life to a religious order, the Irish Sisters of Charity.

Charles B. FitzSimons (b. 8 May 1924 in Ranelagh, County Dublin - d. 14 February 2001 in Los Angeles, California from liver failure, aged 76) was an actor in Ireland before immigrating to the USA. He became a Hollywood film actor and later a supervising production executive before becoming a producer himself. He also served as Executive Director of the Producers Guild for almost 20 years (1981-1999).

She was fluent in Irish and used this in her films The Long Gray Line, The Quiet Man and Only the Lonely.

Beginnings

Maureen loved playing rough athletic games as a child and excelled in sports. She combined this interest with an equally natural gift for performing. She came from a theatrical family and was accepted at the age of 14 to the Abbey Theatre in Dublin (Ireland's National Theatre). She attended the Ena Mary Burke School of Elocution and was an honor student at the London School of Music. At her father's insistence, Maureen also studied secretarial and bookkeeping courses, and she has used these considerable skills throughout her life.

At the age of 18, she was briefly married to George Hanley Brown, who would become the father of British journalist Tina Brown. The marriage was annulled on September 15, 1941. On December 29, 1941 she married an Englishman, William "Will" Price, who fathered her only child, Bronwyn Brigid Price, born June 30, 1944. Bronwyn later appeared in the film Spencer's Mountain. Will Price served during World War II, making Maureen a war wife. The marriage to Price, however, ultimately ended in divorce on August 11, 1953 due to his alcoholism and physical abuse of his wife.

In 1939, she was offered a screen test in London. Initially reluctant, she was persuaded to attend. Famed actor Charles Laughton attended the screen test. She performed poorly in the test and returned to Ireland. However, Charles Laughton believed she had "something." Laughton looked at the test again, and while he thought it was awful, he couldn't forget her eyes. He told his business partner Erich Pommer he was signing her and sent him the test film. When Pommer saw the film, he was furious as he believed it was a poor choice. However, Pommer came around when he too found he couldn't forget her eyes. As a result, she was offered an initial seven-year contract. Laughton and Pommer changed her name to "Maureen O'Hara" - a better fit for a marquee. Her first major film was Alfred Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn (1939).

Also in 1939, she and Laughton went to the U.S. to appear in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. This film contains one of her most famous roles, playing Esmeralda alongside Laughton's Quasimodo.

In 1941, O'Hara gave a haunting performance as the Welsh daughter of a mining family in the drama How Green Was My Valley, which marked her first collaboration with legendary director John Ford. The film triumphed at the Oscars, winning top honors in five categories, including Best Picture and Best Director.

While fulfilling contract commitments with both RKO Studios and 20th Century-Fox, O'Hara was billed alongside Hollywood's leading men in a slew of swashbuckling features. Among the most notable were 1942's The Black Swan (with Tyrone Power), 1947's Sinbad the Sailor (with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) and 1949's Bagdad (with Vincent Price). In between action films, O'Hara was assigned a role in the 1947 holiday classic Miracle on 34th Street, in which she played a single working mother whose strong rational beliefs are challenged by Santa Claus.

During the 1940s and 1950s, O'Hara was repeatedly cast as the heroine in elaborate Technicolor features. Her strong-willed characters, which were complimented by her fiery red hair, green eyes, and peaches and cream complexion, earned her the nicknames "The Queen of Technicolor" and "The Pirate Queen of the Screen." O'Hara gave saucy performances in adventures like Buffalo Bill (1944), The Spanish Main (1945), The Flame of Araby (1951), and The Redhead From Wyoming (1952).

In 1950, O'Hara entered a new phase of her career when she was cast as John Wayne's estranged wife in John Ford's romantic Western Rio Grande. O'Hara shared great screen chemistry with Wayne and served as his leading lady in a succession of films over the next few years. Also under Ford's direction, Wayne and O'Hara starred in the lyrical drama The Quiet Man (1952) and in the critically panned The Wings of Eagles (1957).

O'Hara's mother was an accomplished contralto and she aspired to a singing career. She sang briefly in How Green Was My Valley and again in The Quiet Man. She starred on Broadway in the musical Christine and released two successful recordings: Love Letters from Maureen O'Hara and Maureen O'Hara Sings her Favorite Irish Songs. Throughout the 1960s, she was a sought after guest on musical variety shows appearing with Perry Como, Andy Williams, Betty Grable and Ernie Ford. In 1973, she appeared on Tennessee Ernie Ford's Fabulous Fordies TV special.

She was one of the most beloved of Hollywood's Golden Age icons, in the company of such screen luminaries as Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland and Elizabeth Taylor. Many of her films are considered all-time classics and are traditionally shown on television during the holidays. Once named one of the world's most beautiful women, O'Hara's beautiful face and thick red hair blowing in the wind as she waves from a gate in the Academy Award-winning film How Green Was My Valley will remain one of the most iconic images ever preserved on film.

Marriage, retirement and comeback

Maureen married her third husband, Charles F. Blair, on March 11, 1968. Blair was a pioneer of transatlantic aviation, a former Brigadier General of the U.S. Air Force and a former Senior Pilot at Pan Am. A few years after her marriage to Blair, O'Hara retired from acting. According to O'Hara, one day she was with Blair and John Wayne when she was asked if she didn't think it was time for her to stop working and stay at home. Instead of getting into the argument she thought Blair and Wayne were expecting, she agreed that it was time to stop. With Blair, Maureen managed Antilles Airboats, a commuter sea plane service in the Caribbean. She not only made trips around the world with her pilot husband, but owned and published a magazine, The Virgin Islander, writing a monthly column called "Maureen O'Hara Says." Blair later died on September 2, 1978 when the engine of a Grumman Goose he was flying from St. Croix to St. Thomas exploded. Though completely devastated, Maureen, with memories of ten of the happiest years of her life, soldiered on. She was elected CEO and President of Antilles Airboats with the added distinction of being the first woman president of a scheduled airline in the U.S. Later, Maureen sold the airline with the permission of the shareholders.

Fortunately for fans, she was coaxed out of retirement several times: once in 1991 to star with John Candy in Only the Lonely and again, in 1995, in a made-for-TV movie, The Christmas Box on CBS. In the spring of 1998, Maureen accepted the second of what would be three projects for Polson Productions and CBS: Cab to Canada (1998) and The Last Dance (2000).

Achievements

 For her contributions to the motion picture industry, Maureen O'Hara has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7004 Hollywood Blvd. O'Hara received the Heritage Award by the Ireland-American Fund in 1991. In 1993, she was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She was also awarded the Golden Boot Award.

In March 1999, Maureen was selected to be the Grand Marshal of the New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade after previously being de-selected because she was a divorcée.

In 2004 Maureen O'Hara released her autobiography 'Tis Herself, published by Simon and Schuster. In the same year she was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Irish Film and Television Academy in her native Dublin, Ireland.

O'Hara was named Irish America‍ '​s "Irish American of the Year" in 2005, with festivities held at the Plaza Hotel in New York.

In 2006, Maureen O' Hara Blair attended the Grand Reopening and Expansion of the Flying Boats Museum in Foynes, Limerick, Ireland - as a patron of the Museum. A significant portion of the Museum is dedicated to her late husband Charles Blair.

In 2011, O'Hara was formally inducted into the Irish America Hall of Fame at an event in New Ross, County Wexford. She was also named president of the Universal Film and Festival Organization (UFFO) which promotes a code of conduct for film festivals and the film industry. In June 2011, she participated at the Maureen O'Hara Film Festival in Glengarriff, County Cork.

In May 2012, O'Hara's family contacted social workers regarding claims that O'Hara, who had short-term memory loss, was a victim of elder abuse. In September 2012, O'Hara flew to the U.S. after receiving doctor's permission to fly. She lived with her grandson, Conor Beau FitzSimons, in Boise, Idaho.

On May 24-25, 2013, O'Hara made a public appearance at the 2013 John Wayne Birthday "Tribute to Maureen O'Hara" celebration in Winterset, Iowa. The occasion was the ground breaking for the new John Wayne Birthplace Museum; the festivities included an official proclamation from Iowa Governor Terry Branstad declaring May 25, 2013, as "Maureen O'Hara Day" in Iowa. The appearance included a performance by the Shannon Rovers Irish Pipe Band, who traveled from Chicago for the event. About Wayne, O'Hara said; "I was tough. I was tall. I was strong. I didn't take any nonsense from anybody. He was tough, he was tall, he was strong and he didn't take any nonsense from anybody. As a man and a human being, I adored him."

Maureen O'Hara died in her sleep at her home in Idaho from natural causes on October 24, 2015. She was 95 years old.

Awards

1960 - Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame - Motion Picture at 7004 Hollywood Blvd.

1991 - Golden Boot Award

1993 - British Film Institute Awards - Won BFI Fellowship

2002 - Seattle Film Critics Awards - Won Living Treasure Award.

2004 - Irish Film and Television Awards - Won Lifetime Achievement Award.

2011 - CinEuphoria Awards - Won Career - Honorary Award

2015 - Academy Awards - Won Honorary Award

Trivia

Height: 5'8"

Crack typist who typed some of her own scripts/rewrites.

Measurements: 36 1/2 C-25-36 (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine)

Did many of her own stunts in her films.

Starred with John Wayne in five movies: Rio Grande (1950), The Quiet Man (1952), The Wings of Eagles (1957), McLintock! (1963) and Big Jake (1971). In all five, Wayne and O'Hara played husband and wife, and in all five, they were estranged at least briefly. The first three were directed by John Ford.

Was the first choice to play "Anna" in the film version of The King and I (1956) but Richard Rodgers did not want the role played by a "pirate queen."

Was having lunch with actress Lucille Ball the moment Lucy first saw Cuban musician Desi Arnaz.

She became an American citizen on January 25, 1946 but retained her Irish citizenship. It was the first time in history that the United States government recognized an Irish citizen as Irish. This led to a change in process for all Irish immigrants.

John Wayne and O'Hara remained friends until his death. In her home on St. Croix, she had a wing she called the "John Wayne Wing" because he stayed there when visiting. It was badly damaged by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, some ten years after Wayne's death.

She made headlines in 1997 by claiming that Brian Keith's suicide, while suffering from lung cancer and emphysema and mourning the suicide of his daughter, was an accident.

Quotes

"Speaking as an actress, I wish all actors would be more like Duke Wayne. And speaking as a person, it would be nice if all people could be honest and as genuine as he is. This is a real man."

"To the people throughout the world, John Wayne is not just an actor, and a very fine actor, John Wayne is the United States of America."

On John Wayne: "He was a wonderful man, a wonderful person. With us, it wasn't a man and a woman - it was two friends. He knew a lot of my secrets which nobody ever knew and nobody ever will. He might be telling the Good Lord but he's not going to tell anyone else."

Elsa Lanchester on Maureen: "She looks as though butter wouldn't melt in her mouth-or anywhere else."

"She is like the emerald shower which succeeds the initial explosion of a skyrocket." --Film Critic Bosley Crowther about Maureen O'Hara.

Maureen O'Hara on the Radio

"How Green Was My Valley" on Lux Radio Theatre: September 21, 1942 - Walter Pidgeon, Donald Crisp, Maureen O'Hara, Roddy McDowall, Sara Allgood



"Heaven Can Wait" on Lux Radio Theatre: October 11, 1943 - Maureen O'Hara, Don Ameche



"The Fallen Sparrow" on Lux Radio Theatre: February 14, 1944 - Robert Young, Maureen O'Hara, Walter Slezak



"Fallen Angel" on Lux Radio Theatre: June 17, 1946 - Maureen O'Hara, Linda Darnell, Mark Stevens



"Do You Love Me?" on Lux Radio Theatre: December 23, 1946 - Maureen O'Hara, Dick Haymes, Barry Sullivan



"Miracle on 34th Street" on Lux Radio Theatre: December 22, 1947 - Maureen O'Hara, Edmund Gwenn, John Payne, Natalie Wood



"The Foxes of Harrow" on Lux Radio Theatre: December 6, 1948 - Maureen O'Hara, John Hodiak



"Miracle on 34th Street" on Lux Radio Theatre: December 20, 1948 - Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, Edmund Gwenn



"Slattery's Hurricane" on Lux Radio Theatre: March 6, 1950 - Maureen O'Hara, Richard Conte, Veronica Lake, William Conrad



"Father Was a Fullback" on Lux Radio Theatre: March 20, 1950 - Paul Douglas, Maureen O'Hara, Betty Lynn



"Together Again" on Lux Radio Theatre: May 10, 1955 - Maureen O'Hara