Richard Connell (1893–1949)

Richard Connell’s The Most Dangerous Game is one of the most enduring and timeless short stories ever penned. Its reputation is well deserved, as Connell grabs the reader instantly and spins a tale that while exciting, has broader implications than a simple adventure tale. It is probably most famous today due to the film starring Joel McCrea and Fay Wray, which was shot around the same time as King Kong and used many of the same sets. Connell's short story, while not having the feminine show more character or her brother, is equally atmospheric, and terribly exciting.

Big Game hunter and writer Sanger Rainsford and his friend Whitney are aboard a yacht somewhere in the Caribbean, on their way to Brazil to hunt jaguars. There is talk of a nervous crew as they pass Ship-Trap Island, a mysterious place the sailors dread. The talk of Rainsford and Whitney turns to the hunt, and it is this conversation between the two men about what the jaguar does or does not feel while being stalked that lies at the heart of this tale.

Shots are fired, and in an effort to discover what is happening on deck, Sanger falls overboard, making a harrowing escape to said island. There he discovers not madness, but the ultimate extension of himself. The “hunt” which eventually ensues is tremendously exciting, the brevity of the story creating great movement in the narrative.

Sanger, General Zaroff, and his towering right-hand man, Ivan, are memorable in this thrilling tale of adventure which also ponders larger questions. Connell was perhaps most successful at the short story, a slew of them published in The Saturday Evening Post and Collier’s. But he was also a journalist and screenwriter. Though Robert Riskin wrote the screenplay for Frank Capra’s wonderful film, Meet John Doe, the original film treatment was written by Connell and Robert Presell, who received an Academy Award nomination for it.

Despite its age, this tale feels timeless, and is near perfect. On the technical side, there are a few typos in the transfer to Kindle, but rare, so not too distracting. A thrilling story everyone who loves the short story form should read. Marvelous stuff. show less

The short story that inspired books and films as diverse as Battle Royale, The Hunger Games and The Beast Must Die. And I could read a hundred stories like it. There's something endlessly appealing about a remote tropical island, a lone mansion, and its brilliant, menacing owner (I must read The Island of Dr. Moreau).

There's a palpable sense of dread from the very first line as hunter Sanger Rainsford is washed up on a remote Caribbean island: an island whose owner, General Zaroff, hunts show more the deadliest game of all. Zaroff's dialogue is wonderful, erudite, cultured, unhurried, and full of implicit threat. Connell might even better at writing this sort of speech than Ian Fleming – though this is exactly the sort of adventure story Fleming would have read and drawn on.

"I refuse to believe that so modern and civilised a young man as you seem to be harbours romantic ideas about the value of human life," Zaroff tells Rainsford. "Surely your experiences in the war–"
"Did not make me condone cold-blooded murder," his guest responds.

So blunt a statement as Zaroff's is chilling in its logic. The horror of the First World War is unimaginable. An entire generation fed into a meat grinder. Of course civilisation just moved on; how else would it face something like that? An open screaming wound in humanity.

It's interesting to contrast The Most Dangerous Game with The Thirty-Nine Steps, which I've also just finished reading. In Buchan's novel, set on the eve of the war, the chase is a great game, all derring-do, witty disguises and jingoism. Here, in the conflict's shadow, the chase is desperate and the threat of death implacable, unerring and seemingly inevitable.

The Most Dangerous Game may be one of the best short stories I have ever read. It is about man's arrogance. It is about the fragility of civilisation. It is about being alone in the forest, with someone on your heels. show less

Read this again for the third time in several years and it's still just as good as I remember. It's a short but thrilling and dark exploration of the hunter vs. hunted dynamic that governs so much of our world, and how easily roles can be reversed even when one thinks he or she is at the top of the hierarchy. At its core is a clash between the morality that we deem intrinsic to our nature, and its opposite - the part of humans that revels in power, control, and destruction.

As I personally show more detest hunting animals for sport on principle, I sided only with Whitney in the beginning - since he's the only character who seems to consider both sides of the hunter vs. hunted situation, while Rainsford begins as a confident hunter who doesn't care about the animals he kills. However, when the tables turn and he becomes the hunted instead, I started to root for him because he at least recognized the value of human life while General Zaroff did not, and that humanity along with his ingenuity were his saving graces. I'm guessing that the aftermath of that harrowing hunt would have cured Rainsford of hunting for sport forever, though we have no way of knowing for sure. All in all, this was a gripping story with an important message, and I especially love the double meaning of its title. Absolute genius. show less

"I hope the jaguar guns have come from Purdey's. We should have some good hunting up the Amazon. Great sport, hunting."

"The best sport in the world," agreed Rainsford.

"For the hunter," amended Whitney. "Not for the jaguar."

OH NOES! Could this be dramatic foreshadowing?

Uh, yeah. Totally. But still a lot of fun to read.

This is where it all began. This is hunter-becomes-the-prey-for-the-entertainment-of-the-decadent-rich almost a hundred years before The Hunger Games. This is the standard James show more Bond villain, complete with expensive booze and egotistical monologuing, created while Ian Fleming was still a moody teenager.

This is also "Bechdel test? What the hell is that?" But it's still a good time.

If you haven't read The Most Dangerous Game since high school (or at all), you could do a lot worse in the bedtime story department. show less