The story’s additional exploration of man’s separation from animals, as well as different attitudes towards violence, easily translates to the exploration of alternating attitudes towards sex as well. "The Most Dangerous Game" themes of inequality and violence held up against the sexploitation adaptations’ tendencies to pit women and men against one another, making them appear reflective not only of decreased censorship rules but also of the sexual revolution and its effect on the public consciousness. The genre came about as a result of the relaxation of censorship in film and also tended to take advantage of events in the public consciousness. Such films include Confessions of a Psycho Cat(1968), The Woman Hunt(1972), and The Suckers(1972). Either the woman is the hunter and hunts a group of men, or the hunted consists entirely of women who are being hunted by men. The 60s and 70s saw Richard Connell become part of the porn and sexploitation genre. These post-war anxieties manifest themselves in adaptations of Connell’s story even up to 1961’s Bloodlust! Run for the Sun (1956) features not only a Nazi war criminal as its villain, but a British traitor secretly working for the Nazis it takes place in the Mexican jungle, and instead of hunting the protagonists for sport, the Nazis are hunting them so that they don’t escape and reveal their location. Even throughout the 1950s, films preyed on the post-war public concern that even after their defeat, Nazis were hiding in every corner of the earth, evading justice and waiting to rise again. The 1945 version, A Game of Death, changes Russian aristocrat Zaroff to German Nazi Erich Kreiger. Similarly, the 1940s saw the dawn of adaptations specifically tied to the Second World War. In this way, it displaces the audience’s difficulties from real life onto a fictional medium in which they are defeated and replaced with a happy ending. However, the story also makes sense for a depression-era audience, placing considerable emphasis on Zaroff’s wealth as he hunts his prey. The main differences reflect a certain Hollywoodification that was common in book-to-movie adaptations of the Golden Age this included changing Sanger Rainsford’s name to the more every man-sounding “Bob Rainsford,” as well as hefting up the cast and providing Rainsford with a love interest/damsel in distress named Eve (played by King Kong’s Fay Wray). The first film adaptation of The Most Dangerous Gamewas made in 1932, and it was quite faithful to the original story.
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