Comparison and Contrast of "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell with the 1930s movie version -short

Essay by van_EcksJunior High, 9th grade October 2004

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"The Most Dangerous Game" is a short story about a hunter named "Sanger Rainsford" who is marooned on an island after accidentally falling off a yacht and is a highly anthologized story. As the film industry has done many times before and will continue to do so, very popular short stories, such as this one, and books get remade as movies. Traditionally when Hollywood does this, a few liberties are taken and some elements of the original work are changed or eliminated. "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell is no exception.

In the result of the transition of "The Most Dangerous Game" from literature to film, many aspects were altered. Though some are superficial, such as the appearance of "General Zaroff" and the movie's Count Zaroff, or the physical conditions of Ivan, others are quite noticeable. For example, concerning the introduction, the exchange between the short story's "Sanger Rainsford" and the film's Robert Rainsford and Whitney was altered to the extent that new characters were involved in it.

The following scene, regarding the advent of Rainsford to Ship Trap Island, was modified heavily. It was adjusted to the degree that instead of having Rainsford falloff the ship and swimming to Ship Trap Island, his yacht was lured by Zaroff's lights, which were built specifically to lead to dangerous rocks. The ship sank and sharks, with the sole exception of Rainsford, ate everyone aboard. A final decision undertaken was concerned with the scene where Zaroff hunts Rainsford; it was remodeled to the inclusion of an extra character and a shorter time span to survive. Clearly, they're many differences between these two versions.

Yet, in spite of the glaring differences between the two mediums concerning the same subject, there were many elements kept...