The Most Dangerous Game
Irving Pichel, Ernest Schoedsack / US, 1932 / 63 min.
When it was released, this adventure movie was overshadowed by its much larger brother King Kong. It’s now safe to say that it was was a pivotal moment in the history of the movie soundtrack. With the original music, live performed by Amsterdam Brass Quintet with James Whale Orchestra.
A professional big game hunter is purposely shipwrecked on a tropical island of the splendidly eccentric Count Zaroff. He has developed a new interest which he calls ‘the most dangerous game’, otherwise known as humans. He gives his unfortunate visitors food, wine, a short piano recital, and a not ungenerous head start of several hours, and then stalks them around his island with a variety of weapons and lethal intent. If they can survive until dawn they are rewarded with freedom. Otherwise they end up stuffed and hung on the walls of his trophy room. With the two Hollywood legends Joel McCrea and Fay Wray he finally meets his match.
The Most Dangerous Game single handedly invented the survival movie genre but it was not just revolutionary for its pure subject matter. It was also a critical moment in the history of the film soundtrack. The young composer Max Steiner created what we now consider to be a movie soundtrack – music that thematically underscores the action and atmosphere throughout the movie. Up until Steiner, music had been created mainly independently of the images on the screen and was restricted mainly to credits or scene changes.
His use of repeated themes for the main characters and an extended symphonic section that underscored the entire second half of the movie was simply electrifying. By the time the iconic music for King Kong came out a year later, Steiner had entirely changed the way movie soundtracks were written forever.
Live music
This production features the original music recreated for the Amsterdam Brass Quintet by the James Whale Orchestra. The James Whale Orchestra is a unique film orchestra concept which combines live soloists with a virtual orchestra of samples, created using state of the art music production technology.
The James Whale Orchestra:
Oliver Parr (music/cello)
Panyiotis Ioannou (music production)
Amsterdam Brass Quintet:
Thomas Piet (trumpet)
Thomas Geerts (trumpet)
Mischa Sporck (horn)
Rolf Hoogenberg (trombone)
Dani Sánchez Marcos (tuba)
This is part of
Details
Director
Irving Pichel, Ernest Schoedsack
Production year
1932
Country
US
Original title
The Most Dangerous Game
Length
63 min.
Language
English
Subtitles
NONE
Part of
Eye on Sound
With Eye on Sound, Eye focuses on the special relationship between image and sound. Expect live music to silent films, live bands from today to classics of yesteryear, brand new scores to films from the versatile Eye collection and special attention to the often neglected art of sound design.
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