40 Fun Facts About The Most Dangerous Game

In The Most Dangerous Game, what do old sea charts call the place where General Zaroff hunts?

Ship-Trap Island has such an evil name among seafaring men that even the yacht's tough old Swedish captain is uneasy sailing past it.

What is the name of General Zaroff's giant deaf and mute servant in The Most Dangerous Game?

Ivan is the first person Rainsford meets ashore: he answers the door with a long-barrelled revolver aimed straight at the visitor's heart.

How does General Zaroff make sure passing ships wreck on his island in The Most Dangerous Game?

False channel lights do the work: at the press of a button they mark a safe passage where giant razor-edged rocks wait instead.

The 1932 film of The Most Dangerous Game was shot on jungle sets reused for which RKO classic?

King Kong inherited the jungle sets and several of the cast, and its producer shot the ape's test reel while the hunt film was still in production.

In The Most Dangerous Game, how long must a hunted man elude General Zaroff to win his freedom?

Three days is the limit: a man who lasts that long is promised a boat to the mainland, though Zaroff boasts that nobody has ever beaten him.

In The Most Dangerous Game, how does Rainsford finally escape General Zaroff's pack on the last day?

He leaps into the sea from a cliff twenty feet above the water, and Zaroff, taking it for suicide, shrugs, sips brandy and goes home to dinner.

Where does Rainsford reappear to face General Zaroff at the end of The Most Dangerous Game?

The master bedroom is where Zaroff, sure the hunt is over, switches on the light and finds Rainsford stepping out from the curtains of the bed.

In The Most Dangerous Game, what is Rainsford lunging for when he tumbles off the yacht's rail?

His pipe is knocked from his mouth by a rope as he balances on the rail; he grabs for it, overreaches and drops into the blood-warm water.

In The Most Dangerous Game, which animals does Rainsford plan to hunt on his Amazon yacht trip?

Jaguars are the quarry, and Rainsford scoffs at the idea that the big cats feel anything about it, a view the story then tests on him.

In The Most Dangerous Game, why does General Zaroff consider humans the ideal quarry for a hunter?

They can reason, and Zaroff says no animal can; instinct alone had made every hunt a sure thing and left him bored.

Which American author and Hollywood screenwriter wrote the 1924 short story The Most Dangerous Game?

Richard Connell turned out more than 300 short stories, and this tale of a hunter who becomes the prey is the one he is best known for.

In The Most Dangerous Game, which warm sea closes over Rainsford when he falls from his yacht?

The Caribbean is so black and moonless that evening that Rainsford, a crack shot at four hundred yards, cannot make out land four miles away.

In The Most Dangerous Game, what sound in the dark sends Rainsford rushing to the yacht's rail?

Gunshots, three of them, ring out from the blackness off to the right; only later does Rainsford learn what kind of quarry they were aimed at.

In The Most Dangerous Game, what does Rainsford's shipmate insist every hunted animal understands?

Fear is the answer Rainsford laughs off on the yacht, and the lesson he learns firsthand once he becomes the quarry himself.

In The Most Dangerous Game, what blunt word does Rainsford use for Zaroff's new kind of hunting?

Murder is his word, and he adds that he is a hunter and no killer of men; Zaroff laughs and calls the view naive and mid-Victorian.

In The Most Dangerous Game, what grand building does Rainsford find on a bluff above the sea?

A château with pointed towers, a tall spiked iron gate and a gargoyle door knocker stands on the bluff, so brightly lit that he first takes it for a village.

In The Most Dangerous Game, at what time does Zaroff prefer to hunt, finding it far more exciting?

At night is Zaroff's choice: he tells Rainsford he will not follow until dusk, and he proves able to track a faint trail through the jungle in the dark.

Which soup from his homeland does Zaroff serve Rainsford at dinner in The Most Dangerous Game?

Borscht comes to the table with whipped cream, in a hall where Rainsford notes that the linen, crystal, silver and china are of the finest.

In The Most Dangerous Game, which upheaval makes Zaroff, an officer of the Czar, leave his homeland?

The Russian Revolution ruined many nobles, but Zaroff had put his money in American securities, so he could go on hunting around the world.

In The Most Dangerous Game, where is Rainsford hiding when Zaroff blows a smoke ring and walks away?

Up a tree, stretched along a broad limb, Rainsford watches Zaroff's eyes climb the trunk and stop short: the general is saving him for another day's sport.

Which shipmate tells Rainsford that hunted animals have feelings in The Most Dangerous Game?

Whitney turns in for the evening shortly before Rainsford goes overboard, and the yacht races on with nobody aboard hearing his shouts.

In The Most Dangerous Game, General Zaroff once commanded a cavalry division of which people?

Cossacks are his own people: Zaroff says his servant is one and so is he, adding with a smile that the whole race is a bit savage.

Which animal does Sanger Rainsford tell General Zaroff is the deadliest of all big game to hunt?

Cape buffalo is Rainsford's pick, and Zaroff knows the animal well: one in Africa fractured his skull and laid him up for six months.

In The Most Dangerous Game, Zaroff has read Rainsford's book about hunting which animals in Tibet?

Snow leopards made Rainsford's name, and Zaroff knows it at once: the general reads every hunting book published in English, French and Russian.

In The Most Dangerous Game, what is the only weapon General Zaroff carries when he hunts a man?

A small pistol, of the lightest caliber and range, is all Zaroff carries, while his quarry is sent off first with food and a few hours' start.

In The Most Dangerous Game, what does Rainsford tie to a springy sapling to kill Zaroff's servant?

His hunting knife, bent back on the sapling with wild grapevine and aimed down the trail, is a trick Rainsford learned in Uganda.

In The Most Dangerous Game, what does Zaroff call the quicksand bog in his island's southeast?

Death Swamp is where Rainsford later digs a pit lined with sharpened stakes, turning the soft ground Zaroff warned him about into a weapon.

In The Most Dangerous Game, what does General Zaroff say will happen to the loser of the final duel?

Fed to the dogs is the stake Zaroff names with a bow, and the story then skips the fight itself and cuts straight to its famous last line.

Which annual American story prize picked The Most Dangerous Game for its 1924 volume of winners?

O. Henry Award editors chose it for their volume of the prize stories of 1924, where it ran beside work by the poet Stephen Vincent Benét.

In The Most Dangerous Game, what did General Zaroff call his finest dog, which died in quicksand?

Lazarus followed a fleeing man into the bog and sank with him, and Zaroff mourns the animal while sparing no thought for the man.

In The Most Dangerous Game, Zaroff hums a bit of which opera when he thinks the hunt is over?

Madama Butterfly is his tune over a silver flask of brandy; earlier, showing off his guard dogs at a window, he hums a snatch of song from the Folies Bergère.

In The Most Dangerous Game, which post did Zaroff's servant once hold under the Great White Czar?

Official knouter means he wielded the knout, a Russian whip used for floggings, and Zaroff hands any captive who refuses to be hunted over to him.

The author of The Most Dangerous Game was Oscar-nominated for the story of which Frank Capra film?

Meet John Doe grew out of his 1922 magazine story A Reputation, and the Best Original Story nod was the film's only Oscar nomination.

In The Most Dangerous Game, what did five-year-old Zaroff shoot that won his father's praise?

Prize turkeys from his father's own flock fell to a little gun made in Moscow for shooting sparrows, and the boy was complimented, not punished.

In The Most Dangerous Game, Zaroff's father owned a quarter of a million acres in which region?

Crimea held the family estate, and the son of the house went on to kill his first bear in the Caucasus at the age of ten.

The Most Dangerous Game was also published, and shown in British cinemas, under which other title?

The Hounds of Zaroff was the name on the British release of the 1932 film, and the short story has been reprinted under it as well.

In The Most Dangerous Game, which trap does Zaroff name and praise after it bruises his shoulder?

Malay man-catcher is the general's name for the deadfall, a dead trunk balanced on a cut living one; he knows it because he has hunted in Malacca.

In The Most Dangerous Game, whose works does General Zaroff read in his library to soothe himself?

Marcus Aurelius calms him after a dinner with Pol Roger and Chambertin, on the evening he believes his quarry has slipped away for good.

Which magazine first printed The Most Dangerous Game, illustrated by Wilmot Emerton Heitland?

Collier's ran the story in January 1924, and the following year it reached book form in the author's own collection, Variety.

Which actress plays Eve Trowbridge, a character added for the 1932 film of The Most Dangerous Game?

Fay Wray plays Eve, a castaway the screenwriter added to the plot; she flees through the jungle beside the hero once the hunt begins.