Four years before the movie The Running Man was released, the French released The Prize Of Peril, which uses the same basic idea as the Schwarzenegger movie.
Four years before the movie The Running Man was released, the French released The Prize Of Peril, which uses the same basic idea as the Schwarzenegger movie.
This entry was posted on February 8, 2015, 9:37 am and is filed under New Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Arclite theme by digitalnature | powered by WordPress
#1 by RogerBW on February 8, 2015 - 5:53 pm
Quote
Sheckley’s 1953 short story Seventh Victim is probably the root of the human-hunt as public spectacle, obviously coming after The Most Dangerous Game which invented it as a private perversion.
In The Prize of Peril (the short story), we start in media res with the hunt in progress, and flash back. The aeroplane sequence is in one of the more minor shows, still potentially lethal but with smaller prizes, which our hero has to win before having a chance at the big money. He doesn’t have a lot of motivation there either, but that’s the point – he’s just an ordinary guy, and Just Ordinary Guys is what the audience wants to see. And he gets aid from the audience, in the style of The Hunger Games.
#2 by Greywizard on February 8, 2015 - 7:46 pm
Quote
That’s very interesting, Roger. I’m going to try and track down a copy of the original short story.
#3 by Richard on February 9, 2015 - 9:19 am
Quote
It was first published in the April 1953 issue of Galaxy, and has been frequently anthologized. In addition, it was adapted for audio for the radio series “X Minus 1” (air date 3/6/57 – which can be found at the Internet Archive: http://archive.org/details/XMinus1B ) and made into the 1965 Italian movie “The 10th Victim” starring Ursula Andress.
#4 by RogerBW on February 9, 2015 - 10:33 am
Quote
Not quite, I’m afraid – The Prize of Peril (1958 short), which gave rise to the film Keith reviewed here, is not the same thing as Seventh Victim (1953 short), which gave rise to The Tenth Victim. Both of them are by Sheckley and deal with human-hunting, which was clearly in the post-war air (Sarban’s ghastly The Sound of His Horn came out in 1952) just as The Most Dangerous Game often feels like a reaction to the insanity of the First World War.
isfdb.org is good for tracking down anthology appearances.