Movie Review – The Hounds Of Zaroff

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1932 – Spoiler alerts This is quite a clever and tense minor horror-thriller movie that may give viewers a sense of déjà vu in more ways than one. I remembered it while writing my previous Mylot feature on Dr Who as The Underwater Menace featured a villain called Zaroff named after the evil bad guy in this movie which was also known as The Most Dangerous Game. The plot is simple enough. Count Zaroff (Leslie Banks) is a big game hunter who has run out of wild dangerous animals to hunt. Tigers, lions, elephants, he’s done them all. So he decides to start hunting men, most of them being shipwreck victims marooned on his island (after he deliberately sets the warning lights to crash ships onto the rocks). He is finally outwitted by Joel McCrae, who he gives an hour’s start before pursuing him with guns and man-eating dogs. Two of those he hunted were played by Robert Armstrong and Faye Wray, who then appeared in the following year’s big release, King Kong. The gorilla movie actually used the same jungle island set, waterfalls and swamps. Strictly speaking, the set was officially built for King Kong. Zaroff was actually shot during gaps in filming the main movie’s breaks and after dark. Armstrong And Wray were drawn in for being around for the bigger production. The delicate model work in bringing Kong and the dinosaurs of Skull Island to life meant Kong took longer to edit, so Zaroff came out first. The island set was used in more movies, most obviously Son Of Kong, in 1933 which again featured Robert Armstrong, but not Faye Wray. The film ends with Kong Junior drowning when the island finally sinks beneath the waves. The island set itself was destroyed by fire rather than water. It was finally burnt for the Civil War burning of Atlanta scenes in 1939’s Gone With The Wind along with other studio backlot properties scheduled for demolition. Hollywood certainly got its money’s worth from the set. The Youtube added here features the spectacular very real fire scenes from Gone With The Wind. Arthur Chappell