During the only time I have been to Los Angeles, I visited the legendary Mann’s Chinese Theatre and saw the various handprints and signatures forever sealed in cement there. For whatever reason, I was most impressed by that of Marcello Mastroianni, though I think I had only seen him in 8 ½ at that point.
He and Ursula Andress star in 1965’s The 10th Victim, a curious satire of a genre already long in the tooth by then, and that is the hunting of humans for sport. I will always think of that kind of plot as the Most Dangerous Game template. The 1965 picture also seems to foretell the resurgence of the subgenre from the late 80’s to the present day. This year will see a remake of 1987’s The Running Man. There have been such movies as The Hunger Games series and Battle Royale.
I highly doubt this film influenced any of those later movies, though it appears to be one of the chief inspirations of the Austin Powers series. How odd a parody of a satire is more effective than the original film. At least, it must be an inspiration, as I otherwise don’t know why Mike Myers names the band he had with Suzanne Hoffs on the first film’s soundtrack would be called Ming Tea.
You see, Ming Tea is the fictional company sponsoring Andress as she completes her tenth and final round of The Big Hunt. This global competition uses a computer to pick from lists of volunteers, pairing up a hunter with a hunted. The victim will not know the identify of the one pursuing them, though the killer will have all pertinent info about their target. That seems awfully lopsided to me, even if a participant plays each role the same number of times—if they live long enough to last all ten rounds.
When we first see Andress, she is the hunted. Since we don’t yet know what it happening, I was very confused as to why some guy is chasing her through the streets of New York City. Even with him shooting at her, she keeps stopping to make sure he can keep up. I would say that is sporting of her, except she is only luring him to the Masoch Club, where she will shoot him dead from a guns which are the cups of her silver bikini top. I can’t help but imagine the recoil from that would leave some odd bruises.
Her next target is Mastroianni, who has just succeeded in his fifth kill, and so must be the victim in the remaining rounds. This is a depressed man, having just had his marriage to Luce Bonifassy annulled, a process which cost his all his winnings from the game up to that point. He also seems bored by mistress Elsa Martinelli. He is so poor now that the government has taken back all his furniture, even his bookcase that only has children’s comics on it. Martinelli mourns the loss of these “classics”. The only thing that seems to brighten his eye is Tomaso, a truly dreadful looking little “robot” pet that is out of the imagination of Beck, The Brothers Quay or Nan June Paik. Maybe all three.
Given he is in the dumps (perhaps literally, to find parts for Tomaso), it seems he might not even be interested in preventing his death. Andress is shocked to find him sitting out in the open at a rooftop snack bar. It doesn’t look like he will pose much of a problem for her to lure him to the Temple of Venus at the time of a live broadcast of his assassination. The film crew had first wanted to use the Colosseum, except they are disappointed it is a ruin. According to one guy: “They really let it go to pot.” These, folks, are the jokes.
There is a lot of goofiness here for its own sake. That might appeal to some, but I felt unengaged throughout the runtime. The visual clutter and anything goes spirit wore on me. By the time we see the house we used to share with his wife, I wasn’t surprised to see it decorated throughout with full-sized plaster of Paris statues of humans engaged in various activities. One is playing a pinball machine, showing how Italians of the future are so decadent as so have statues play their pinball machines for them. In America, we play our own machines, thank you very much.
There are also “relaxing service stations” instead of mere rest areas, with prostitutes providing full service. I wondered if cost-conscious drivers would be directed to self-service areas? There is a trainer for the games whose body seems to be about 20% replacement parts. An alligator sedated and bound before it will be put in a swimming pool is petted by somebody so thoroughly bandaged that I suspect he is the invisible man. When one guy says Andress has Mastroianni eating out of her hand, I was expected the next image after the cut to be one bizarre petting zoo.
I was startled to find myself intrigued by one of the strangest setups, and that is a religious ceremony at sunset being conducted by Mastroianni. These presumed sun worshippers are heckled by some people throwing tomatoes and eggs at them. I didn’t realize Westboro Baptist Church protesters had been around that long or that the used to have the ability to travel so far. Instead, it is moon worshippers. At least he managed to finish his countdown of the sun setting, though I noticed he went from nine to eight without interjecting an 8 ½.
Another plus I reluctantly have to give the film is the photography takes great advantage of the architecture of Rome, both its ruins and its ultramodern buildings. That said, it is at the service of an obvious and unsatisfying satire which hits the audience over the head with its message of society’s addiction to violence so hard that I thought we might have been victims in The Big Hunt. Consider this line on a P.A. system: “Why have birth control when you can have death control?”
I’m sure there are many who will enjoy The 10th Victim and, to them, I doubtlessly will seem like a killjoy. Very little here clicked for me, and it wore on my nerves as quickly as its recurring theme tune, where a female singer hits a note I previously thought only dogs could hear (and, if they could, they probably wished they couldn’t). For a futuristic film, it is amazing it is yet another which thinks Pan Am would still exist in the next century. I think the one thing it did accurately predict is Andress going around filming everything, especially Mastroianni at his most miserable. Turn that camera on herself and we would see the first prediction of social media.
Dir: Elio Petri
Starring Marcello Mastroianni, Ursula Andress
Watched on Kino Lorber blu-ray