The 10th Victim

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The 10th Victim
Italian film poster
Directed byElio Petri
Screenplay by
Produced byCarlo Ponti[2]
Starring
CinematographyGianni Di Venanzo[2]
Edited byRuggero Mastroianni[2]
Music byPiero Piccioni[2]
Distributed byInterfilm[3]
Release date
December 3, 1965[1]
Running time
92 minutes
Countries
  • Italy
  • France[2]
LanguagesItalian
English[4]
Elsa Martinelli in The 10th Victim (1965).

The 10th Victim (Italian: La decima vittima) is a 1965 Italian science fiction film directed by Elio Petri and starring Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress, and featuring Elsa Martinelli in a supporting role. The picture is based on Robert Sheckley's 1953 short story "Seventh Victim". Sheckley later published a novelization of the film in 1966,[5] and two sequels (Victim Prime and Hunter/Victim) in 1987 and 1988, respectively.[6] In the United States, the film was theatrically released by Joseph E. Levine's Embassy Pictures.[7]

Plot

In the near future, big wars are avoided by giving individuals with violent tendencies a chance to kill in the "Big Hunt". The Hunt is the most popular form of entertainment in the world and also attracts participants who are looking for fame and fortune.

It includes ten rounds for each competitor, five as the hunters and five as the victims. The survivor of ten rounds becomes extremely wealthy and retires. Scenes switch between the pursuit, romance between a hunter and a victim, with a narrator explaining the rules and justification of the Hunt.

Caroline Meredith (Ursula Andress) is a huntress armed with a high caliber Bosch shotgun, who has just killed a ninth victim and is looking for her tenth. To maximize financial gain, Meredith wants to get a perfect kill in front of the cameras as she has negotiated a major sponsorship from the Ming Tea Company.

Marcello Poletti (Marcello Mastroianni) is the victim. His winnings from six kills have already been spent by his mistress, Olga (Elsa Martinelli), and his ex-wife, Lidia.

Caroline goes to Rome and impersonates a reporter whose assignment is to study the sexual preoccupations of Italian men. She requests an interview with Marcello at the Temple of Venus.

Suspicious, Marcello arranges for Caroline to be eaten by a crocodile before the cameras of a competing television company, but she escapes.

Caroline lures Marcello to the beach and convinces him that she is in love with him. She drugs Marcello and hauls him back to the Temple of Venus.

Caroline shoots Marcello in front of the television cameras, but Marcello survives because he has loaded the gun with blanks. He then shoots her but she is saved by her bulletproof armorplate.

The two decide to get married but are shot by the pilot.

Differences from the original story

The original short story was written from the point of view of a man hunting his seventh target, a woman, whereas in the movie she is the hunter. He finds her apparently defenceless sitting in a cafe. Talking to her, she tells him how she is new to the game but could not bear to kill her own target, and now expects to die. The hunter falls in love with his victim, as in the movie, and eventually reveals who he is. She has tricked him; she shoots him, joining the ranks of the "Tens".

The story was adapted for radio on X Minus One in 1957.[8]

Cast

Source:[3]

Reception

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a score of 86% based on 7 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10.[9] In contemporary reviews, the Monthly Film Bulletin praised the visuals of the film, but stated that "the film is never quite as much fun as it should be, possibly because of rather ponderous dubbing and possibly because imaginative camera angles cannot totally make up for lapses in narrative."[2] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times noted a "wildly imaginative plot" but declared the film overall to be "a clever but patently self-conscious exercise ... The cleverness is so insistent that it soon becomes excessive and absurd, and the gamesmanship of the satire becomes too cute, too much a bore."[10] Variety found the film superior to Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville, praising both Mastroianni and Andress, as well as Elsa Martinelli and Massimo Serato.[11] The review also noted the cinematography of Gianni di Venanzo.[11] Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post wrote that the film is "not handled so crisply as the material promises," finding that director Elio Petri "did not find quite the exact, cohesive tone such material demands. The result is curiously pedestrian."[12] Algis Budrys of Galaxy Science Fiction described Sheckley's novelization as "a reasonably good chase novel" which would, nonetheless, disappoint readers, whether they wanted a literary version of the film's Italian satire and symbolism or the 'chilling futurama of legalized manslaughter' the cover promised.[13]

In popular culture

US film poster

In the early 1990s, comedian and actor Mike Myers, along with musicians Susanna Hoffs and Matthew Sweet, started a faux British 1960s band whose members adopted personas from that era. The band named itself Ming Tea, after the company that sponsored Andress' character in the film. In the Austin Powers series, also starring Myers, the idea of the Fembots may have been adapted from The 10th Victim.

See also

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ La Stampa, Nov 27, 1965
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i P.J.S. (1968). "Decima vittima, La (The 10th Victim), Italy/France, 1965". Monthly Film Bulletin. Vol. 35, no. 408. British Film Institute. p. 4. ISSN 0027-0407.
  3. ^ a b "La decima vittima (1965)". Archivio del Cinema Italiano On-Line.
  4. ^ "Cinema - Club - La Decima vittima". RAI.
  5. ^ Di Filippo, Paul. "The 10th Victim". Science Fiction Weekly. Archived from the original on November 15, 2007. Retrieved 2007-01-06.
  6. ^ Frelik, Paweł; Mead, David G. (2007). Playing the Universe: Games and Gaming in Science Fiction. Maria Curie-Skłodowska University Press. p. 134. ISBN 978-83-227-2656-3.
  7. ^ Bosley Crowther. "Screen: Mastroianni vs. Miss Andress:Futuristic '10th Victim' Opens at 2 Theaters". The New York Times.
  8. ^ ON RADIO. (1957, Mar 06). New York Times (1923-Current File) Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.sl.nsw.gov.au/docview/114061707?accountid=13902
  9. ^ "The 10th Victim (La Decima vittima) (The Tenth Victim)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved June 15, 2018.
  10. ^ Crowther, Bosley (December 21, 1965). "Screen: Mastroianni vs. Miss Andress". The New York Times: 46.
  11. ^ a b Willis 1985, p. 194-195: "Review is of 92 minute version reviewed on December 15, 1965"
  12. ^ Coe, Richard L. (December 22, 1965). "'Tenth Victim' At the Embassy". The Washington Post: B10.
  13. ^ Budrys, Algis (June 1966). "Galaxy Bookshelf". Galaxy Science Fiction. pp. 141–152.

Sources

Further reading

External links

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