Customer Reviews

The 10th Victim

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I honestly don`t know if the other reviewers saw the same film I did, but I have owned the original, Anchor Bay release for years, and haven`t seen the re-release - maybe something was cut, maybe the previous reviewers don`t get 60`s Euro-cult films like "Danger Diabolik", "Fathom", "I`ll Never Forget What`s Isname", "Modesty Blaise" or, for that matter, "Our Man Flint/In Like Flint", or "Deadlier than The Male". With the international sucess of the Bond films, there weren`t enough films of this type to satisfy audience hunger, hence all of the above, and although are flawed (as are the bond films), these flicks filled the void rather nicely. This one in particular, for it`s Madison Avenue corporate tie-ins to everything from arena sports endorsements to Rock concert sponsorships that are now a permanent part of our lives, it`s actually spot-on in it`s comedic absurdity and a harbinger of all things to come. And we`re only a step away from televised executions in one form or another... Both Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress are superb in their roles, especially Mastroianni in his world-weary approach to his lifestyle and profession, and the subtle humor and ironies are abundant everywhere in this film. Elsa Martinelli is hysterical as well as adorable, so if you think the "Austin Powers" franchise is good (if you`re under 40), and like any of the 60`s flix I referenced above(if you`re slightly older), do yourself a favor and get this film. I`ve seen it 3 times, and still find humor in it. O those fab 60`s...

The Italians really did 1960's camp the best. I mean, what is campier than Ursula Andress chasing a man around in a lavender, backless pant suit, while brandishing a pistol? A killer bikini top? A rest, relax and sex stop on the side of the highway? A cult of sunset worshipers in caftans on the beach? The cinematography and locations are so stylish. Rooftop jazz bars in the blaring sun, minimalist interiors decorated with giant, blinking eyeballs, New York's financial district, pre-World Trade Center and Rome and the Vatican shot from a helicopter. Death and fear, what could be funnier?

If you are a fan of:

Marcello at his Mastroianniest
Ursula in full sexual animal mode
60's design and fashion
Dry to the exreme humor
Stylistic Italian direction

Then buy this disc! Oh yea, the story ain't half bad either.

Who wants to be a millionaire? Don't answer trivia questions. Just kill 10 people before they can kill you! This is one of the few movies I know that perfectly evokes the era of the mid-1960s (despite the fact it is set at some undefined future date). I have loved it since first seeing it thirty or more years ago. Yes, this is where Mike Meyers stole the gun bra joke for Austin Powers, but this is social satire not pop culture sendups. (Literacy is evidenced by collecting rare comic books. In Italy people still believe in family enough not to turn their parents in for disposal. There's no shooting in restaurants.) At the same time as it is laugh out loud funny, it is also very very hip, in the best 60s sense. And am I the only one who has never been able to get the theme song from this film out of his head? Finally, I'm very pleased to see this film in Italian, even if my Italian doesn't extend beyond a few Paolo Conte songs. The old dubbed version (the only version I've previously encountered) did away with at least a couple lines of dialogue (if the subtitles are to be trusted) that I suppose the censors didn't like, plus no end of other dialogue just because that's how they dub movies. The hunt game computer in the Italian version speaks in a voice both so menacing and goofy that it reminded me why I once hated computers. And there is also at least one in-joke about Marcello Mastroianni clearly expunged from the dubbed version.

An early forerunner in the futuristic "legalized-killing-as-TV-entertainment" genre, The 10th Victim lays the groundwork for many subsequent films including Roller Ball, The Running Man, and most recently Daniel Minahan's Series 7: The Contenders. Briefly summarized: in the 21st Century Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress are two all-star assassins pitted against each other in "The Big Hunt," an international game of legalized murder in which a score of 10-kills awards the victor a prize of one million dollars. What sets this film apart from the others is not so much the plot (as while it may be the original in concept, its followers certainly succeed better in overall craft and more pointed satire) as the permanent aesthetic time/date-stamp of 1960's camp. The 10th Victim is a 60's version of the future, in the very best sense. It's a future full of awesome color schemes, ultra-cool music, great furniture, swanky pads, and characters that just ooze with sexual energy. The gem of this film is an opening sequence in which Andress dances around her ninth victim in a hipster club, fashionably slapping the men in the audience with cool and choreographed abandon before mowing down her adversary with bullets fired from a gun hidden in her bra (a gimmick later ripped for the Fembots in Austin Powers). And while the film offers a couple of other moments that approach the brilliance of this opening, its full potential is never realized -- things are not pushed nearly far enough. My biggest complaint: the alligator death chair catapult gizmo is never put to full effect, though perhaps I'm just yearning for the very thing this film means to comment on - more bloody spectacle. All in all it's definitely worth seeing, though you might supplement it with a healthy dose of Mario Bava's Danger Diabolik for good measure.

This movie is what I call one of my "guilty pleasures" and when I discovered it had come out on DVD I had to get it. I first saw this in 1966 and although time has marched on it still is a joy to watch. Sometimes it's not because a DVD has 5 stars and excellent audio/video but because it's a personal favorite. If you agree go ahead,indulge yourself-oh,yea, try watching with the english subtitles on for subtle differences. Now let's see if the powers-that-be can manage the release of "Blow-Up"

A curiosity has just popped out of the cellar of Anchor Bay : THE 10th VICTIM, an italian movie directed in 1965 by Elio Petri. Adapted from a short novel of Robert Sheckley by the well-known screenplay writer Tonino Guerra, THE 10th VICTIM presents a Marcello Mastroianni with blond hair and an Ursula Andress with blond skin. Amusing.

The action takes place in a near future in Rome, Italy. In order to prevent wars, governments have invented " The Big Hunting ". The players must win 10 times to gain the right to leave with a million dollars prize. In this game, to win means to kill the hunted if you are the hunter or to discover and kill the hunter if you're the hunted. A slight pre-RUNNING MAN flavour, isn't it ?

THE 10th VICTIM is more a parodical and satirical comedy than an action movie and presents at least one scene deserving to stay in our memories, the first scene involving a masked Ursula Andress dancing and slapping the faces of the "Masoch Club" male audience before killing her adversary in a very stylish manner.

If you like italian comedies or a smart satire of the television, religion or our political institutions, the movie is certainly worth a look. If, like me, you are an amateur of B movies of the sixties, THE 10th VICTIM is a must have.

Bonus features include an english dubbed version, the italian version with optional english subtitles, the theatrical trailer and an incomplete filmography of Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress. Great images and sound.

A DVD zone discovery.

Ever since catching about a half hour of The 10th Victim in bleary black-and-white on television as a teenager I had been dying to see the whole film. So when Anchor Bay released it on DVD in 2001 I jumped on it and have watched it at least four times since. It's become one of my all-time favorite movies, a superbly written, directed, and designed combination of futuristic thriller, sex farce, and dark, dryly witty satire--all wrapped up in a colorful, surreal pop/op-art package--that pokes fun at a dystopian future where war has been replaced by the "sport" of legalized murder ("the Big Hunt"), comic books are regarded as "Classics," elderly parents must be turned in to the state for extermination, and advertisers sign up "hunters" to promote their products during live commercials featuring cold-blooded killings.

Ursula Andress (at the peak of her beauty and animal sensuality) and Marcello Mastroianni (the epitome of jaded cool) play hunter and victim, respectively, both vying for a million-dollar prize if one can murder the other, and each also lining up a corporate sponsor who will pay out if the killing can be timed to happen during a live commercial for their product. But love, of all things, intervenes (not to mention his ex-wife and mistress), seriously complicating their cat-and-mouse game of death. Along the way we are treated to some great futuristic pop-art set designs and decor, terrific, catchy Eurojazz soundtrack, and breezy satire of the media, society's fetishization of violence, religion, marriage and divorce, Bondian intrigue, television, and shameless, opportunistic corporate advertising. Several future fads are accurately predicted, including robotic pets and tawdry reality TV shows, and a number of elements from the film are recognizable as being "borrowed" by Mike Myers for the Austin Powers movies, most notably Andress's ballistic bikini top.

I have found that The 10th Victim actually improves with each viewing, as each time I pick up on more details or bits of dialogue that had previously escaped me. *Spoiler Alert* The only disappointing aspect of the film, in my opinion, is the "comic," slapstick ending tacked on at the insistence of American distributor Joseph E. Levine. I'm about 99% sure that the movie is really supposed to end just after Mastroianni shoots Andress, but Levine apparently considered that ending too downbeat. It's pretty obvious that the final scenes amid some ruins and on an airplane were added after the fact as they are completely at odds with the tone of the rest of the movie and attempt to provide the film with a wacky, screwball "happy ending." But other than the denouement ringing false, the film is nearly perfectly realized.

When I heard that Blue Underground was releasing this on Blu-ray I wondered if it would really be worth the price of an upgrade. Thankfully, the answer is a resounding "yes!" The brightness, color saturation and balance, sharpness, and detail are vastly improved over the Anchor Bay DVD. While the word "revelation" gets thrown around perhaps a bit too freely when describing Blu-rays in comparison with their previous DVD incarnations, in this case it is apropos. The BU transfer makes the Anchor Bay disc look positively sick in comparison--dark and muddy, with faded, poorly balanced color and mushy detail. The difference here is literally like night and day; it's astounding how much better the Blu-ray looks when compared side-by-side with the DVD. The 1080p transfer does bring out the grain a bit, but never to the point of distraction. Fleshtones are natural, detail is crisp, and the muted hues of the Anchor DVD give way to sizzling, neon-vivid greens, yellows, and fuchsias. If you are a big fan of this movie, you really need to upgrade to the Blu-ray; it's almost like seeing the film again for the first time, and easily the biggest improvement in a Blu-ray over a previous DVD release I have yet seen. (Note that Blue Underground's 2009 DVD release is merely a repackage of the Anchor Bay edition, so the Blu-ray is the only way to see the much-improved remaster.)

Blue Underground also up the ante with some enticing supplements, including a somewhat washed-out U.K. release trailer (1:47), which is the same one as on the Anchor DVD, and a superior, gorgeous-looking Italian trailer (2:31), with English subtitles, that actually gives you a much better idea of what the movie's about than the rather inscrutable U.K. trailer (both are presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen). A gallery of stills, posters, and pressbook art and a Mastroianni still gallery are also present, as well as an hour-and-a-half documentary on Mastroianni (which I haven't watched yet). But even without these extras, the far superior transfer makes this a more than worthy upgrade. If you love this film as much as I do, I guarantee you will be delighted.

I first saw this film on TV when I was in junior high. It's definitely one of the greatest '60s films ever made. Set in a future where the Pope is American, people get their kicks by participating in an assasination game. Ursula Andress is one of the best in the game (mostly due to her bra gun). The soundtrack and the production design are as outrageous as the action. It makes Austin Powers movies look like The O'Reilly Factor.

This a poignant film--touching and sad--and full of fun at the same time; a classic film, for sure; and a film only Italians could have made. The director, Elio Petri, is often quoted: "Making a movie needs a lot of madness and a lot of love for cinema. And most probably this is the most positive side of the whole matter."

The director, Petri was a lawyer turned filmmaker, a leftist, vocal member of the Communist Party, a rascal, and a man totally aware of the mission of filmmaking: it's a vehicle for entertainment first and along the way you spice it up with politics. Candy with medicine hidden inside.
The 10th Victim is a visual delight, the costumes and art design, the attractive stars--a young, blonde Marcello Mastrioinani and sex goddess Ursula Andress. Everything is done up deliciously 60s : pop-art, futuristic furniture, Sassoon haircuts, fake eyelashes, clothes with cut out backs and zippers everywhere, fantastic hats and visors. Most of the action happens in Rome and there's no tourists, in fact, the streets and sites are empty, no Vespas, no graffiti. On a stretch, the telephones and video screens in the film could still seem contemporary today. The director made a wise choice not to include close-ups of electronic gadgetry and that decision allowed the the film to age beautifully.

Quick synopsis: It's the future. War and violent impulses have been replaced by a game where one aggressive person hunts and murders another. It's a safety valve After succeeding in ten computer-generated match-ups, the last killer-survivor becomes a celebrity. In the film Marcello is the hunted and Andress is the hunter. Of course they fall in love--in a twisted futuristic way that asks, why tell the truth? Relationships are all filled with deception.

The story lampoons marriage, commitment, honesty, the media, people's hunger for fame and celebrity, and greed in an intellectual way that is as valid today as it might have been for farsighted for Petri back in 1965 when he made the film.

I was wowed not only by Rome's empty streets but also the sound of crickets in the Colosseum, the jazzy-pop soundtrack, the frequent futuristic predictions about homosexual liberation and, most surprised by the right-on appearance of the Chinese in this almost 50 year old sci-fi spoof) as being the nation who ends up with the most money. The Chinese give prize money to the winners and promote their product during broadcasts of the hunt. "Drink MIng Tea and Live Forever."

How did he figure that out about China? Petri was a genius!

Why could only an Italian make this film? Who else could make a film about the role of money, schizophrenia and the individual's destruction and make it sexy, adult and stylish?

Sad? Because there are so few people in the future, it must mean there was a terrible war and not many people survived and the ones who did stay home and watch TV shows about the hunters and hunted and drink Ming Tea.

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