The 10th Victim

source: The 10th Victim

This instantly shot to up to one of my new favorite films. It's everything the film SERIES-7 pretended to be, based on the Sheckley novel that pretty much invented the televised human hunting sub-genre. This film has all the irreverence of the a mid-60's, the ornate costumes, set design and absurdist wit. Marcello Mastrioni is hilarious as the bored, easygoing contestant who seems to be waltzing through without a scratch, and Ursula Andress is wonderful as the cold-blooded siren. The film falls off the deep end in the last five minutes, must have been some great LSD on the set that day, but overall this is a must see for any true cinephile.

Robert Sheckley's The Seventh Victim is one of those short stories which, along with The Veldt, Sentry and The Test, made dystopian science fiction one of my favorite genres as a teen. La Decima Vittima turns this terrifying tale of a future where murder becomes a social game into a campy farce. A few clever bits aside (probably courtesy of satirist Ennio Flaiano, who has a writing credit), this feels like Blade Runner lampooned by Austin Powers. Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress costar. Director Elio Petri nailed the oppressive atmosphere appropriate for Sheckley's classic... but did so in a different movie (his remarkable Indagine Su Un Cittadino Al Di Sopra Di Ogni Sospetto). At least La Decima Vittima shows how brilliant Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451 adaptation is: to see how terribly wrong it could have gone, you need to look no further than this. 5/10

THE TENTH VICTIM might not be the kind of film one readily associates with Italy's foremost political director, Elio Petri, but it sure has his leftist mark stamped all over it. Set in a not-so-distant future, a hodge podge of pseudo-futuristic art installments, snazzy backgrounds and a general air of camp-kitsch than a fully realized world, more A CLOCKWORK ORANGE than BLADE RUNNER in that sense, and involving a peculiar game called The Big Hunt where people are assigned to murder complete strangers and become in turns hunters and victims, an idea that seems to have resurfaced in another form in Robert Altman's QUINTET a decade later, The Tenth Victim is at once a biting critique of capitalism and all assorted paraphernalia and a thoroughly enjoyable absurdist comedy. Nothing escapes Petri's ire. Although not particularly profound, his satire makes the rounds firing among other things at the media's obesssion with violence, reality TV, society's fixation on youth and beauty, the ostracizing of the elders, etc. It's all very tongue-in-cheek and vibrant in an irreverent Euro-kitsch way but still quite imaginative for its time. Later in the film, Mastroianni presides in a sun ritual by the seaside, mourning the setting of the sun, which is interrupted by a group of 'neo-realists' throwing tomatoes at the assembled crowd. Petri's stab at Rossellini, De Sica and the rest? Mastroianni's character admits of doing the ceremony for the money and the tears he cried were fake thanks to a 'tear pill' that lasts for 15 minutes. That's pretty much the tone set for the entire movie. Petri doesn't seem to dwell on anything for long or take his critique any more serious than he has to. The movie declines significantly in quality in the last 20 minutes, the last 10, an awkward shootout between Mastroianni and his two ex-wives, should've been left out altogether, but overall it's never boring and it's filled with great little moments. The opening titty-shotgun murder in the Masoch Club, students beating each other up as a nonchalant Mastroianni walks through them, other players of the game popping up randomly throughout the movie shooting at each other. If all else fails, you can still oogle at the gorgeous Ursulla Andress and her skimpy outfits.

I love this movie. Maybe because it is a unique and bizarre future-world parable. Other reviews seem to have missed the point, so it may not be to everyone's liking. The colors chosen to represent the future in The 10th Victim are all different combinations of black & white. The wry humor and bizarre dubbed dialogue only serve to underscore the strangely prophetic style of this film. I recommend it highly. I like to watch it again and again. The scene of Marcello leading the sun worshippers is truly priceless! It is a perfect companion piece to Godard's 1965 masterpiece "Alphaville".

I was only eleven when my family went to see this film and another foreign one (I think it was JULIETTA OF THE SPIRITS, but I'm not sure). The film is simple - in a futuristic world there is an international competition that one can join, where if you succeed in killing ten competitors (all trained assassins) you can get permanent immunity and you can live at ease with 10 million dollars. The murders you commit are shown on a program on international television. The winners become instant celebrities. The anti-hero and anti-heroine in the story are Marcello Mastrianni and Ursala Andress. They find that they are the next target in each other's way - Marcello is only one away from victory, and Ursala is on her way up. Unfortunately they fall in love. So what will they do - how will they get their points to win the game and how will they settle with each other. It is a pretty movie - among other things I recall Marcello's hair was blond in this film. Very unusual and striking (he usually is wearing dark sun glasses and the affect makes him rather threatening looking). Despite the grimness of the situation, it is a black comedy - on par with John Huston's PRIZZI HONOR two decades later. But Huston's film ends with the lovers (both Mafia hit "men") having to confront each other in a real battle to the death. It is not a televised contest that ends with a killing. There are some great moments of mayhem - we see Marcello at the start working as a valet for a man who is an equestrian. He helps the man get dressed for a ride. The man has just put on some well polished boots (Marcello had been polishing them when we see him). The man is suspicious, but when Marcello leaves the room the man preens himself before a mirror - he clicks his heels, and is blown to smithereens. THE TENTH VICTIM was set up as a science fiction tale of the future. It is one of the few that managed to predict a trend of the future - one that has not reached it's conclusion yet. The concept of the televised contest has reached the screen with such "reality shows" as THE APPRENTICE and SURVIVOR. Nobody has died in any of these shows as part of their attractions, but THE SURVIVOR has contestants voted off the island every week. One hopes they won't try to get that last drop of realism in the future - too much blood involved, and not (perhaps) done with the style that Marcello and Ursala brought to the screen forty years ago.

In 1965 this edgy Italian film (a/k/a La decima vittima) inspired by Hugo and Nebula nominated American "science fiction" writer Robert Sheckley's 1953 short story in Galaxy Magazine, "The Seventh Victim" (that title having already been taken in films by a successful 1943 thriller, the ante was upped for this version), seemed outrageous and challenging in its assertion of our desensitization to death and passing reference to age issues (more fully developed in 1965's LOGAN'S RUN (in turn based on William F. Nolan & George Clayton Johnson's 1957 science fiction novel). So successful was the stylish film of his short story that Sheckley himself published a full novelization of THE 10TH VICTIM in 1966. Most "stylish" examinations of a future "strangely like our own only cooler" date faster than yesterday's fish, but with the long overdue 2009 DVD release of the film, it's amazing how still up to date and modern this violent romantic comedy (from some angles it is a thriller, but a thriller raised to new levels because of a wicked sense of humor) actually seems - although in 1965 the film makers could not imagine an Italy that allowed divorce or an economy so bad that a million dollars would seem like a million lire. The Piero Piccioni jazz score still dazzles - if an adapter could find a "live" equivalent for the cinematic finale to the movie (the film's weakest point) this could be the basis for a great modern musical. Cinematographer Gianni Di Venanzo's use of New York (the ruins of the old Penn Station and the World Trade Center construction site) and Rome (the Colosseum, Temple of Venus among other sites) ground the story while setting up its eroticism for the performances Director Elio Petri gets from a uniformly wonderful cast. It isn't just the iconic first murder Ursula Andress pulls off during the credits (as Jacques Herlin recites "The Rules" of The Big Hunt) with her killer brassiere, it's the shrewd juxtaposition of the "computer matched" hunter and victims and social issues that are a constant undercurrent and overlay in the film as we watch Andress and Marcello Mastroianni perform their particular humorously over-planned dance of death. We're not long into this delicious film before we realize how it set up and surpassed all the so called "reality shows" polluting television today. "Voting someone off the island" or "out of the house" or "off a "talent" competition" is just another form of The Big Hunt" with all of us guiltily salivating at the vicarious "thrill of victory and agony of defeat." As well as the film itself holds up, there's a second layer of interest on the film for those willing to go beyond the usually preferable UNdubbed version (the performances in the original Italian are wonderful). If you turn on the fine English language subtitles AND the unusually well done English language DUBBED soundtrack on the DVD, it's fascinating to note that they don't match! Sometimes the literal translation of the subtitles is dramatically better, but surprising frequency, the dubbing script - geared to fit as tightly as possible to the movement of the actor's lips - is superior. Taking both in enjoying the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) differences actually improves an already wonderfully layered film. This is a must see for discerning fans of classic science fiction, romantic comedy or just plain intelligent film making and story telling willing to go beyond the "usual."

Absolutely wonderful and fun. It is witty, bright, human and... just great. Pay close attention to the soundtrack. The music is in its own unique genre. I owned the soundtrack album and was delighted to find out that it was Andy Worhol's favorite album. I think that says it all right there.

According to film lore, actor Marcello Mastroianni was so impressed with a short-story by science-fiction author Robert Sheckley that he sent it to director Elio Petri. The result was a groundbreaking Italian film that alternately shocked and amused audiences of 1965--and which, like the 1976 NETWORK, proved prophetic re the rise of "reality television." Set in a future imagined in terms of minimalist 1960s fashion and design movements, THE 10TH VICTIM (LA DECIMA VITTIMA) presents us with a world that has sublimated the human race's hunger for violence into a game known as "The Big Hunt." Register as a member and you become predator and prey, with each player seeking to survive while killing ten others in order to win fame, fortune, and national acclaim. American Caroline Meredith (Ursla Andress) is particularly celebrated and--after dispatching her ninth victim via her boobytrapped bra--is eager to win the grand prize by taking out her tenth: Italian Marcello Polletti (Marcello Mastroianni.) But an advertiser promises her even bigger bucks if she can turn it into a television ad for his product, creating a situation in which Caroline cannot simply kill Marcello at will: she must do it at a particular place and time where the cameras will be rolling. In order to accomplish this, Caroline decides to seduce Marcello with both her body and the lure of cash--which he badly needs--for a television interview. Marcello is no fool, and even as Caroline plans to blow his head off for benefit of television he's signing his own advertising deal to accomplish her death by crocodile. But there's a further complication: even as they attempt to maneuver each other into death, they also unwillingly fall in love. THE 10TH VICTIM was extremely celebrated in 1965; today, however, it reads as slightly thin. We've become used to the idea of people who are willing to do just about anything on television, and the idea of murder by game show isn't nearly so far-fetched as it used to be. The film scores, however, in its specific ideas, which range from exploding boots to a government that occasionally switches out your apartment's furniture whether you like it or not. The DVD transfer is quite nice, but bonuses are limited to cast notes and the theatrical trailer. Recommended, but mainly for fans of 1960s futurism who haven't lost their sense of humor! GFT, Amazon Reviewer

In the near future, violence is controlled in societies avoiding wars. Killing is allowed to violent individuals in a game called Big Hunt where the participants are alternatively Hunter or Victim. The winner of each round is awarded with a prize and the survivor after ten rounds, wins one million dollar award (in 1965). When the American huntress Caroline Meredith (Ursula Andress) completes her ninth round, she comes to Rome to kill her tenth victim. She negotiates with the sponsor Ming Tea Company to kill his victim in front of the cameras. The cynical Marcello Poletti (Marcello Mastroianni) is her target and has just succeeded in his marriage annulment with Lidia (Luce Bonifassy) but has not disclosed to his lover Olga (Elsa Martinelli). Marcello suspects that Caroline is his hunter, but is not sure; further he falls in love with her and he is reluctant to kill her. "La decima vittima" is a funny and entertaining comedy with a silly but cult story. The sexy Ursula Andress is in the top of her beauty and shows a perfect chemistry with Marcello Mastroianni. In the end, the viewer has 92 minutes of fun. My vote is seven. Title (Brazil): "A Décima Vítima" (The Tenth Victim") Note: On 31 January 2023, I saw this film again.