Richard Connell
Encyclopedia
Richard Edward Connell Jr. (October 17, 1893 – November 22, 1949) was an American author and journalist, probably best remembered for his short story "The Most Dangerous Game
". Connell was one of the most popular American short story writers of his time and his stories appeared in the Saturday Evening Post and Collier's Weekly
. He had equal success as a journalist and screenwriter and was nominated for an Academy Award
in 1942 for best original story
for the film Meet John Doe
.
, the son of Richard Edward Connell Sr. (1857–1912) and Marrie
\ Miller Connel. He had an older sister and two younger sisters. His father was a reporter and editor of the local newspaper. Connell Sr. subsequently began his political career when he took the position of Police Commissioner in Poughkeepsie. In 1896, he was unsuccessful in a bid for the 55th United States Congress
and failed again in 1898 and 1900 when he ran for the State assembly. He did become a delegate to the Democratic National Convention
where he served in 1900 and 1904. Eventually Richard’s father won an election for the 62nd United States Congress
on March 4, 1911 where he served until his death a year later on October 30, 1912. In 1912, he had been nominated as the Democratic
candidate for reelection to the Sixty-third Congress.
It was while his father was editor of the Poughkeepsie News-Press that Richard Jr. started writing. He was only ten years old. He covered baseball games and was paid 10 cents a game for his stories. His love of baseball would later resurface in short stories like "The Umps" and "Pitchers Are Peculiar". By the time he was 18 he had been made city editor of the paper and his pay had risen to a whopping $16 a week.
Richard went to Georgetown College
for a year. In 1910, when his father was elected to the House of Representatives, Richard left college to become his father's secretary. Sadly, only two years later, in 1912, Richard Edward Connell Sr. died. Richard Sr. had spent a lifetime devoted to the region where he was born. As a child he had attended St. Peter's Parochial School in Poughkeepsie and when he died he was buried in St. Peter's Cemetery in Poughkeepsie. But his son, Richard Jr., would travel the world and leave Poughkeepsie far behind him.
Richard returned to college; this time to Harvard, where he became editor of Harvard Lampoon
and The Crimson. While writing for The Crimson he berated a New York newspaper editor who did not take the criticism very well. The man sued the Harvard newspaper for libel. Connell graduated from Harvard in 1915 and went to work for the newspaper editor that had sued over his editorial.
While Connell was working as a reporter for The New York American he received a better offer from the J. Walter Thompson Company and he left the newspaper business to write advertising copy. Even World War I
could not keep Connell from writing. He enlisted and served with the 27th New York Division, where he became the editor of the camp newspaper, Gas Attack. His unit spent a year in France.
After the war he returned to writing ad copy for a short time. His experiences in advertising inspired many of his later short stories, such as "Heart of a Sloganeer" and "Once a Sloganeer".
1919 Connell married Louise Herrick Fox. It was at this time that Connell sold his first short story and he left advertising for good. As a short story writer he was incredibly prolific. Connell claimed that he had written over 300 short stories. His stories were published in the top magazines of the day, such as The Saturday Evening Post and Collier's.
In 1920 the Connells moved to Paris. Later they moved to London.
In 1923 his story, A Friend of Napoleon, which had appeared in the June 30, 1923, issue of The Saturday Evening Post won the second annual The O. Henry Memorial Award
.
In 1924 they went to visit California and ended up making it their permanent residence. Connell enjoyed gardening and deep sea fishing, so California was perfect for him. His wife became the Hollywood editor of the magazine You and Richard began to write screen plays for silent movies. Over the years he was under contract to United Artists, Paramount, Universal, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
In 1924 Connell's comedy, "Tropic of Capricorn", was made into the movie East of Broadway. This was the story of a short Irishman, who wanted to join the police force, but did not meet the height requirement. The police chief felt so sorry for the enthusiastic young man that he gave him a trial run. Needless to say, he became a big hero. Paul Schofield worked with Connell on the screen adaptation. This was the first in a long line of successful movie scripts that Connell wrote.
The year 1924 would be very good to Connell. His story, "The Most Dangerous Game", which had been published in the January 19, 1924 edition of Collier's Magazine, won the O. Henry Memorial Prize. So for two years in a row Connell had won the top short story prize in the country. "The Most Dangerous Game" would become his most famous story and is considered one of the best in literature. There would be numerous film versions of it.
In 1925 Connell's story, "A Little Bit of Broadway", which had been published as a four-part serial in Liberty Magazine, from September 6–27 of 1924, was made into the movie, Bright Lights. It was the story of an awkward country boy who put on aires to win the heart of a big city girl only to find out that what the girl liked about him was his country ways.
In 1927 Connell's story, "Isles of Romance", which had been published in the April 12, 1924 edition of The Saturday Evening Post, was made into the movie, No Place to Go, which was directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starred Mary Astor. Mary desired a real he-man type and believed her boyfriend to be kind of a pantywaist but when they ended up stranded on a desert island the boyfriend saved her from cannibals and proved himself to be more than worthy of her, thus establishing Mary Astor as the most delicious dish of the 1920s.
1927 also saw the publication of Connell's first novel, The Mad Lover. It had been serialized in The Saturday Evening Post the previous year. The Mad Lover was the story of a millionaire who changed his ways when he fell in love with a poor girl.
In 1929 Connell's second novel, Murder At Sea, was published. It featured the consulting detective, Matthew Kelton, who also appeared in his short story, The Sting of the Wasp. In Murder At Sea a man was found murdered in the cabin of a ship bound for Bermuda but Kelton believed that the victim might have been murdered before the ship ever left New York.
1929 was also the year that the first talking picture based on a Richard Connell story appeared. New Years Eve was based on Connell's story, One Hundred Dollars. This time we had Mary Astor in a drama. She played a young lady down on her luck who fell into the hands of a gambler who found her just as scrumptious as the cannibals in the last movie did. While she was fending off his advances, the guy got bumped off and she ended up facing a murder rap. Connell wrote crowd-pleasers – the real murderer was caught and Mary went free.
Next came Connell's, Dark Streets, directed by Frank Lloyd, a crime drama about twin brothers on opposite sides of the law.
The story that had won Connell his first O'Henry Award, "A Friend of Napoleon", came to the screen as Seven Faces, and starred Paul Muni. This was the charming story of the caretaker of a wax museum in Paris who was so upset when the museum closed for good that he stole a statue of Napoleon. Muni played seven different characters (all museum statues of famous people) and gave a tremendous performance.
In 1930 Connell's story, If I Was Alone With You, came to the screen as, Cheer Up and Smile. When a radio station was held up during a live broadcast, one of the culprits put a gun to Arthur Lake's head and ordered him to sing. Naturally, he became a singing sensation.
In 1932 Connell's most famous story, "The Most Dangerous Game", came to the screen. It would be remade many times, but this was easily the best version. It was made at RKO studios by Willis O'Brien, who was also making King Kong at the same time. The same sets that were used for King Kong were used for The Most Dangerous Game, along with cast members, Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Noble Johnson, and Steve Clemente. Joel McCrea played the hero and Leslie Banks played the evil General Zaroff. There was no 'love interest' in Connell's original story but Fay Wray was added because its always wise to throw a good-looking blonde into all movies. (It also put an end to those rumors about General Zaroff and his mute servant, Ivan, being gay lovers.)
In 1936 Connell helped to adapt Lynn Root and Harry Clork's broadway play, The Milky Way, for the screen. Comedian Harold Lloyd starred as the timid milkman who accidentally knocked out a champion boxer and ended up with a very unwanted reputation. Many consider this Lloyd's best comedy.
That same year Connell's story, F- Man, came to the screen. Jack Haley wanted to be a government agent and he became such a pest that he was given a chance. He ended up a big hero. The plot line is very similar to East of Broadway. We often find timid types proving their courage in Connell's stories.
Next Connell worked on a film based loosely on W.W. Jacobs' story, "The Money Box". Jacobs is best known for his horror story, "The Monkey's Paw", but he also wrote humor and "The Money Box" was well-written and hilarious. The movie version starred Stan Laurel
and Oliver Hardy
and, to make matters even more chaotic, their long-lost twin brothers are here also. While Stan and Ollie are straight-arrow, good-husband, pillar-of-the-community types, their long-lost twins are drunken, carousing, sailors. Naturally a few cases of mistaken identity occur. The movie was given the title, Our Relations, and was one of the funniest movies they ever made.
1936 also saw the publication of Connell's third novel, Playboy. Here we had Mike Van Dyke, heir to a large fortune, pretending to be an ordinary working stiff and going to work in one of the stores that his family owned in order to prove that he was not just a worthless blueblood.
In 1937 Richard Connell worked as a screenwriter on the comedy, Love On Toast. It dealt with a soda jerk who was awarded the title, "Mr. Manhattan".
Connell's novel, What Ho! was published in 1937. Here we had Ernest Bingley, a taxidermist from a small midwestern town, going to visit relatives that he was distantly related to at Bingley Castle in England. The daughter of the Earl of Bingley mistook him for an eccentric American millionaire and romance and adventure ensued.
In 1938 Connell adapted O. Henry's story, "The Badge of Policeman O'Roon", for the Bing Crosby
musical, Dr. Rhythm. Bing played a doctor who was helping out pal Andy Devine by posing as a cop.
In 1940 Connell's story, "Brother Orchid", was filmed, starring Edward G. Robinson
and Humphrey Bogart. When rival gangster, Bogart, had Robinson taken for a one-way ride, Robinson survived the attempt on his life and took refuge in a monastery. Eddy G. did not take too well to the monastic life. When he was sent to milk the cows he added water to the milk so he would not have work so hard. He hired a local kid to do his gardening for him. But in the end he became a reformed man. Its pure schmaltz, but very enjoyable.
That same year he adapted George Beck's story, "Hired Wife", for the screen. Brian Aherne played a businessman who, for financial reasons, had to put his business into someone else's name so he hired his secretary, Rosalind Russell
, to play the part of his wife. Surprise! Surprise! The businessman actually fell in love with his secretary and they lived happily ever after.
In 1941 Connell adapted Phyllis Duganne's play, Nice Girl?, for the screen under the same title. Deanna Durbin
played the sweet young innocent thing who got a bad reputation.
The same year Connell and Robert Presnell co-wrote the script for Frank Capra's movie, Meet John Doe. Here we had Barbara Stanwyck being fired from her job at a newspaper and in her last column before she left she included a letter from a 'John Doe' who said he was going to jump off the City Hall on Christmas Eve. The letter was pure fiction and there was no 'John Doe', but the ideas expressed in the letter moved the public to such a degree that the paper figured that they better come up with one. Gary Cooper was hired to the play the part. But once 'John Doe' became a public icon everybody wanted to manipulate him.
Connell and Presnell were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Story. The competition was tough. They were up against, The Lady Eve, Ball of Fire, Night Train, and Here Comes Mr. Jordan. Unfortunately for Connell, Harry Segall
won for Here Comes Mr. Jordan.
In 1942 Connell worked on Rio Rita. Originally, Rio Rita had been a Ziegfeld production on Broadway. In 1929 RKO made it into a movie starring the comedy team of Wheeler and Woolsey. The 1942 version starred Abbott and Costello
and bore little resemblance to either the play or the first movie. Basically the boys were being chased by Nazi spies.
In 1943 Connell did the screenplay for, Presenting Lily Mars
, a Judy Garland
musical. Judy was the understudy for the star in a big broadway musical and when the star walked off and Judy got her chance the audience liked her better than the star of the show and she went on to fame and fortune. How's that for originality?
In 1944 Connell and Gladys Lehman co-wrote the screenplay, Two Girls and a Sailor. The movie had an all-star cast that included June Allyson, Gloria DeHaven, Van Johnson, Gracie Allen, Jimmy Durante, Lena Horne, Xavier Cugat, Harry James, Buster Keaton, and a young Ava Gardner, as a Rockette. To be honest, the plot was not much. It was one of those war time musicals that were ground out like hamburger. June Allyson and Gloria DeHaven talked millionaire, Van Johnson, into sponsoring a USO-type showplace.
Rather amazingly Connell and Lehman were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screen Play. They were beaten by Lamar Trooti, who won for Wilson.
The year 1945 brought us Thrill of a Romance, where Van Johnson
fell in love with a swimming instructor. In those days, whenever there was water involved, Esther Williams
got the part. Later that year, Connell did the screenplay for Her Highness and the Bellboy. Hedy Lamarr
played a European princess who fell in love with a reporter and while that was happening a bellhop fell in love with her and then another girl fell in love with the bellhop and...Well, you get the picture.
It was in 1945 that RKO studios did the first remake of Connell's classic story, The Most Dangerous Game. Being war time, the villain was changed to a Nazi. It was so low budget that the chase scenes from the original film were spliced in. This would be the first of several abusive re-births that the story would endure.
1946 saw more recycling when Connell's screenplay from 1936 for The Milky Way was used almost verbatim for the Danny Kaye
comedy, The Kid From Brooklyn.
In 1948 Connell did his last screenplay, the musical, Luxury Liner, which may have in some ways inspired Gale Storm's later TV series, Oh, Susanna!, and the even later TV series, The Love Boat.
Connell died of a heart attack on Tuesday, November 22, 1949, in his home in Beverly Hills. But, even after his death, his work continued to reach the screen. His stories, "The Unfamiliar", which originally appeared in The Century Magazine in September 1923, and A New York Knight, which originally appeared in the April 21, 1923 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, were both done as episodes of the TV show, General Electrical Theater in 1953.
Also, in 1953, Joseph Marzano directed and starred in the second remake of "The Most Dangerous Game" which was simply titled, Dangerous Game.
Remake number three was, Run for the Sun. It was released in 1956 and starred Richard Widmark
and Trevor Howard
. This time the villain was a British traitor collaborating with the Nazis.
Remake number four was, Bloodlust!. It was released in 1961. It starred Robert Reed
, who would later play the dad on The Brady Bunch.
Remake number five, Woman Hunt, offered somewhat of a change when hunters captured women and released them in the jungle so they could be hunted. John Ashley starred in this 1972 version. Probably enjoyable for people who think fox hunting should be outlawed - Women's rights advocates may look at it differently.
Remake number six was 1974's, Touch Me Not. Lee Remick
was the hunted person here.
Just when you thought it could not possibly get worse, we had, Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity, in 1987, where female slaves escaped to a jungle covered planet and were hunted.
Remake number eight brought us up to more modern times in 1988 when mercenaries kidnapped people and hunted them in their training camp in Deadly Prey.
The women got the last laugh in remake number nine, 1990's, Lethal Woman, where rape victims bought an island, released their attackers, and hunted them down like dogs.
Wait! We're not done yet. We haven't hit rock bottom, but we will. How about a version starring rapper, Ice-T
? That's what we got in remake number ten, Surviving the Game. Yes, in 1994, this epic offered us CIA agents that were hiring the homeless for hunting prey.
Several collections of Richard Connell's short stories were published, included Apes and Angels, Ironies, Variety, and The Sin of Monsieur Pettipon.
The following poem was found on a piece of paper in one of his autographed books -
"An author is a funny ape
His antics made the public gape
He bares his soul - (As if it mattered!)
And, great or small, loves to be flattered."
Richard Connell
Green's Farm, Conn.
October 24, 1927
The Most Dangerous Game
"The Most Dangerous Game", also published as "The Hounds of Zaroff", is a short story by Richard Connell. It was published in Collier's Weekly on January 19, 1924....
". Connell was one of the most popular American short story writers of his time and his stories appeared in the Saturday Evening Post and Collier's Weekly
Collier's Weekly
Collier's Weekly was an American magazine founded by Peter Fenelon Collier and published from 1888 to 1957. With the passage of decades, the title was shortened to Collier's....
. He had equal success as a journalist and screenwriter and was nominated for an Academy Award
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
in 1942 for best original story
Academy Award for Best Story
The Academy Award for Best Story was an Academy Award given from the beginning of the Academy Awards until 1957, when it was eliminated in favor of the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay, which had been introduced in 1940.-1920s:...
for the film Meet John Doe
Meet John Doe
Meet John Doe is a 1941 American comedy drama film directed and produced by Frank Capra, and starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. The film is about a "grassroots" political campaign created unwittingly by a newspaper columnist and pursued by a wealthy businessman. It became a box office hit...
.
Family history
Richard Connell was born in Poughkeepsie, Dutchess County, New YorkNew York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, the son of Richard Edward Connell Sr. (1857–1912) and Marrie
\ Miller Connel. He had an older sister and two younger sisters. His father was a reporter and editor of the local newspaper. Connell Sr. subsequently began his political career when he took the position of Police Commissioner in Poughkeepsie. In 1896, he was unsuccessful in a bid for the 55th United States Congress
55th United States Congress
-House of Representatives:* Republican: 206 * Democratic: 124* Populist: 22* Silver Republican: 3* Silver: 1* Independent Republican: 1TOTAL members: 357-Leadership:-Senate:* President: Garret Hobart * President pro tempore: William P...
and failed again in 1898 and 1900 when he ran for the State assembly. He did become a delegate to the Democratic National Convention
Democratic National Convention
The Democratic National Convention is a series of presidential nominating conventions held every four years since 1832 by the United States Democratic Party. They have been administered by the Democratic National Committee since the 1852 national convention...
where he served in 1900 and 1904. Eventually Richard’s father won an election for the 62nd United States Congress
62nd United States Congress
- House of Representatives :* Democratic : 230 * Republican : 162* Socialist : 1* Independent : 1TOTAL members: 394-Senate:* President: James S...
on March 4, 1911 where he served until his death a year later on October 30, 1912. In 1912, he had been nominated as the Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
candidate for reelection to the Sixty-third Congress.
It was while his father was editor of the Poughkeepsie News-Press that Richard Jr. started writing. He was only ten years old. He covered baseball games and was paid 10 cents a game for his stories. His love of baseball would later resurface in short stories like "The Umps" and "Pitchers Are Peculiar". By the time he was 18 he had been made city editor of the paper and his pay had risen to a whopping $16 a week.
Richard went to Georgetown College
Georgetown College
Georgetown College is a small, private liberal arts college located in Georgetown, Kentucky, United States. Chartered as a college in 1829, Georgetown College was the first Baptist college west of the Allegheny Mountains...
for a year. In 1910, when his father was elected to the House of Representatives, Richard left college to become his father's secretary. Sadly, only two years later, in 1912, Richard Edward Connell Sr. died. Richard Sr. had spent a lifetime devoted to the region where he was born. As a child he had attended St. Peter's Parochial School in Poughkeepsie and when he died he was buried in St. Peter's Cemetery in Poughkeepsie. But his son, Richard Jr., would travel the world and leave Poughkeepsie far behind him.
Richard returned to college; this time to Harvard, where he became editor of Harvard Lampoon
Harvard Lampoon
The Harvard Lampoon is an undergraduate humor publication founded in 1876 at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.-Overview:Published since 1876, The Harvard Lampoon is the world's longest continually published humor magazine. It is also the second longest-running English-language humor...
and The Crimson. While writing for The Crimson he berated a New York newspaper editor who did not take the criticism very well. The man sued the Harvard newspaper for libel. Connell graduated from Harvard in 1915 and went to work for the newspaper editor that had sued over his editorial.
While Connell was working as a reporter for The New York American he received a better offer from the J. Walter Thompson Company and he left the newspaper business to write advertising copy. Even World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
could not keep Connell from writing. He enlisted and served with the 27th New York Division, where he became the editor of the camp newspaper, Gas Attack. His unit spent a year in France.
After the war he returned to writing ad copy for a short time. His experiences in advertising inspired many of his later short stories, such as "Heart of a Sloganeer" and "Once a Sloganeer".
1919 Connell married Louise Herrick Fox. It was at this time that Connell sold his first short story and he left advertising for good. As a short story writer he was incredibly prolific. Connell claimed that he had written over 300 short stories. His stories were published in the top magazines of the day, such as The Saturday Evening Post and Collier's.
In 1920 the Connells moved to Paris. Later they moved to London.
In 1923 his story, A Friend of Napoleon, which had appeared in the June 30, 1923, issue of The Saturday Evening Post won the second annual The O. Henry Memorial Award
O. Henry Award
The O. Henry Award is the only yearly award given to short stories of exceptional merit. The award is named after the American master of the form, O. Henry....
.
In 1924 they went to visit California and ended up making it their permanent residence. Connell enjoyed gardening and deep sea fishing, so California was perfect for him. His wife became the Hollywood editor of the magazine You and Richard began to write screen plays for silent movies. Over the years he was under contract to United Artists, Paramount, Universal, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
In 1924 Connell's comedy, "Tropic of Capricorn", was made into the movie East of Broadway. This was the story of a short Irishman, who wanted to join the police force, but did not meet the height requirement. The police chief felt so sorry for the enthusiastic young man that he gave him a trial run. Needless to say, he became a big hero. Paul Schofield worked with Connell on the screen adaptation. This was the first in a long line of successful movie scripts that Connell wrote.
The year 1924 would be very good to Connell. His story, "The Most Dangerous Game", which had been published in the January 19, 1924 edition of Collier's Magazine, won the O. Henry Memorial Prize. So for two years in a row Connell had won the top short story prize in the country. "The Most Dangerous Game" would become his most famous story and is considered one of the best in literature. There would be numerous film versions of it.
In 1925 Connell's story, "A Little Bit of Broadway", which had been published as a four-part serial in Liberty Magazine, from September 6–27 of 1924, was made into the movie, Bright Lights. It was the story of an awkward country boy who put on aires to win the heart of a big city girl only to find out that what the girl liked about him was his country ways.
In 1927 Connell's story, "Isles of Romance", which had been published in the April 12, 1924 edition of The Saturday Evening Post, was made into the movie, No Place to Go, which was directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starred Mary Astor. Mary desired a real he-man type and believed her boyfriend to be kind of a pantywaist but when they ended up stranded on a desert island the boyfriend saved her from cannibals and proved himself to be more than worthy of her, thus establishing Mary Astor as the most delicious dish of the 1920s.
1927 also saw the publication of Connell's first novel, The Mad Lover. It had been serialized in The Saturday Evening Post the previous year. The Mad Lover was the story of a millionaire who changed his ways when he fell in love with a poor girl.
In 1929 Connell's second novel, Murder At Sea, was published. It featured the consulting detective, Matthew Kelton, who also appeared in his short story, The Sting of the Wasp. In Murder At Sea a man was found murdered in the cabin of a ship bound for Bermuda but Kelton believed that the victim might have been murdered before the ship ever left New York.
1929 was also the year that the first talking picture based on a Richard Connell story appeared. New Years Eve was based on Connell's story, One Hundred Dollars. This time we had Mary Astor in a drama. She played a young lady down on her luck who fell into the hands of a gambler who found her just as scrumptious as the cannibals in the last movie did. While she was fending off his advances, the guy got bumped off and she ended up facing a murder rap. Connell wrote crowd-pleasers – the real murderer was caught and Mary went free.
Next came Connell's, Dark Streets, directed by Frank Lloyd, a crime drama about twin brothers on opposite sides of the law.
The story that had won Connell his first O'Henry Award, "A Friend of Napoleon", came to the screen as Seven Faces, and starred Paul Muni. This was the charming story of the caretaker of a wax museum in Paris who was so upset when the museum closed for good that he stole a statue of Napoleon. Muni played seven different characters (all museum statues of famous people) and gave a tremendous performance.
In 1930 Connell's story, If I Was Alone With You, came to the screen as, Cheer Up and Smile. When a radio station was held up during a live broadcast, one of the culprits put a gun to Arthur Lake's head and ordered him to sing. Naturally, he became a singing sensation.
In 1932 Connell's most famous story, "The Most Dangerous Game", came to the screen. It would be remade many times, but this was easily the best version. It was made at RKO studios by Willis O'Brien, who was also making King Kong at the same time. The same sets that were used for King Kong were used for The Most Dangerous Game, along with cast members, Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Noble Johnson, and Steve Clemente. Joel McCrea played the hero and Leslie Banks played the evil General Zaroff. There was no 'love interest' in Connell's original story but Fay Wray was added because its always wise to throw a good-looking blonde into all movies. (It also put an end to those rumors about General Zaroff and his mute servant, Ivan, being gay lovers.)
In 1936 Connell helped to adapt Lynn Root and Harry Clork's broadway play, The Milky Way, for the screen. Comedian Harold Lloyd starred as the timid milkman who accidentally knocked out a champion boxer and ended up with a very unwanted reputation. Many consider this Lloyd's best comedy.
That same year Connell's story, F- Man, came to the screen. Jack Haley wanted to be a government agent and he became such a pest that he was given a chance. He ended up a big hero. The plot line is very similar to East of Broadway. We often find timid types proving their courage in Connell's stories.
Next Connell worked on a film based loosely on W.W. Jacobs' story, "The Money Box". Jacobs is best known for his horror story, "The Monkey's Paw", but he also wrote humor and "The Money Box" was well-written and hilarious. The movie version starred Stan Laurel
Stan Laurel
Arthur Stanley "Stan" Jefferson , better known as Stan Laurel, was an English comic actor, writer and film director, famous as the first half of the comedy team Laurel and Hardy. His film acting career stretched between 1917 and 1951 and included a starring role in the Academy Award winning film...
and Oliver Hardy
Oliver Hardy
Oliver Hardy was an American comic actor famous as one half of Laurel and Hardy, the classic double act that began in the era of silent films and lasted nearly 30 years, from 1927 to 1955.-Early life:...
and, to make matters even more chaotic, their long-lost twin brothers are here also. While Stan and Ollie are straight-arrow, good-husband, pillar-of-the-community types, their long-lost twins are drunken, carousing, sailors. Naturally a few cases of mistaken identity occur. The movie was given the title, Our Relations, and was one of the funniest movies they ever made.
1936 also saw the publication of Connell's third novel, Playboy. Here we had Mike Van Dyke, heir to a large fortune, pretending to be an ordinary working stiff and going to work in one of the stores that his family owned in order to prove that he was not just a worthless blueblood.
In 1937 Richard Connell worked as a screenwriter on the comedy, Love On Toast. It dealt with a soda jerk who was awarded the title, "Mr. Manhattan".
Connell's novel, What Ho! was published in 1937. Here we had Ernest Bingley, a taxidermist from a small midwestern town, going to visit relatives that he was distantly related to at Bingley Castle in England. The daughter of the Earl of Bingley mistook him for an eccentric American millionaire and romance and adventure ensued.
In 1938 Connell adapted O. Henry's story, "The Badge of Policeman O'Roon", for the Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
musical, Dr. Rhythm. Bing played a doctor who was helping out pal Andy Devine by posing as a cop.
In 1940 Connell's story, "Brother Orchid", was filmed, starring Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson was a Romanian-born American actor. A popular star during Hollywood's Golden Age, he is best remembered for his roles as gangsters, such as Rico in his star-making film Little Caesar and as Rocco in Key Largo...
and Humphrey Bogart. When rival gangster, Bogart, had Robinson taken for a one-way ride, Robinson survived the attempt on his life and took refuge in a monastery. Eddy G. did not take too well to the monastic life. When he was sent to milk the cows he added water to the milk so he would not have work so hard. He hired a local kid to do his gardening for him. But in the end he became a reformed man. Its pure schmaltz, but very enjoyable.
That same year he adapted George Beck's story, "Hired Wife", for the screen. Brian Aherne played a businessman who, for financial reasons, had to put his business into someone else's name so he hired his secretary, Rosalind Russell
Rosalind Russell
Rosalind Russell was an American actress of stage and screen, perhaps best known for her role as a fast-talking newspaper reporter in the Howard Hawks screwball comedy His Girl Friday, as well as the role of Mame Dennis in the film Auntie Mame...
, to play the part of his wife. Surprise! Surprise! The businessman actually fell in love with his secretary and they lived happily ever after.
In 1941 Connell adapted Phyllis Duganne's play, Nice Girl?, for the screen under the same title. Deanna Durbin
Deanna Durbin
Deanna Durbin is a Canadian-born, Southern California-raised retired singer and actress, who appeared in a number of musical films in the 1930s and 1940s singing standards as well as operatic arias....
played the sweet young innocent thing who got a bad reputation.
The same year Connell and Robert Presnell co-wrote the script for Frank Capra's movie, Meet John Doe. Here we had Barbara Stanwyck being fired from her job at a newspaper and in her last column before she left she included a letter from a 'John Doe' who said he was going to jump off the City Hall on Christmas Eve. The letter was pure fiction and there was no 'John Doe', but the ideas expressed in the letter moved the public to such a degree that the paper figured that they better come up with one. Gary Cooper was hired to the play the part. But once 'John Doe' became a public icon everybody wanted to manipulate him.
Connell and Presnell were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Story. The competition was tough. They were up against, The Lady Eve, Ball of Fire, Night Train, and Here Comes Mr. Jordan. Unfortunately for Connell, Harry Segall
Harry Segall
Harry Segall was an American playwright, screenwriter and television writer.Segall was born in Chicago....
won for Here Comes Mr. Jordan.
In 1942 Connell worked on Rio Rita. Originally, Rio Rita had been a Ziegfeld production on Broadway. In 1929 RKO made it into a movie starring the comedy team of Wheeler and Woolsey. The 1942 version starred Abbott and Costello
Abbott and Costello
William "Bud" Abbott and Lou Costello performed together as Abbott and Costello, an American comedy duo whose work on stage, radio, film and television made them the most popular comedy team during the 1940s and 1950s...
and bore little resemblance to either the play or the first movie. Basically the boys were being chased by Nazi spies.
In 1943 Connell did the screenplay for, Presenting Lily Mars
Presenting Lily Mars
Presenting Lily Mars is an American musical motion picture produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and released in 1943. The film starred Judy Garland and Van Heflin and was based on the novel by Booth Tarkington...
, a Judy Garland
Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
musical. Judy was the understudy for the star in a big broadway musical and when the star walked off and Judy got her chance the audience liked her better than the star of the show and she went on to fame and fortune. How's that for originality?
In 1944 Connell and Gladys Lehman co-wrote the screenplay, Two Girls and a Sailor. The movie had an all-star cast that included June Allyson, Gloria DeHaven, Van Johnson, Gracie Allen, Jimmy Durante, Lena Horne, Xavier Cugat, Harry James, Buster Keaton, and a young Ava Gardner, as a Rockette. To be honest, the plot was not much. It was one of those war time musicals that were ground out like hamburger. June Allyson and Gloria DeHaven talked millionaire, Van Johnson, into sponsoring a USO-type showplace.
Rather amazingly Connell and Lehman were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screen Play. They were beaten by Lamar Trooti, who won for Wilson.
The year 1945 brought us Thrill of a Romance, where Van Johnson
Van Johnson
Van Johnson was an American film and television actor and dancer who was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios during and after World War II....
fell in love with a swimming instructor. In those days, whenever there was water involved, Esther Williams
Esther Williams
Esther Jane Williams is a retired American competitive swimmer and MGM movie star.Williams set multiple national and regional swimming records in her late teens as part of the Los Angeles Athletic Club swim team...
got the part. Later that year, Connell did the screenplay for Her Highness and the Bellboy. Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress celebrated for her great beauty who was a major contract star of MGM's "Golden Age".Lamarr also co-invented – with composer George Antheil – an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping, necessary to wireless...
played a European princess who fell in love with a reporter and while that was happening a bellhop fell in love with her and then another girl fell in love with the bellhop and...Well, you get the picture.
It was in 1945 that RKO studios did the first remake of Connell's classic story, The Most Dangerous Game. Being war time, the villain was changed to a Nazi. It was so low budget that the chase scenes from the original film were spliced in. This would be the first of several abusive re-births that the story would endure.
1946 saw more recycling when Connell's screenplay from 1936 for The Milky Way was used almost verbatim for the Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye was a celebrated American actor, singer, dancer, and comedian...
comedy, The Kid From Brooklyn.
In 1948 Connell did his last screenplay, the musical, Luxury Liner, which may have in some ways inspired Gale Storm's later TV series, Oh, Susanna!, and the even later TV series, The Love Boat.
Connell died of a heart attack on Tuesday, November 22, 1949, in his home in Beverly Hills. But, even after his death, his work continued to reach the screen. His stories, "The Unfamiliar", which originally appeared in The Century Magazine in September 1923, and A New York Knight, which originally appeared in the April 21, 1923 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, were both done as episodes of the TV show, General Electrical Theater in 1953.
Also, in 1953, Joseph Marzano directed and starred in the second remake of "The Most Dangerous Game" which was simply titled, Dangerous Game.
Remake number three was, Run for the Sun. It was released in 1956 and starred Richard Widmark
Richard Widmark
Richard Weedt Widmark was an American film, stage and television actor.He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as the villainous Tommy Udo in his debut film, Kiss of Death...
and Trevor Howard
Trevor Howard
Trevor Howard , born Trevor Wallace Howard-Smith, was an English film, stage and television actor.-Early life:...
. This time the villain was a British traitor collaborating with the Nazis.
Remake number four was, Bloodlust!. It was released in 1961. It starred Robert Reed
Robert Reed
Robert Reed was a prolific American character actor of stage, film and television. In his first big break, he played Kenneth Preston on the popular 1960s TV legal drama, The Defenders, alongside E. G. Marshall. But he was best remembered for portraying the father, Mike Brady, on the popular...
, who would later play the dad on The Brady Bunch.
Remake number five, Woman Hunt, offered somewhat of a change when hunters captured women and released them in the jungle so they could be hunted. John Ashley starred in this 1972 version. Probably enjoyable for people who think fox hunting should be outlawed - Women's rights advocates may look at it differently.
Remake number six was 1974's, Touch Me Not. Lee Remick
Lee Remick
Lee Ann Remick was an American film and television actress. Among her best-known films are Anatomy of a Murder , Days of Wine and Roses , and The Omen .-Early life:...
was the hunted person here.
Just when you thought it could not possibly get worse, we had, Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity, in 1987, where female slaves escaped to a jungle covered planet and were hunted.
Remake number eight brought us up to more modern times in 1988 when mercenaries kidnapped people and hunted them in their training camp in Deadly Prey.
The women got the last laugh in remake number nine, 1990's, Lethal Woman, where rape victims bought an island, released their attackers, and hunted them down like dogs.
Wait! We're not done yet. We haven't hit rock bottom, but we will. How about a version starring rapper, Ice-T
ICE-T
* Ice-T, an American rapper and actor* ICE T , a tilting model of the German InterCityExpress series of high-speed trains...
? That's what we got in remake number ten, Surviving the Game. Yes, in 1994, this epic offered us CIA agents that were hiring the homeless for hunting prey.
Several collections of Richard Connell's short stories were published, included Apes and Angels, Ironies, Variety, and The Sin of Monsieur Pettipon.
The following poem was found on a piece of paper in one of his autographed books -
"An author is a funny ape
His antics made the public gape
He bares his soul - (As if it mattered!)
And, great or small, loves to be flattered."
Richard Connell
Green's Farm, Conn.
October 24, 1927
Short stories and screen stories
- "Centenarian" (Century, July, 1916)
- "The Most Dangerous GameThe Most Dangerous Game"The Most Dangerous Game", also published as "The Hounds of Zaroff", is a short story by Richard Connell. It was published in Collier's Weekly on January 19, 1924....
" (ColliersCollier's WeeklyCollier's Weekly was an American magazine founded by Peter Fenelon Collier and published from 1888 to 1957. With the passage of decades, the title was shortened to Collier's....
, January 19, 1924) - "The Umps" (1924)
- "Pitchers Are Peculiar" (1930)
- "A Friend of Napoleon" (1923)
- "Heart of a Sloganeer" (Saturday Evening Post, 1929)
- "Once a Sloganeer" (1922)
- "Cross-Eyed South-Paw" (Colliers, February 2, 1929)
- "Black Chrysanthemums" (The New YorkerThe New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, 1927) - Meet John Doe (1941) (screen story)
- Brother Orchid (1940) (screen story)
- "Brother Orchid" (Colliers, May 21, 1938, short story)
- Our Relations aka Double Trouble and Sailors' Downfall (1936) (screen story)
- F-Man (1936) (screen story)
- "If I Was Alone with You"
- Dark Streets (1929) (screen story)
- "One Hundred Dollars"
- "Isles of Romance"
- "A Little Bit of Broadway"
- "Tropic of Capricorn"
- "Terrible Epps"
- "The Cage Man"
Screenplays and screenwriter credits
- Luxury Liner (1948) (writer)
- Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945) (writer)
- Thrill of a Romance (1945) (writer)
- Two Girls and a Sailor (1944) (writer)
- Presenting Lily Mars (1943) (screenplay)
- Rio Rita (1942) (screenplay)
- Nice Girl? (1941) (writer)
- Hired Wife (1940) (writer)
- The Cowboy and the Lady (1938) (contributing writer) (uncredited)
- Dr. Rhythm (1938) (writer)
- Love on Toast (1937) (writer)
- Okusama ni shirasu bekarazu (1937) (writer)
- The Milky Way (1936) (writer)
Novels
- The Mad Lover (1927)
- Murder at Sea (1929)
- Playboy (1936)
- What Ho! (1937)
External links
- Intercourse with the Dead horror authors' site with biography and very detailed bibliography
- Additional biography and text of The Most Dangerous Game
- Works by Richard Connell (public domain in Canada)
- Louise Fox Connell Papers, 1904-1986 at Harvard University LibraryHarvard University LibraryThe Harvard University Library system comprises about 90 libraries, with more than 16 million volumes. It is the oldest library system in the United States, the largest academic and the largest private library system in the world...