La dixième victime

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

As a wonderful example of 60s pop art filmmaking, Elio Petri has taken many of the decade's most popular culture crazes (the Bond films, Courreges fashions, discotheque jazz, etc.) and used them with great success to give a plausible look to a highly improbable (in 1965!) future world. Petri's digs at Mad Ave advertising and humanity's relentless pursuit of fame and money (no matter the price) are on-target, and his delight in mocking societal idiosyncrasies (the sun worshipers) is priceless. However, at the heart of The Tenth Victim is the old-fashioned battle-of-the-sexes plot (still very popular in the mid-60s), and yet Petri has the upper hand by his spoofing of the romantic-comedy genre and giving us instead a deliciously amusing trifle that is fun to watch for its joking attitude towards everything it depicts, including Marcello and Ursula! To one reviewer who found it outdated, it must be remembered that this film was made 35 years ago and so it naturally has nothing to do with today's standards - and why should it? That's like dismissing Griffith's Intolerance because it's a silent film!

The more serious you get about this movie, the more you are missing the point. It's an Italian Sex Farce, really, but it's also a fine pop art film, and a fine science-fiction romp that would be a great double feature with Blade Runner. The review "A wonderful example of 60s pop art film-making,Italian-style", by jisenhath from New York, New York USA, really nails the essence of this social-satire sci-fi.

Like the crocodile tears the sun worshippers cry for the setting sun (satire on religion, of course, though it's also close to the excesses of the 60's hippy-dippies doing nature "for real" in 65), the movie is best taken in the vapid, mondo gellato style it revels in.

From the novel by Robert Sheckley (still a great read, too), the "shocking" hunt takes a swipe at the media circus and boredom of excess, while visually reveling in it. The fashion, style and beauty of both Elsa Martinelli and Ursula Andress are a joy, while Marcello works his casual nonchalance and easy timing as the Italian sophisticate at ease with multiple meanings. That's come to pass, hasn't it, as we read from this computer on a network spanning the world. Is this a cult we are a part of? If so, don't cry, but laugh. Like this film does.

Cheesy one review says... no, cheesy is when the film attempts something and does not succeed through taste, budget or in-ineptitude. Opera is not cheesy, but it is ornate, over-the- top and hyper. So is this film. It's space opera in the operatic sense of La Scala.

It's spun gold, and a fine bookend to Marcello's 60's sex romps like Cassanova 70. (done in '65 too, a good year for vintage Marcello). Asti Spumante, anyone?

Coming at the tail-end of one of the most provocative eras of film, European new wave, and featuring Italian cinema's premiere leading man of the time, Mr. Mastroianni, The 10th Victim exciting movie, given its year of release. The concept, that a group of over-bored members of a somewhat Utopian society spend their time hunting and being the hunted in the then-futuristic 1990's, works well, while the Italian backdrop is, as usual, a treat. While at times aping better Italian filmmakers of the time such as Fellini, the movie chugs along into a somewhat twisted relationship between hunter and hunted - the female component of this equation being played by Ursula Andress, yow!. Themes of a desensitized society, anonymity, and a thrill-seeking populace would re-emerge around the early 90's in America with cult obsessions over serial killers, a groundswell of violent video games/movies/television,and the formation of underground social cliques and groups such as gen x and "grunge" culture, whose attitudes towards sex/society/money/politics differed radically from the norm. The Tenth Victim may not have been on the spot prediction-wise, but its themes were accurate to the future scape it was attempting to create.

In the future an organization sets up a game show that show people hunting each other. Two people are chosen: the Hunter and the Victim. Anything goes as the Victim flees for the designated time period. Marcello Mastorianni plays the most successful killer and then his number comes up as a victim. The hunters and victims have know knowledge of one another and Marcello must always be on guard. The hunter after him is the beautiful Ursula Andress, always dressed in knock-out fashions. Marcello's as cool as ever, always dressed in black, wearing sunglasses. The production design is fantastic. The colourful comic book architecture is the height of retro cool. For fan of Italian '60s pop art science fiction, this is one to check out.