Sunday, February 21, 2016

Podcast: The 10th Victim (1965)

Direct download.


Travel with Your Stupid Minds back to the swinging 60s and their idea of a dystopian future in: The 10th Victim! In the future, war has been eliminated by the creation of a game show/Hunger Games-type scenario. All violent people are recruited into playing "The Great Hunt," a contest where an individual is designated either hunter or victim. If they can successfully kill their opponents ten times, they are rewarded with ONE. MILLION. DOLLARS.


After Caroline (Ursula Andress) erotically defeats her hunter via gun-bra, her next assignment: acting as hunter against the taciturn Italian Marcello (frequent Fellini collaborator Marcello Mastroianni). Can she seduce him into being murdered, or worse, falling in love?

Some Notes: 
  • As completely 1960s and Italian as this film is, it's oddly prescient. Caroline is sponsored by a tea company that asks for a live murder to take place in a commercial. I think we're about two years away from a commercial being delivered live by a quarterback in the middle of winning the Super Bowl.
  • The lack of televised hunts seems to indicate that detailed stats are kept in newspapers, presumably just before baseball box scores.
  • It seems unfair that a Victim is never told who its Hunter is, and will be given thirty years in jail if they shoot the wrong person. On the other hand, a Hunter needs to double-check their paperwork to ensure a typo from an Italian computer doesn't cause them to go to jail for murder.
  • Everyone in the future reads comic books, especially Phantom comics. We assume Marcello is a big Billy Zane fan.
  • "Why control the Birth Rate when you can control the Death Rate?" -Loudspeaker announcement, Great Hunt Ministry Building
  • Presumably the Great Hunt is full of arcane rules no casual hunt fans understand, similar to the NFL's illegal formations and free kicks. Unfortunately, no pamphlet was given to 1965 moviegoers explaining byzantine hunting rules.
  • Divorce in Italy was illegal when this movie was made, explaining some of Marcello's marriage phobia. In 1970, divorce became legal, albeit with an extensive waiting period. In 2015, the waiting period to obtain a divorce was reduced to six months. Previously, most modern Marcellos got married in destination weddings elsewhere in the EU so they wouldn't have to deal with the Pope judging them.

5 comments:

  1. This movie sounds like wacky fun. I gotta check it out.

    Re: Your request for our favorite episodes/moments, I'll have to give some episodes another listen to be sure, but here's a few for starters:

    Eragon -- Everything about this ep was hilarious, but especially the reveal of the villain's name (GALBATORIX) and Nick's John Malkovich impersonation.

    Lost World: Jurassic Park -- The line about dogs eating their own puke, the dino balls/asshole discussion, and Chris's line about T-Rexes fumbling catches with their tiny T-Rex arms.

    I'll be back with more!

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    1. Thanks for the recommendations! Those are some of my favorites too. Fun fact: I still open up the Eragon episode when I edit every new episode to copy/paste in the theme music, since that's the first one with the shortened version of the theme song.

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    2. Also!

      Cool World -- The whole discussion of using cartoon condoms to circumvent the "noids can't have sex with doodles" rule.

      Jonah Hex -- Patrick's story about the Civil War reenactors getting thrown off the set. Also, the jokes about wanting a 1800's cabinet member with big muscles, so they could dispose of any pesky Charles Guiteaus. Nick's John Malkovich impression always kills too.

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    3. Haha, right on, Nick. I'll probably be back with more recs. This podcast is great to listen to when I'm working on comics.

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  2. Okay, so your Best-Of podcast should also include "I Am Here....Now." Particularly the talk about Neil Breen telling a skull and spider that he's disappointed in the human race, the torture scene, speculation on Neil Breen's power to make people poop themselves, and possibly talk about actresses in the film who may or may not be strippers.

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