User Reviews

"Das Millionenspiel" or "The Millions Game" is a West German television movie from 1970, so this one had its 45th anniversary last year already. It is based on Robert Sheckley's novel and for script writer Wolfgang Menge and director Tom Roelle, it is among their most known works from their career. The film runs for 95 minutes and looks to the untrained eye like an episode of a rather bizarre game show. Some people probably believed this was real. Fake documentaries on aliens or exotic diseases were not too unusual in the last decades, but a fake game-show is pretty unique. The concept here is as simple as it gets. A man has to live long enough and reach a certain destination to receive lots of money, while 3 followers want the money as well and they keep chasing him. If they kill him, they get the money.

This film can be appreciated from several perspectives. The first would be as a genuine thriller drama and tricking yourself into actually thinking everything you see is real. The second would be as a piece of dystopian fiction that has become real on some occasions, frighteningly real, in the last almost five decades. But no matter which take you choose, you will be very well entertained. The cast here includes some famous names too. While lead actor, the late Jörg Pleva, is not anymore today, you will see very early screen appearances from Didi Hallervorden (as far away from his usual genre comedy as it gets) and Dieter Thomas Heck as the show master here. And while Heck is basically just exactly the same like in all the shows he actually hosted, I am still tempted to say he was the MVP here. A brilliant portrayal how he turns all this absurdity about justified murder (with no punishment, but a gigantic reward) into something that has just become normal. I would not want to live in this time and age. And with Hallervorden, he was so good that I wondered why he has not played villains more often in his career, but rather likable slobs. Admittedly, he did that very well too. I really liked the interview because it shows that he and his two colleagues were just doing their job and the really bad guys are the interviewers, hosts and producers of this program. He would not want to be one of them, no matter how much money he got paid. He'd rather be the one running for his life. Or the one taking this life.

It's not a perfect film by any means and here and there, there is a scene or moment that felt a bit weak. but that was just because everything else feels so great. I also liked the way they made it look like a television show from start to finish with how they included these commercials, one right before the great final showdown. A perfect depiction of the greed for better ratings and more money because the only winner, in the end, are the people who made this show. Or I am also referring to the strange performance numbers that were shown when nothing too interesting happened in the chase for life and death although it was interesting and breathtaking every single second because he could have died all the time. I also liked the film's ending. The makers don't need tragedy or cheap thrills to make this as memorable and edge-of-seat as you could imagines. One of the best films from 1970. I highly recommend the watch.

There's a television game going on, where people can volunteer as targets to be hunted by a gang of professional killers. If the target (who is closely observed by television crews) can last the week without getting killed, then he or she wins a fortune. Members of the public can step in in order to help or hinder the target ; for instance, owners of a firework business might want to throw a smoke bomb or a piece of firework so that the person being hunted can run away in safety. The game is controversial, but not illegal...

In the past I watched (and reviewed) "La Decima Vittima", which I liked a lot : so imagine my delight upon discovering, thanks to imdb, that Germany had produced a closely related companion piece. Turns out that "Das Millionenspiel" is an outstanding piece of satire, with the kind of bite that could make a white shark flee in terror. Part of what makes the movie so good, is the fact that its makers did their best to embed the intrigue - black as it is - into surroundings of utmost normalcy and plausibility. There is much here that audiences from all over the world (whether in Germany, the USA or Australia) would have been deeply familiar with, such as the general feel of the game show, the numerous interruptions for commercials and the ceaseless talk of the game show host. Everyday life outside of the studios seems pretty normal, too : this is pretty much business as usual, with homemakers, commuters and bankers doing what homemakers, commuters and bankers do.

I'm sad to say that the actor playing the target wasn't too impressive, but on the whole this is a well-acted movie with some remarkable performances. Also memorable : the various demented commercials dotting the game show, which are bone-chilling in their joyless hedonism and their casual disregard for human dignity.

Now the sad thing is that the movie, seen in retrospect, was eerily predictive. The kind of television denounced here has grown ever more popular and ever more intrusive : think, for instance, of reality programmes à la "Big Brother", where human safety, human wellbeing and/or human privacy are sacrificed on the twin altars of money and fame. And of course there are all the modern social media, which, jungle-like, hide a whole fauna of fools, manipulators, celebrity wh*res, predators...

Now I do not know if the movie exists in other languages than German (you may have to do some homework there), but still, it's mesmerizing, even for people whose grasp on German is somewhat shaky.

*** Contains spoilers ***

This movie aired on the 8th of july for the first time after 32 years (license problems made it impossible for the tv-stations to broadcast it ). I wasn't born when the movie premiered in 1970, but I heard a lot good things about it in the past five years, so my expectations for this movie were high and I wasn't disappointed after watching it... the movie was bombastic. The movie caused a scandal in 1970, because many people took the happenings shown in the movie for real (a bit like "war of the worlds" without the mass-panic).

The story:

The fictional commercial TV-station (important: there was no commercial Television until the mid-80s in Germany) broadcasts the highly popular game show "Das Millionenspiel", in this show a contestant is left alone somewhere in the country and he has to arrive the studio in which the show is filmed in seven days, while he's trying to reach the studio, he is hunted by three killers, if he survives the seven days (and the showdown in the studio), he recieves one million in money.

We see the last hours of the contestants run to the studio (great acting by Jörg Pleva), while he is hunted by the three killers and filmed on every ocassion. In the meanwhile the show is aired and the host (played by the real television host Dieter Thomas Heck) narrates the happenings. We also can catch glimpses from the backstage, but in the whole everything is made up to look like a real game show (the host has various chit chats with people from the audience, people that supported the contestant, musical numbers, a tv-ballet [something that was usual in german tv until the late 80s, may this never come back] and even commercials). With some help by kind people and some tricks from the directors of the show, the contestant reaches the studio where it comes to the showdown of the show. His last task is to run through "the spiral of death", the killers have their last chance to kill him at this moment. He survives and wins the money, but is injured and has a heavy shock. The show comes to an end, but the contestant for the next show is already introduced.

What makes this movie so good?

Well, its the great acting, the great script and the look and feel of the whole "show", as i mentioned earlier some people took this show serious, so that the WDR (the station that produced and broadcasted the movie) recieved a lot of hate-mail, many letters from people who actually wanted to be a contestant on that show, and also one letter from a guy who wanted to be one of the killers. The whole movie is very 70-ish in its style, but this helps to build up a creepy atmosphere.

And yes, there are a lot of similiarities to "The running man", since both movies were inspired by the same book written by Robert Sheckley (well, "the running man" was actually based on a book by stephen king, but this book was inspired by Sheckley's book), and I personally like both movies, but "Das Millionenspiel" is far superior to "the running man" since it depicts a vision of the "future" of television, and if you look closer, the vision which is close to the reality of the present.

I hope this movie will be released on video and DVD soon, and hopefully also outside Germany.

Thanks for reading, and pardon my bad english.

This is definitely a great made-for-TV film and much has been made how realistic it was. So realistic that it fooled some people into believing it was a real show as opposed to a movie. I think it is an excellent movie, there is just one problem: the style is very movie-like (the camera for most of the time is "invisible" for the actors). It is explained that many camera teams are filming/recording/transmitting all the time to cover the events. But there are many scenes like when the "victim" is in a house under fire, the camera operator would be in danger of being shot and the camera angles are "cinema" -like, not anything like documentary footage. the same when the "victim" decides to fool the taxi central station by changing his mind where he wants to go. Where is the car with the camera team and why does the "victim" behave as if he wasn't filmed even though we see close-ups of him all the time and a freeze-frame of this exact footage in the main studio of the program as if it was transmitted video footage? A lot of contradictions here. Might have been fine back in 1970 where people didn't ask that many questions..... Just my humble input. Still a German TV classic and I am glad it has been aired a few times again recently after decades.

It s running man (with Arnold Schwarzenegger) as a realistic pseudo doku, 17 years before running man .

A TV show offers 1 million if you survive 1 week and make it to the studio checkpoint, while being hunted by 3 killers.

It s basically a mix of a roman gladiator game and the seek of fame an wealth of TV shows.

Often copied but never been made as good as the original.

It s made like a TV show of that time, being so realistic for some pll. watching it phoned the broadcaster for joining the next show or "i hate it" calls. (greetings from "war of the worlds" radio broadcast.

fun comment: one of the killers is a German comedian, who played the role of a killer really well if you see his other acting.

As early as 1970, long before Total recall, The Truman show, reality TV, this German movie showed the immoral lenghts some media producers may go to in order to win high TV ratings. Ahead of its time and widely unknown, yet incredible important, now that the media all over the world direct news in their favor / intentions even more important than ever. The look is unmistakenly a 1970ies look, and yet, it still gripps you, the themes are still valid. And on top, famous comedian Dieter Hallervorden - as far as I know the oldest celebrity taking part in a Masked singer installment - performs in a highly unusual role as a villain. Absolutely worth checking it out.