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Das Millionenspiel (1970)
A perfect movie
*** 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.