Das Millionenspiel

It's a game show version of The Most Dangerous Game, in which a man has to survive a week of being hunted by three killers on national television to win a million Deutsche Marks. This movie must have been an influence on Stephen King's "The Running Man"...it's a brilliant parody of reality TV, more than 20 years before reality TV existed, complete with artificially manufactured drama, tasteless emotional manipulation and vapid corporate sponsorship.

Great production, ahead of its time!

Excellent parody but weirdly clinical and un-moving

Granddaddy of running man - the original is fabulous and of its time. Great sarcastic takes on advertising and media and the various games they play are wonderfully over the top - and contrasted with the downbeat audience participation. Trust a German film to have one person saying they are just victims of the capitalists structure. Plenty of big questions to think about it.

Much of this movie has been done before, probably dozens of times (though mostly after 1970) but it didn't feel cliched to me. I think one reason is that while the satire is obvious, it doesn't get too heavy with the moralizing. The host & studio guys are sneaky & dishonest, but they're not cartoonishly evil or even unusually clever. We're on the "hero"'s side, but he's clearly a bit of a dweeb and doesn't give us anything to admire in terms of his character, intelligence or physical abilities.