Big conflicts are prevented in the near future by providing those with violent inclinations a chance to murder in the Big Hunt.
The 10th Victim is a 1965 Italian international co-production science fiction film directed by Elio Petri and starring Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress, with Elsa Martinelli appearing as a supporting actress. The film is based on the 1953 short story “Seventh Victim” by Robert Sheckley. It features a government-sponsored, broadcast Big Hunt, with competitors from all over the world serving as “hunters” and “victims”; when the game’s two top assassins, Marcello Poletti and Caroline Meredith, are placed against one other, they discover that love is the most hazardous game of all.
Later, in 1966, Sheckley released a novelization of the film, followed by two sequels (Victim Prime and Hunter/Victim) in 1987 and 1988, respectively. The film was released theatrically in the United States by Joseph E. Levine’s Embassy Pictures.