They Shoot Horses, Don't They [1969] dir Sidney Pollack

They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969)


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065088/

They Shoot Horses, Don't They? is a 1969 American drama film directed by Sydney Pollack. The screenplay by James Poe and Robert E. Thompson is based on the 1935 novel of the same name by Horace McCoy. It focuses on a disparate group of characters desperate to win a Depression-era dance marathon and the opportunistic emcee who urges them on to victory.


Jane Fonda ... Gloria Beatty
Michael Sarrazin ... Robert Syverton
Susannah York ... Alice LeBlanc
Gig Young ... Rocky
Red Buttons ... Harry 'Sailor' Kline
Bonnie Bedelia ... Ruby
Michael Conrad ... Rollo
Bruce Dern ... James
Al Lewis ... Turkey
Robert Fields ... Joel Girard
Severn Darden ... Cecil
Allyn Ann McLerie ... Shirley 'Shirl' Clayton
Madge Kennedy ... Mrs. Laydon
Jacquelyn Hyde ... Jackie
Felice Orlandi ... Mario


It’s no secret that modern culture has a strong voyeuristic streak, often focused on public competition and humiliation—think Jerry Springer and Survivor, for just two examples. A few decades ago, this morbid fascination found a popular outlet in dance marathons, wherein a roomful of couples would dance (or shuffle, or wobble, or just try to stay vertical) until they literally dropped, hoping to win a cash prize or at least 15 minutes of meager fame. Although dance marathons have existed for centuries, they were all the rage during the Depression years, when many unemployed Americans found participating in these Social Darwinist exhibitions no more onerous than other forms of grunt labor for getting three meals a day and maybe some pocket money at the end of the ordeal, which typically lasted for weeks and even months of painful, nerve-killing toil.

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, directed by Sydney Pollack in 1969, is the Gone with the Wind (1939) of dance-marathon movies. Based on a 1935 novel by Horace McCoy, it gave Jane Fonda her serious-acting breakthrough as Gloria, a cynical cookie who enters a California marathon as a way of staving off poverty until her totally unpromising movie career gets going. When her partner gets disqualified for health reasons, she latches onto a young man named Robert (Michael Sarrazin), who just wandered in to watch for a while. Soon they’re trudging around the dance floor with a motley crew of competitors including a wannabe Hollywood star named Alice (Susannah York), an aging Navy man called Sailor (Red Buttons), and a working-class stiff (Bruce Dern) and his pregnant wife (Bonnie Bedelia), who actually won a marathon once. A smooth-talking emcee named Rocky, played with tragicomic brilliance by Gig Young, presides over the show.

And a show it is, rather than a genuine contest. Gloria and Robert learn this the hard way, when Rocky reveals that he ruined Alice’s pretty dress so she’ll look as wretched as the audience expects her to. As another way of boosting the marathon’s sadistic visual appeal, Rocky interrupts the day-to-day drudgery of ordinary dancing with special “derbies” of high-speed walking, ousting the three couples who come in last. This eliminates the herd’s weakest members and pleases the paying spectators by making the entrants look even more ridiculous and pathetic than usual.

McCoy’s book was best received in Europe, where it was seen as one of the first American novels to reflect the existentialist ideas—viewing life as essentially absurd and purposeless—then gaining ground among philosophers and writers. Credit goes to the filmmakers for following the story’s grim outlook to its logical conclusion, ending it on a note of dismal violence (foreshadowed in stylized flash-forward scenes) that Hollywood has never surpassed for sheer bleakness. Only in the adventurous 1960s era would mainstream production outfits like ABC and Palomar Pictures expect to earn their money back with such a downbeat conclusion.

McCoy knew the dance-marathon scene first hand. After stints as a sports journalist and pulp-mystery writer, he headed to Hollywood in the early 1930s for an acting career, which ended almost as soon as it began. He got the idea for a story about marathon dancers while working as a bouncer at a Santa Monica amusement pier. He went on to a long screenwriting career, specializing in westerns and crime dramas, but the two major movies adapted from his books--They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? and the 1950 James Cagney vehicle Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye--bear out his reputation as quite a gloomy novelist.

The strongest asset of They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? is its casting, especially of the Gloria and Rocky characters. Fonda wasn’t crazy about the script, but her then-husband Roger Vadim was among the many French left-wingers who admired the novel, so she signed on. She was surprised when director Pollack solicited her creative ideas about the story’s underlying issues, and he was probably surprised by the thoughtfulness of the responses he got from an actress known mainly for comedy and sex-kitten roles in pictures like Cat Ballou (1965) and Barbarella (1968). She and Buttons decided to get a taste of the subject matter by dancing to exhaustion, but she reports in her 2005 memoir My Life So Far that she was hallucinating after a mere two days. In any case, she credits the seriousness of her work in this project for encouraging a new sense of independence and self-reliance that paid large dividends in her personal and political life.

Pollock was apparently worried that Young would be too lightweight as Rocky, preferring gravel-voiced Lionel Stander for the role. Young himself was hesitant when he got the offer from a former agent who’d moved over to ABC’s feature-film division. But fear of departing from his usual romantic-comedy mold faded when he realized what he could do with the role. It earned him a deserved Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor—perhaps because the film’s depictions of self-destructive people struck a chord with his own weaknesses of alcoholism, hypochondria, and drug abuse.

Pollack also benefited greatly from the project, which cemented his position as an A-list director—and a daring one, not afraid of confining a whole feature film to a single setting that’s as sleazy as it is claustrophobic. In a characteristic review, Pauline Kael of The New Yorker said that while Pollack wasn’t an “imaginative” or “inventive” filmmaker, he staged the derby material “terrifyingly well” and “kept the grisly central situation going with…special energy and drive.” Kael also trumpeted Fonda as the potential Bette Davis of the ‘70s, possessing “the true star’s gift of drawing one to her emotionally even when the character she plays is repellent.”

Kael was right about the derby scenes, which still carry cringe-inducing power, and almost right about Fonda, who continued to mature as an actress despite counterproductive projects and career moves. Seen today, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? remains a fascinating and troubling film, etching many haunting characters while spotlighting the dark side of capitalism and memorializing a Depression-era fad that has fortunately died away. By popularizing the title of McCoy’s novel, it also gave American argot a catch-phrase that’s as recognizable today as when the movie first caught on. Not many pictures can boast as much.

The film was screened at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival, but wasn't entered into the main competition.

In his review in The New York Times, Vincent Canby said, "The movie is far from being perfect, but it is so disturbing in such important ways that I won't forget it very easily, which is more than can be said of much better, more consistent films . . . The movie is by far the best thing that Pollack has ever directed (with the possible exception of The Scalphunters). While the cameras remain, as if they had been sentenced, within the ballroom, picking up the details of the increasing despair of the dancers, the movie becomes an epic of exhaustion and futility."

Variety said, "Puffy-eyed, unshaven, reeking of stale liquor, sweat and cigarets, Young has never looked older or acted better. Fonda . . . gives a dramatic performance that gives the film a personal focus and an emotionally gripping power."

TV Guide rates the film four out of a possible four stars and comments, "Although it is at times heavy-handed, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? is a tour de force of acting. Fonda here got her first chance to prove herself as a serious, dramatic actress . . . Young is superb in his role, a sharp switch from his usual bon vivant parts . . . Pollack does one of his best jobs of directing, even if his primary strength lies in his rapport with actors. The look of the film is just right and Pollack skillfully evokes the ratty atmosphere amid which explosive emotions come to a boil . . . [It] remains a suitably glum yet cathartic film experience."

Time Out London says, "The acting is strident and overblown, the narrative technique gimmicky and obvious, and the implication that the competitors' situation is a microcosm of a wider-reaching American malaise (though safely distanced by the period and the flash-back-and-forth narrative technique) rather pretentious."

In 1996, Entertainment Weekly observed, "Sydney Pollack's dance-marathon movie has probably aged better than any American film of its time."


Academy Awards, USA

1970 Won Oscar Best Actor in a Supporting Role Gig Young
1970 Nominated Oscar Best Actress in a Leading Role Jane Fonda
1970 Nominated Oscar Best Actress in a Supporting Role Susannah York
1970 Nominated Oscar Best Art Direction-Set Decoration Harry Horner Frank R. McKelvy
1970 Nominated Oscar Best Costume Design Donfeld
1970 Nominated Oscar Best Director Sydney Pollack
1970 Nominated Oscar Best Film Editing Fredric Steinkamp
1970 Nominated Oscar Best Music, Score of a Musical Picture (Original or Adaptation) Johnny Green Albert Woodbury
1970 Nominated Oscar Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium James Poe Robert E. Thompson

BAFTA Awards

1971 Won BAFTA Film Award Best Supporting Actress Susannah York
1971 Nominated BAFTA Film Award Best Actress Jane Fonda
1971 Nominated BAFTA Film Award Best Film Editing Fredric Steinkamp
1971 Nominated BAFTA Film Award Best Screenplay James Poe Robert E. Thompson
1971 Nominated BAFTA Film Award Best Supporting Actor Gig Young
1971 Nominated BAFTA Film Award Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles Michael Sarrazin

Directors Guild of America, USA

1970 Nominated DGA Award Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures Sydney Pollack

Golden Globes, USA

1970 Won Golden Globe Best Supporting Actor Gig Young
1970 Nominated Golden Globe Best Director - Motion Picture Sydney Pollack
1970 Nominated Golden Globe Best Motion Picture - Drama
1970 Nominated Golden Globe Best Motion Picture Actress - Drama Jane Fonda
1970 Nominated Golden Globe Best Supporting Actor Red Buttons
1970 Nominated Golden Globe Best Supporting Actress Susannah York

Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards

1971 Won KCFCC Award Best Actress Jane Fonda
1971 Won KCFCC Award Best Supporting Actor Gig Young


National Board of Review, USA

1970 Won NBR Award Best Film - English Language

New York Film Critics Circle Awards

1969 Won NYFCC Award Best Actress Jane Fonda

Writers Guild of America, USA

1970 Nominated WGA Award (Screen) Best Drama Adapted from Another Medium James Poe Robert E. Thompson