Sadly Over-hyped

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The early 1930's. Various down and out contestants put themselves through sheer physical, emotional, and psychological hell while participating in a grueling dance marathon for $1,500 dollars in prize money.Director Sydney Pollack offers a vivid and convincing evocation of the Great Depression-era period setting, maintains an unsparingly harsh and downbeat tone throughout, and astutely captures an overwhelming sense of despair, futility, and utter hopelessness. The pungent script by James Poe and Robert E. Thompson not only offers a potent and provocative meditation on the desperate measures people will resort to for the sake of fame, money, success, and survival, but also makes an equally profound statement on our culture's obsession with instant celebrity and how the premise of cruelty as entertainment serves as a means of enabling miserable spectators to take their minds off their own troubles for a while.The uniformly superb acting by the terrific cast helps a whole lot: Jane Fonda delivers a bang-up performance full of rage and defiance as the bitter and broken down Gloria, Michael Sarrazin makes a fine and sympathetic impression as the gentle and sensitive Robert, Gig Young totally deserved his Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his fabulously lived-in portrayal of the corrupt and cynical emcee, Susannah York likewise excels as glamorous aspiring actress Alice, Red Buttons contributes a wonderfully exuberant turn as the hearty Sailor, Bonnie Bedelia projects a sweet innocence as the pregnant Ruby, Bruce Dern does his usual ace work as Ruby's fierce ox of a husband James, and Robert Conrad and Paul Mantee are appropriately stern and steely as a pair of hard-nosed referees. Philip H. Lathrop's crisp cinematography thrusts the viewer right into the harrowing thick of the punishing ordeal. By no means a pleasant or comforting film, but nonetheless a highly effective and unforgettable one.

It's the Great Depression at the Santa Monica Pier near Hollywood. Robert Syverton (Michael Sarrazin) happens upon a dance marathon and is pulled in to participate. As a child, he witnessed the mercy killing of his horse. MC Rocky (Gig Young) makes him the replacement to Gloria (Jane Fonda)'s sick partner. She's a bitter woman and the years have not been kind to her. Other participants include confident elderly sailer Harry Kline (Red Buttons), aspiring actors Alice (Susannah York) and Joel (Robert Fields), and poverty-stricken James (Bruce Dern) and his pregnant wife Ruby (Bonnie Bedelia) who are willing to dance simply for the food.Director Sydney Pollack is able to bring a sense of rising desperation to the movie. Fonda has a great broken character. They are all great. This is a broken world full of broken people. It does meander a bit with the flashbacks and internal squabbles but each derby injects more harrowing energy to the movie. It has great desperation.

In They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, an extensive dance marathon slowly turns into a brutal exploration of the human spirit. Just about the entire film takes place within the confines of one building, the setting for the marathon lasting weeks, with a group of varied characters coming together in an attempt to outlast the rest for the grand cash prize. It's an interesting premise and has been used several times, mostly for comedic purposes, but the idea of it holds so much dramatic potential. Playing it for comedy would be easy, but the script by James Poe and Robert E. Thompson, adapted from a novel by Horace McCoy, goes for the harsh reality of it all and what comes out is a grueling, tragic display.The experience these characters put themselves through is torturous, always putting on a show for the crowd and at the mercy of the judges and Gig Young's announcer Rocky. It's like watching animals in a zoo, slowly being pushed down to their dying breath. The film provides an interesting social commentary in the way that the crowd starts off minimal, only a few spectators in the stands as the participants are relatively fresh and alert, but as the days go on and their hope dwindles the crowd grows and grows. They want to see the chaotic potential of the marathon, they want to see these human beings brought to their breaking point, and they get that in spades.Focusing on the young Robert (Michael Sarrazin) and Gloria (Jane Fonda), two loners who partner up for the contest, the film explores some dark themes through their experience of the contest and the downward spiral they are pushed through. There are flashes to Robert being arrested for an unknown crime that we see several times throughout the film, which provide an interesting look at his character and a curious mystery to try and decipher, but the primary focus of the film is on those themes of bringing a person to their breaking point and seeing what comes out as a result.The performances are uniformly strong, from the powerfully broken Fonda, to the borderline psychotic Susannah York, to the energetic and determined Red Buttons, but special note should be given to Young who is charismatic and malicious as the host of ceremonies but in his moments out of the spotlight presents a sort of bitter melancholy towards the world that adds another layer to his character. Pollack's direction here is understated but absolutely remarkable. He doesn't use a lot of flash or technique, but he seamlessly gives the film the sensation of it being a marathon itself. You can feel the days and weeks pressing on as they grow weaker, more tired and more hopeless.By the time the final act comes, the audience is in as much as a weary daze as the participants are. It all comes around to it's final sequence, which is tragic beyond the definition of the word. The revelations are powerful and finding out the true meaning of the title is a revelation for the ages. A strange, unique and utterly brilliant work.

Betty & I very much wanted to see this movie after completing our own marathon of books (B) & films (F) about (or by) Gypsy Rose Lee and her sister, June Havoc: "Gypsy" B&F, "Stripping Gypsy" B, "American Rose" B, "My G-String Mother" B, "Early Havoc" B, "More Havoc" B, "February House" B. June Havoc was in several dance marathons in the '30s and her "Early Havoc" details a great deal about her experiences in them. In that era, jobs were scarce, millions were hungry and desperate; there were no social nets: no welfare, no unemployment checks, no medical services for the poor, etc. These marathons dangled the promise of a rich reward to the desperate: the one winning couple left standing after thousands of hours dancing, moving 40-60 days--contestants danced 24/7 in 2 hour shifts relieved by 10 minute breaks for sleeping/eating/toilets (they were fed 7 meals in every 24 hours). Their promised reward ($1,500, for example) to the winning couple would be enough to buy 2 new Ford or Chevvy cars with almost $400 left over (in 1934). And even the losing participants got free meals and a place to stay--for as long as they continued dancing. (Among dance marathon participants, there were the newbies and those experienced from previous contests; those in that latter group called themselves the "horses.") This film only indirectly captures the desperation flooding America at that time: it drove these marathon dancers to compete and drew their paying spectators (some nearly as strapped). These audiences watched contests that were VERY similar to the survival battles in the Coliseum of ancient Rome.The film depicts quite well the common, transient bouts of psychosis (getting "squirrely" in marathoners' parlance), the lugging around of sleeping partners by whichever partner was more awake, the drastic "first aid" measures used to keep dancers participating, and much of the behind the scenes behaviors common in these inhumane, torturous events.And, the MANY ways the sponsors shaped their presentations to entertain their audiences: spotlighting talents of individual dancers, elimination derbies, destroying a dancer's clothing to make a more pitiful appearance, announcing a collapsed dancer was recovering nicely in a hospital rather than the truth: he'd died from over-exertion (the truth might create bad publicity).Also, this movie reveals the naked truth of these marathons: they were scams run solely to enrich the promoters, designed to lure in both contestants and (paying) audiences. The promoters deducted from the winning couple's $1,500 reward their accrued bills for all their food, room, sleeping supplies, "medical" care, etc. So even the "winners" ended up nearly as poor as when they started.Fonda's character from the beginning is sarcastic, critical, and not particularly likable. She'd obviously been previously hurt, abused, seriously emotionally scarred. Why and in what ways?--that we're left to conjecture. And that's (IMO) the downside of this film: that narrative arc is left blank. The film's upside is its poignant, rich portrayal of this slice of an American era.Gig Young's Oscar for marathon "ring master" was richly deserved; he was superb and his performance significantly gave this film strength.For such an EXCELLENT depiction of this slice of an American era: (10/10)--but for such an incomplete personal narrative of Fonda's character (7/10).