gsygsy Outstanding movie that packs a very powerful punch. When it was made, a new energy was firing American cinema - EASY RIDER came out the same year, FIVE EASY PIECES the year after. As the war with Vietnam dragged on, old values were being fearlessly re-examined. The dance hall of Horace McCoy's Depression era novel here becomes the stage on which the more questionable of those values are acted out.For all the characters, what the marathon is and what it means depends on what they need to get out of it. For James and Ruby (Dern and Bedilia) it's food for themselves and the baby that's on the way; for Alice and Joel (York and Fields) it's the chance of being seen by someone influential from the movie industry; for Gloria (Fonda), and for the Sailor and Shirl (Buttons and McLerie) it's to earn some money; and, as succinctly expressed in a scene between Robert (Sarrazin) and Rocky (Young), for the former the marathon is a competition, whilst for the latter, it's a show. As the marathon proceeds, the physical reality of it takes its mental toll, and its true meaning becomes clear. Rocky turns out to be right: it's an entertainment for those without much, so that they can feel better about themselves by watching the suffering of those with less. I write this nearly 80 years after McCoy's book was first published, nearly 45 years since the movie was released: regrettably, not much has changed.I saw the movie when I was a teenager, when it first came out. I retained some images from it, but I don't think it could have struck me then as it did last night when I watched it again, this time on DVD. It's an immense work by Sydney Pollack and his collaborators - particularly his screenwriters James Poe and Robert E. Thompson, his DOP Philip Lathrop, and his editor Frederic Steinkamp. The derby sequences in particular are tremendous - the camera gets amongst the competitors, forcing you to really feel what they're going through. It's as discomforting as it should be.The performances are all superb. Although Susannah York was apparently dismissive of her contribution, it is probably the best work she did on film. Similarly, Gig Young, who is extraordinarily good. Jane Fonda, Allyn Ann McLerie, Red Buttons, Bruce Dern, Bonnie Bedelia, Robert Fields, Madge Kennedy, Al Lewis and the wonderful Michael Sarrazin - all terrific.I write this early on Christmas Day. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE will be on TV at some point. Quite right, too, it's a great movie. But in my heart I feel that its seasonal message of hope should be balanced by a recognition that there are many - too many - in whose lives there is no hope. An annual peak-time showing of THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY? as a companion piece to the Capra would act as the necessary bracing reminder.

augurar When I saw this film, I initially thought it was incredibly unrealistic. But it turns out, to my surprise, the historical aspects of this film are pretty close to reality. Apparently dance marathons in the 1920s and 30s, also known as "walkathons", did proceed something like the one depicted in the film. Many of the details of the competition — 10 minutes of sleep per hour, several meals a day eaten while standing, sponsors, contestant performances, the proposed "wedding", special endurance events — actually occurred in historical dance marathons. Even the ending is not too far from reality — in 1928 a Seattle woman attempted suicide after finishing in fifth in one such competition.However, despite the apparent historical accuracy of this film, it remained unconvincing due to poor writing and characterization. The character played by Jane Fonda was supposed to seem desperate and bitter, I think, but just came off as cruel and dislikable. She wasn't just defensive, she seemed to go out of her way to hurt and antagonize those around her. What a b****, seriously. The male lead was also underdeveloped; his only character traits were a sort of perpetual bewilderment and a vague fondness for the ocean and/or the sun. The MC was probably supposed to seem like a long-time showman with occasional moments of sympathy for the contestants, but his alternations between kindness and callousness just seemed inconsistent. The other characters functioned as sort of bipedal set pieces and were given even less depth and development than the main characters. In fact, the only development that seemed to happen during the film was a long, slow slide into exhaustion, both for the characters and the audience.This brings me to my second complaint — the pacing was rather poor. Due to the nature of the competition, there were long periods where nothing was happening. These could have been used to give us some more insight into the characters' thoughts, feelings, or motivations but instead the audience was treated to periods of boredom, sporadically broken up by miscellaneous events, few of which had any real significance to the story. The ending just came out of nowhere for me, although I figured out midway through what was going to happen due to the clumsily-administered flashbacks and film title. It was as if, after reaching a certain desired length for the film, they decided it had to end somehow and this was the quickest way. Since we never really got to see why the whole thing mattered so much to the female lead, there was no motivation for her sudden plunge into suicidal despair at the end. The intended metaphor is of a broken-legged horse, writhing in suffering on the ground. But all that I saw in front of me was a bitter woman who was apparently unable to cope with the tragedy of a ripped stocking, an unsuccessful acting career, and a rigged endurance competition. And the laconic male lead, while seeming to exude a sort of naive sympathy for everyone around him, didn't seem to have any good reason for assisting in the act. If he really cared about the Jane Fonda character, he would've taken the gun away from her and put her to bed.There were a couple of other things that bothered me here and there. One thing was the pointless partner-swapping somewhere in the middle of the film. The Fonda character has known the Sarrazin character for a few weeks at most, most of which was spent shuffling around half-asleep. Why would she even care if he sleeps with some woman? The whole thing just seemed contrived and unnecessary. A second quibble was with one of the last scenes of the movie, where the male lead utters the movie's line that makes the movie's title. To all you would-be screenwriters out there: DON'T EXPLAIN THE F***ING SYMBOLISM! It's enough to show the woman falling down like the horse in the meadow. We don't need to have the guy specifically tell the audience what it meant.If I had to say the one defining flaw of the movie, it was that it spent too much time showing us the particulars of the event and not enough letting us get to know the characters. Interestingly enough, by placing the focus on the event itself and not on its participants, the film effectively denies the characters their humanity, showing them instead as little more than livestock. As a result, the drama is reduced to spectacle and the viewer is placed in the same role as the people who attended these events back in the 20s and 30s. I don't think this was intentional, but it was still interesting. It kind of makes you wonder: why am I watching this?

DuaneRHampton I saw this movie 41 years ago, and decided then and there never to go to bummer movies again. I'm not sure why I went. I wasn't really interested in dance marathons or the Depression. Perhaps it was because the cast was top-notch. In fact, the acting was good--all too believable! The script was OK, too. This movie was memorable, all right--haunting and brutal would be more fitting. If you want to be bummed out, watch this movie--it's a guaranteed downer! So this movie did me a great service. It scarred me for life. I look at reviews before I go to movies, and I avoid any movies that would leave me feeling like this one did. I like life, and I don't feel a need to create intense negative emotions like this movie fostered.

Bob Pr. 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).