THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY?: Blu-ray (ABC Films 1967) Kino Lorber
From its
unflinching portrayal of Depression-era malcontents, each suffering from an
absurd level of validated desperation, to its insidious depiction of shameless
profiteering by promoter/emcee, Rocky (Gig Young, unshaven, beady-eyed and
perversely cynical, in a part he was born to play), Sidney Pollack’s They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969) is
darkly involving. Faithfully adapted by screenwriters, Robert E. Thompson and James
Poe, from the 1935 novel by Horace McCoy, the picture is a snapshot of the
American dance marathon ‘craze’ that swept the nation in its bleakest hour with
starry-eyed dreams of victory, fame and prize money. McCoy’s book was far more
successful in Europe, its lyrical brutality off-putting to Americans suffering
through the Depression, yet counterbalanced by the author’s precise and
individualized reflections on the modus operandi of this motley ensemble of
partakers. Perhaps because its’ brooding existentialism cut far too close to
the bone it would be some thirty-four years before the novel reached the
screen. The book is unapologetic in its steely-eyed deconstruction of this
microcosm of American culture and society – the social issues witnessed with
immediacy through the puffy-eyed naïve, Robert Syverton (played with
afflicting sincerity by Michael Sarrazin) and thin-lipped viper, Gloria Beatty
(Jane Fonda, superbly embittered, heartless and cruel).
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? is such a
tour de force for these stars, and for Pollack, directing his first real movie
of stature, its imperfections are easily – almost forgivably – overlooked. For
here is an epic of fatigue and futility; almost Shakespearean in its connotations
as the La Monica ballroom, fairly reeking of sweat, cigarettes and backroom
sex, rumbles underfoot with the tinny echoes of botched ‘big bands’, raising a
lot of ‘sound and fury…signifying
nothing.’ Pollack’s balancing act is completely engrossing because he has
such co-stars as Red Buttons (as Harry, an over-the-hill sailor), Susannah York
(woefully star-struck Alice; a Jean Harlow knock-off defrocked of her glamor by
Rocky to the point of a nervous breakdown), and finally, Bruce Dern and Bonnie
Bedelia (as James and Ruby; hick boyfriend and knocked-up gal pal
respectively). Like Fonda’s wraith-thin harpy and Sarrazin’s starving-eyed
scarecrow, these supporting players seem so painfully wrought in the elemental
labors of mere survival, even under the most inhospitable conditions, they
amplify the immensity and obliteration of this passing parade (never addressed
in movies made throughout the 1930’s) when humanity came dangerously close to
becoming anarchically cheap, disposable, pointless and wan without the color of
money.
The legendary
Fonda, herein roiling with a spiteful venom against the world, and virtually
unknown Sarrazin, unable to bring himself anywhere near this brink of such
unadulterated hatred for human kind, are a very potent combo; her unvarnished
jadedness, the perfect counterbalance to his self-sacrificing innocence. Robert
takes pity on Gloria. His assassination of her at the finale remains the poster
child for mercy killings. Stripped of every last vestige of dignity, the girl
truly has nothing to live for; all dreams, tranquilized/all hope evaporated.
Robert’s motivation for pulling the trigger simply because he is asked to
comply is a little sketchier, as surely he must know that without the victim’s
corroboration of his confession – “she
asked me to” - he will surely be hanged for the crime of cold-blooded
murder. Pollack’s focus isn’t all that concerned with the denouement beyond its
obvious shock value. And make no mistake – the end of the movie is about as
saturnine and cathartic as movie experiences get. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? is a condemnation – not just of dance
marathons, but of this nation of navel-gazers stricken with the poisonous
ailment of miscalculating what it means to be popular.
As early as
1950, actors Norman Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin contemplated collaborating on a
cinematic adaptation of McCoy’s novel; Lloyd buying the rights for a meager
$3000 and Chaplin enterprisingly plotting to star his son, Sydney, as well as a
then fledgling Marilyn Monroe as his leads. Briefly, the project was a go. But
then, two years passed uneventfully; too long for Chaplin to have his crack at
the movie version. Attending the London premiere for his latest picture – Limelight – Chaplin learned Sen. Joseph
McCarthy had branded him a Communist sympathizer back in the United States. J.
Edgar Hoover, in cahoots with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service,
promptly revoked Chaplin’s re-entry permit; a devastating ban to last until
1972 when Chaplin was granted an absurd 72 hr. pass to collect his honorary
Academy Award for lifetime achievement. Into this turmoil, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? fell by the proverbial waste side.
Sixteen years later, McCoy died; the rights to his novel reverting to his heirs
who absolutely refused to renew the contract with Lloyd (still eager to pursue
it) as nothing had come of his original plans.
Flash ahead to
1969 and Sydney Pollack’s verve to direct this film. Pollack greatly admired
Jane Fonda. Nevertheless, Fonda was unimpressed by the merits of the project –
or what she had misperceived as a lack thereof, and turned Pollack down sight
unseen until her ‘then’ husband, Roger Vadim recognized its strain of French
existentialism at play and encouraged his wife to reconsider her hasty
decision. Reportedly Fonda was both humble and pleased during her first meeting
with Pollack; the director, asking for her input and listening intently to suggestions
on how to improve her part and the movie as a whole. “He really listened,” Fonda would later reiterate, her admiration
for Pollack only continuing to ferment as production got underway. It is fairly
safe to suggest no movie studio today would dare green light They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?; despite
American cinema’s all-encompassing morbidity. What must have played as more
apple-polishing vinegar than cider at the time has since, especially in our
present age of reality TV, taken on more than a patina of truth, its
metaphorical commentary reflected as just another life-competing game of truth
or dare where the stakes are not only high, but lethal for some.
The trick of
it is Pollack’s picture manages to tread very lightly between unremitting
nihilism and a weirdly clenched — even principled stance that is as impenitent
as certain that life in general, and these lives in particular, are just not worth
living: life - inescapably sordid, cutthroat, monumentally soulless and discouraging.
This vainness is magnified by the miserly recompense offered contestants who
dare partake of this ‘winner-take-all’ marathon. All it takes is $1500.00 to be
mercilessly pummeled for sport; forced to perform as trained seals in this
foot-bleeding/sweat-soaked derby of crushed bodies and even more devastatingly
massacred dreams. Succumbing to illness, malnutrition, and the abject
humiliation of chronic dizzy spells, competitors who remain are not just
gluttons for punishment but sacrificial lambs being led to their own slaughter;
slaves to their own greed and shortsightedness.
No one better
than Gloria knows this contest is a grotesque charade. And yet even this slick
cookie elects to vie in it anyway, increasingly degraded by her pitiless
self-loathing. Top marks to Jane Fonda then, who audaciously incites our empathy
for this deeply flawed, scornful and monstrously repellant creature of habit. Gloria
doesn’t trust anyone and yet, beneath her reactive suspicion she restlessly hopes
to be proved wrong. Alas, both she and Robert quickly discover they have been
sold into a sort of mixed couples’ bondage; days rolling into a month, forcing
the contest’s promoter, Rocky to resort to sadism to keep his spectators engaged
and thus, the money rolling. Rocky deliberately ruins Alice’s silken dress, her
only prized possession, reducing the Hollywood hopeful into a nerve-jangling
wretch. He pitches shameless plaudits to entrants willing to prostitute
themselves for the audience and devises special ‘derbies’ (torturous speed-walking
competitions) where the last three underperforming couples are immediately ejected.
The rules are simple and simply barbaric: dance till you drop with barely ten
minute respites afforded every two hours.
Contestants even learn how to sleep – or rather, pass out – while on
their feet. The last couple to endure this inquisition wins the cash prize. Alas,
the game is rigged; Rocky siphoning off the pot to pay for expenses – food and
the minor entourage of doctors and nurses to care for those depleted to the
point of exhaustion; plus, the rental of the Santa Monica dance hall. The
longer the competition drags on, the less prize money remains in the kitty for
the contestants to actually win.
Almost from
the beginning Gloria’s aspirations to partake are placed in jeopardy when her
original partner is disqualified for a respiratory infection. Rocky pairs the
girl with the grifter, Robert. Soon, the pair attracts the attention of a dotty
dowager, Mrs. Laydon (Madge Kennedy), who persuades a local ironmonger to act
as their sponsor in exchange for wearing sweatshirts advertising their
business. Gloria is spiteful, showing undue contempt for Ruby; chastising the
expectant mother for keeping her unborn child as it will enter this world in
squalor and suffrage (arguably, a life Gloria knows all too well). She also
chides Ruby’s grungy beau, James for having the audacity to have knocked her up
at a time like this. It does not take Gloria very long to become inexplicably
jealous of the attention Robert gives Alice. In reply, Gloria agrees to ‘service’
Rocky in his dressing room, witnessed by Robert from the shadows. Shortly
thereafter, Gloria changes partners with Alice out of spite. Alas, this
backfires on Gloria when her new partner, Joel (Robert Fields) receives a job
offer, leaving her high and dry.
However, the resourceful Gloria now pairs off with Harry whose own
partner has collapsed under the strain.
Rocky cruelly
exploits the dancers’ various vulnerabilities; periodically introducing
‘derbies’ to hasten the thinning out of the herd. During one such derby, Harry
suffers a fatal heart attack; Gloria dragging his lifeless body across the
finish line before realizing he is dead. Harry’s body slumps into Alice’s arms.
This finally pushes her fragileness over the edge. Alice withdraws screaming
from the competition. Now, Gloria reunites with Robert. Rocky launches into his
most shameless bit of promotion. Robert and Gloria will marry on the dance
floor – a stunt guaranteed to earn them modest gifts from their sponsors.
Gloria is repulsed. She vows to win the marathon on her own merits. But Rocky reveals to Robert and Gloria no one
will actually win as expenses have been deducted from each contestant along the
way; this subtraction already eaten away virtually all allocated winnings. Wounded
by this revelation, Gloria and Robert withdraw from the competition.
Experiencing
their first real taste of the salty sea air in weeks, Gloria and Robert gaze
from the pier upon the quietly rolling surf under moonlight. Robert comments he
once loved the sea but now the very sound of it almost makes him ill. In his
youth, Robert witnessed his grandfather put one of the family’s horses, suffered
two broken legs, out of its misery with his double-barrel shotgun. Gloria’s
confession is more devastating. Nothing she has wanted out of this life has
come to pass. Overcome by her physical/emotional exhaustion, Gloria confides in
Robert her death wish, removing a revolver from her handbag. Alas, her conscience
will not allow her to commit suicide.
“Help me?” she whimpers. Recognizing her pain as partly his, Robert takes
the gun from Gloria and fires a single shot point blank into her right temple.
When the police arrive, Robert dubiously confesses to the murder. Asked to
explain his motive, Robert blankly stares beyond, to some invisibly fixed point
on the horizon as he quietly suggests, “They
shoot horses…don’t they?” As Robert is carted off in a paddy wagon we
return to the ballroom, the few remaining couples, including James and Ruby,
still weakly clinging to one another and still quite unaware their determination
will never pay off.
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? was popular
with critics and audiences alike. Nominated for a whopping nine Oscars it
regrettably won only a single statuette for Gig Young’s scathing portrait of
this shameless charlatan. The movie reinvigorated Jane Fonda’s career as a
‘serious actress’. Until this movie, she had been widely regarded as something
of a featherweight in the industry, despite her father’s pedigree as a
consummate pro; appearing in such engaging fluff as Sunday in New York (1963), Barefoot
in the Park (1967) and the notoriously campy sci-fi classic, Barbarella (1968). Fonda’s casting in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? belies
Horace McCoy’s literary description of Gloria as “too blonde, too small and look(ing) too old.” Yet, otherwise Fonda
doesn’t miss a trick, embodying the rank world-weariness of a woman about to
call it quits on the biggest gamble of them all – life. Screenwriters Poe and
Thompson have made other concessions; chiefly inventing the characters of Alice
and Harry who do not appear in McCoy’s novel. Equally, they elected to excise
the moment when Mrs. Laydon is killed by a stray bullet after a ballroom brawl
turns deadly. The book ends with the dance competition shut down due to this
violent act. As no such outburst occurs in the movie, the dancers simply go on.
Finally, McCoy’s narrative structure situates almost the entire story as one
flashback, whereas the movie is decidedly a flash forward – taking place on a
linear plain that culminates with Gloria’s murder.
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? may not be
the sort of movie to revisit over and over again. In point of fact, it’s
disheartening to say the least. But Fonda, Sarrazin and Young make it oddly
compelling ‘must see’ entertainment. Sydney Pollack is one of my favorite
directors and They Shoot Horses, Don’t
They? can easily be considered an early crown jewel in his illustrious
career as one of Hollywood’s premiere picture-makers during the latter half of
the 20th century. I sincerely miss Pollack, who died much too soon
at the age of 73 from stomach cancer in 2008. Here was a true artist, as
unpretentious a man as a storyteller. They
Shoot Horses, Don’t They? is a penetrating appraisal of America’s insidious
fascination with becoming a ‘somebody’. Setting aside its critique of social
injustice, the figures of fame and fortune are depicted as not only the bane of
salvageable humanity, but also exposed as shallow and worthless endeavors.
Pollack lets the pain show in virtually every frame. Even McCoy, who knew the
dance-marathon circuit by heart while working as a bouncer at the Santa Monica
pier, is moderately more forgiving of his assessments. But Pollack, perhaps
even better than McCoy, sees the competition for what it truly is: a sickening
debasement of souls for the almighty profit.
“Yowza! Yowza! Yowza!” Kino Lorber’s
Blu-ray is, in a word, gorgeous, easily besting the horrendous 2004 DVD release
from MGM/Fox. Produced by ABC Films, the
newly mastered 1080p image is a quality affair from top to bottom with very
minor caveats. Earthy tones with immaculate pops of color and very pleasing
flesh tones greet the eye; ditto for a light smattering of film grain (more
amplified in the intermittent flashbacks scattered throughout this movie), and
some stunning examples of fine detail in skin, hair and clothing fibers. Some
minor speckling can be seen during the opticals in the main title sequence. But
these are forgivable. Contrast seems just a tad wan in spots; no true blacks,
but some very deep greys and browns. You’ll like what you see – mostly –
especially if you don’t look too hard for these minor oversights. The audio is 2.0 DTS; effective without ever
rating as remarkable, well-mixed and with zero distortion.
In the mid-1990s,
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? sported
a fairly impressive limited edition LaserDisc release via CBS/Fox Home Video,
complete with an autograph from Sydney Pollack and an abundance of extras. Only
three of these have made it to Blu-ray: two audio commentaries – the preferred
of the two, and far more comprehensive from Pollack, who indulges us with
virtually everything one could want to know about the making of this movie. The
other track has actually been assembled from a series of audio interviews with Fonda,
Sarrazin, Bedelia and Buttons, producers, Irwin Winkler and Martin Baum and hairstylist,
Sydney Guilaroff. Finally, also from the LD is a short ‘making of’ featurette
chocked full of on-set/backstage footage. Absent, the LD’s extensive gallery of
stills. Finally, we get trailers for this and other Kino Lorber product. Bottom
line: a competently rendered hi-def presentation of a great movie that deserves
to be a part of your Blu-ray collection. Buy today, treasure forever!
FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)
4
VIDEO/AUDIO
4
EXTRAS
3
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