They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? **** (1969, Jane Fonda, Michael Sarrazin, Susannah York, Gig Young) – Classic Movie Review 2052

Based on Horace McCoy’s 1935 novel, director Sydney Pollack’s 1969 study of disparate group of characters desperate to win a gruelling 1932 Depression-era dance marathon is both incredibly atmospheric and evocative as well as thoughtful and suspenseful.

Jane Fonda stars as the cynical, hopeless, suicidal malcontent Gloria, who decides to head for Hollywood to make it as an actress. She decides to enter a gruelling dance marathon in the shabby La Monica Ballroom, perched over the Pacific Ocean on the Santa Monica Pier, near Los Angeles, and is paired up with handsome young Robert Syverton (Michael Sarrazin), a desperate Hollywood character trying to become a great film director, with tragic consequences.

There are memorable performances from a highly talented cast, all at their best: Fonda. Sarrazin, Susannah York, Red Buttons, Bonnie Bedelia and Bruce Dern. But it’s the brilliant performance by Gig Young, who won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar as the hard-bitten and opportunistic emcee Rocky (‘there can only be one winner folks, but isn’t that the American way?’) who urges them relentlessly on to victory, that helps to makes the whole film really special.

There were eight other Oscar nominations, including for Fonda as Best Actress, York as Best Supporting Actress and Pollack as Best Director, but Young was, surprisingly, the sole winner. The nominated art direction and set decoration (Harry Horner, Frank R. McKelvy) and Donfeld’s costumes add a lot to capturing the right mood and atmosphere.

York won the 1971 Bafta film award as Best Supporting Actress  but it was her only ever Oscar nomination. Fonda won New York Film Critics Circle Awards 1969 award for Best Actress. The Oscar-nominated screenplay is by James Poe and Robert E Thompson.

Astonishingly, as it’s an art movie, the film was a box office hit, grossing $12.6million on a $4.86million budget, making it the 16th highest-grossing film of 1969.

Fonda says: ‘This was the first time in my life as an actor that I was working on a film about larger societal issues, and instead of my professional work feeling peripheral to life, it felt relevant.’

Allyn Ann McLerie.

Allyn Ann McLerie, who plays a freaked-out contestant in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, died on 21 May 2018, aged 91.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2052

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com/