Retro Review: THEY SHOOT HORSES DON’T THEY?

They Shoot Horses Don’t They? (1969) is not a rhetorical question. It’s a movie, and I bet dollars to donuts it served as one of the inspirations for Stephen King’s The Long Walk (maybe some of The Running Man, as well.)

The movie is about a dance marathon in a shabby Santa Monica ballroom during the Great Depression. Couples enter the contest for a chance to win 1,500 silver dollars. One-by-one they get whittled down. Is there a winner?

A 1969 film is basically a 1970s film, so that pretty much tells you what you are getting… Let’s take a look at They Shoot Horses Don’t They?

They Shoot Horses Don’t They?

They Shoot Horses Don’t They? is based on a novel by Horace McCoy. McCoy also worked in Hollywood and was an uncredited script assistant on King Kong.

Nobody does dance marathons anymore, but they were popular in the 1920s and 1930s. Participants had to remain upright and moving on the dance floor for 45 minutes of every hour. Every few hours, a klaxon horn sounded and couples were allowed 15 minutes of bed rest.

It was not for the feint of heart. The marathons often lasted for weeks or months. Contestants became so exhausted, women would have to be slapped awake, and men would get dunked in ice baths to rouse them.

Since it was cheap entertainment during the Great Depression, spectators often took sadistic pleasure in the suffering of the participants. Businesses could also sponsor the couples and have them wear shirts advertising their companies.

Marathoners were fed multiple times a day to keep up their energy. Tables of eggs, oatmeal and toast were brought out on the dance floor, and couples shuffled around while they ate. This aspect of dance marathons was a great enticement for poor folks going hungry.

Bathing, shaving, reading the paper and writing letters could be done while dancing. Other times, one partner held the other one up while they tried to catch some sleep. Some of the more amorous couples even managed to copulate.

If enough couples weren’t dropping out, the organizers forced them into 10-minute power walks, and the couples that fell behind were eliminated. Participants died of exhaustion. Some went insane. Eventually, dance marathons were banned.

They Shoot Horses Don’t They Live?

Robert E. Thompson (an early draft of The French Connection) and James Poe (Cat On A Hot Tin Roof) adapted the novel into a screenplay. It was nominated for an Academy Award.

In fact, They Shoot Horses Don’t They? holds the record for most Academy Award nominations without receiving one for Best Picture.

Sydney Pollack (Out of Africa) directed.

Remember Pollack’s scene in Death Becomes Her. “It doesn’t hurt when I do this?”

That was funny…

The Pollack, Thompson and Poe trifecta creates a solid movie. Pollack does a nice job helming it all and capturing the dingy desperation of the location and the participants. He has just enough flair to draw the viewer in but not enough to distract them with too many flourishes.

Meanwhile, the script is fairly rich with metaphor, which we won’t go into because we are avoiding spoilers. Suffice it to say, the dance floor is life, and soft representations of god and the devil may also be present.

Originally, Charlie Chaplin wanted to develop the film. Unfortunately, he took a trip out of the country, got accused of being a communist and couldn’t get back in. The project then passed through various hands. At one point, William Friedkin was even attached.

They Shoot To Kill Horses Don’t They?

They Shoot Horses Don’t They? stars the original Karen herself, Jane Fonda. She plays a bitter woman who doesn’t need anyone. As a result, the character finds herself at the end of her rope and enters the dance marathon for lack of other options.

Michael Sarrazin (FeardotCom) is Fonda’s partner. For folks who think Hollywood is a clone factory, they may have a point. He looks a lot like Bill Skarsgard. Sarrazin’s character is a drifter who happens upon the dance marathon and signs up for lack of other options.

Susannah York (Superman’s biological mom) plays a debutante who is dancing with the hopes of drawing the attention of Hollywood talent scouts.

Comedian Red Buttons (Pete’s Dragon) portrays an old sailor. Michael Conrad (Satan’s Triangle) plays a ref. Meanwhile, Bruce Dern is also on the floor as an Oaky husband. His pregnant wife is played by a very young Bonnie Bedelia. She is so young it took me awhile to recognize her.

Al Lewis (Grandpa Munster) and Gig Young (Game of Death) are the dance marathon organizers. Gig was originally cast as the Waco Kid in Blazing Saddles, but he collapsed on his first day of filming due to alcohol withdrawal and was fired. He eventually ended up shooting his fifth wife, Kim Schmidt, and himself in 1978.

They Shoot Horses Don’t Look Now They?

Like The Long Walk, They Shoot Horses Don’t They? is your standard existential film. People in the metaphor for life trapse along and lament the human condition as they struggle to come to terms with being insignificant specks of dust in an indifferent universe.

However, Pollack, Thompson and Poe do a nice job of being fairly objective about it. They don’t preach much.

They Shoot Horses Don’t They? is interesting in that it feels like a horror film is seeping in around its edges. The couples are trapped in a location, and they are picked off one by one by their own inability to cope with the stress of it all. While “trapped” in the dance hall, they struggle to find meaning and a reason to go on that transcends mere habit.

Such a thing works well for movies, but I have no patience for existentialism as an actual life philosophy. It’s too edge-lord and empty.

I prefer the opposite and can best sum it up by borrowing from the UK vernacular. Jesus loves me…even if everyone else thinks I’m a cunt…

They Shoot Horses Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitters Dead They?

They Shoot Horses Don’t They? has been somewhat forgotten because it was released in a year that saw numerous heavy hitters pop up in theaters: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Hello, Dolly, The Love Bug, Midnight Cowboy, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Easy Rider, The Wild Bunch and True Grit, for example.

Nevertheless, They Shoot Horses Don’t They? is worth checking out. It does a great job capturing a part of American history many people were unaware existed. Plus, the cast turns in solid performances within a story that has more going on than appears on the surface.

Ask They Shoot Horses Don’t They? to dance. The worst it can do is say “no, you’re an insignificant speck of dust in an indifferent universe…”

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