They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (Serpent's Tail Classics)

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The Seasonal Read...: Winter Challenge 2011: Completed Tasks -DO NOT DELETE ANY POSTS IN THIS TOPIC Published in 1935 , nothing much happened . Only later was it hailed as " senselessly exciting " and " lurid beyond itself "

This story is so bleak and so absurd. Not in a funny, ha ha way, but just off and grotesque. I saw the movie with Jane Fonda and Michael Sarrazin on tv when I was a kid and didn't realize these dance contests were historical events from the 1930s; I thought it was some dystopian future world, sort of like Westworld which I loved. Ironically, the musical arrangements by John Green, a brilliant and very active composer of early 30's popular songs (including "Body and Soul"), sound more like Lawrence Welk than a real third-rate dance band of the early Depression era. As musical supervisor of this film I wonder if it was Green who anachronistically included songs that hadn't even been written when the story takes place, including "I Cover the Waterfront" (1933) and "Easy Come, Easy Go" (1934), both of which Green composed himself.

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Robert Syverten is the narrator. He tells what led up to his murder of Gloria Beatty and his eventual death sentence. He met her when he thought her waving for a bus was an attempt to meet him. He is still weak from intestinal flu when he joins the dance contest as Beatty’s partner. The contest lasts over a month and includes a race every night to eliminate contestants. He is passive and puts up with Beatty's pessimism and taunts, even while he remains naive and optimistic. When the contest ends with no winners, Gloria asks him to kill her. He jokingly says the book and film's title, "They shoot horses, don't they?" meaning it is a mercy to put the crippled to death. Gloria is killed, and Robert has no explanation for it. He will be put to death, and his optimism is finally replaced by Gloria's nihilism and hopelessness. Gloria Beatty Festival de Cannes: They Shoot Horses, Don't They?". Festival-cannes.com. Archived from the original on January 23, 2013 . Retrieved April 11, 2009. They Shoot Horses, Don't They DVD review". Digitally Obsessed. Archived from the original on September 25, 2015 . Retrieved September 20, 2020.

The film premiered at the Fine Arts Theatre on December 10, 1969. [10] Reception [ edit ] Box office [ edit ] Turns out, Gloria was raised in the most dreadful way, by abusive, cruel people in West Texas. She eventually escaped, moving to Los Angeles, looking to make it in Hollywood movies. Can there ever be a staler, more pathetic aspiration, to see the pretend, artificial world of Hollywood as your salvation? Horace McCoy was hired as a bouncer at a dance marathon in Santa Monica, and this first hand experience informs a vivid description of that hellish world. It's a brutal and bleak parable about American life.

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Do you plan to have a public wedding next week or was that merely an announcement to draw a crowd of morons?” – They Shoot Horses Don’t They? The Seasonal Read...: 10.9 ("A lovely horse is always an experience.... It is an emotional experience of the kind that is spoiled by words.") They Shoot Horses, Don't They?". Golden Globes. Archived from the original on September 25, 2020 . Retrieved September 20, 2020. The idea of a deadly dance marathon has existed for centuries. From the 14 th century to the 17 th century, a phenomenon known as “Dance Mania” swept central Europe. Men, women, and children would orchestrate an impromptu, wild, and unstoppable dance, one that would only cease when the participants would cave in from exhaustion. To this day, the exact cause of this outbreak has not been determined but symptoms have been linked with an early form of mass hysteria, where people would join the throng out of fear, or out of a desire to copy. During the Great Depression, what had once been classified as a disturbing psychological occurrence was transformed into a human spectacle when dance marathons became a trend. Participants would shuffle around a dancefloor for hours, carried along by a glimmer of hope that their ordeal would end in a cash prize. Adding to the theatricality of the event, audiences would pay to see the dancers suffer breakdowns and crash to the floor in a heap. Variety said, "Puffy-eyed, unshaven, reeking of stale liquor, sweat and cigarettes, Young has never looked older or acted better. Fonda... gives a dramatic performance that gives the film a personal focus and an emotionally gripping power." [16]