‘They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?’: A Tinseltown Allegory that Ends Unhappily Ever After

Michael Sarrazin, Jane Fonda, 'They Shoot Horses, Don't They?' (1969).

Harrowing Tale of Dance Marathons and the Depression-Era Downtrodden. But Those Marathons Remind Us of Something Else — the Studio System at its Most Heartless

Contains spoilers

By Paul Parcellin

"They Shoot Horses, Don’t They” is a noir tragedy about exploitation of the desperate and beleaguered in Depression-era Los Angeles, right?  True, but that’s only part of the story.

Based on the 1935 novel by hardboiled scribbler Horace McCoy, the movie’s plot revolves around the very real and very savage dance marathon competitions of the 1920s - ’30s. 

They were grueling, days-long endurance challenges witnessed by audiences of paying customers. Exhausted contestant couples shuffled and foxtrotted their way toward death’s door in hope of being the last ones standing as the orchestra played on. 

A possible dream come true

Winners would grab a sack of prize money — in theory — and stave off starvation another day. Others left through the back door, sometimes on gurneys.  

The film does double duty, not only as a historic document of unencumbered human depravity, but also as an allegory for the movie biz, particularly the old Hollywood studio system, and maybe the entertainment industry as a whole.  

Not convinced that there’s a connection between marathoners dancing themselves to death and the movie industry? Try this on for size:

Dreamers and the destitute 

Robert (Michael Sarrazin) and Gloria (Jane Fonda) are beaten down by life. Both are hayseeds dwelling on the fringes of Hollywood’s motion picture industry. Unlike the naive Robert, Gloria has been around long enough to be exhausted by false promises and rejection. Her personal life is in ruins when fate pushes the two of them together, thrusting them into the dance marathon spotlight. They make a cute couple but there’s no romance between them. It’s all about keeping up an image that’s appealing to the gawkers. 

Jane Fonda, Red Buttons, Susannah York, Michael Sarrazin.

Survival is the object

Beneath the surface, their’s is a strategic partnership. Each depends on the other for strength when despair sets in, and it does visit often.

The two are like the stars and starlets whose off-screen relationships (genuine or not) were often manufactured for the gossip rags and manipulated by the studios to fit the images crafted by Hollywood publicity departments. Actors were matched up, packaged and kept beholden to the studio for ongoing exploitation.

Making a show out of their pain

Contestants push themselves to physical and emotional collapse for a small chance of taking home a cash prize. It’s a lot like the struggles of actors who sacrifice a lot for a small chance of becoming a star.

Meanwhile, the contest's promoter and emcee, Rocky Gravo (Gig Young), keeps the audience entertained with periodic announcements highlighting juicy tidbits about the contestants’ personal woes and real life tragedies. 

Personal privacy be damned

The most private details of contestants’ lives are like breadcrumbs the emcee tosses to the crowd to keeps them engaged, much like studios of bygone days, shaping rising stars’ public images and exploiting their personal lives to sell tickets.

Gravo spells out the contest’s dramatic core in his patter to the audience. 

“Here they are again, folks! These wonderful, wonderful kids! Still struggling! Still hoping! … the marathon goes on, and on, and on! How long can they last?”

Like a prizefight, the marathon is buoyed by the palpable drama of contestants' suffering and their inevitable collapse, which holds the audience in suspense. 

Susannah York, Michael Sarrazin, Bruce Dern, Bonnie Bedelia.

Torturous antics for cheap entertainment

Dancers are initially sweet-talked into signing up for these punishing competitions, usually unaware of what's in store for them. The audience demands to see human agony and the competitors are pushed to give the crowd what it wants. It's a bit like the studio system’s restrictive contracts and bullying tactics that kept actors working endless hours, wringing every last dollar of value out of them.

An astonishing admission

Backstage at the marathon, Robert is dumbfounded when Gravo refers to the supposed competition as a “show” rather than a contest.

“They don’t give a damn whether you win,” says Gravo. “They just want to see a little misery out there so they can feel a little better, maybe.”

The spectacle of physical decline

Scenes show contestants’ bodily deterioration — they grow paler, shakier, more broken — while the show’s lights stay bright and the emcee sets an upbeat tempo.

In a parallel universe, the studio system thrives on the gradual burnout of its labor — stars aging, being pushed past their limits — while the machine presents a glossy, unaffected front. Their bodies become the product, worn down for continued profit.

The big break that never was

The down-and-out dancers take a shot at winning a jackpot. If they come out on top their woes will go away, or so they think. But the game is rigged. Fame and wealth are elusive. Most go back home to Iowa or wherever, or maybe land on the streets. The big payoff is a prize that never materializes.

Movie biz promises of a “next picture” or a “breakout role” keep actors in their place and hopeful despite the abuse they suffer.

As Gloria observes, “Maybe it’s just the whole damn world is like Central Casting. They got it all rigged before you ever show up.”

Gig Young, the puppetmaster pulling the strings.

The emcee is like a studio exec

Gig Young, who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor as the emcee, is appropriately oily as the character who controls the rules, shifts the goalposts and “packages” human misery into an entertainment product — much like movie producers who shape or kill careers.

The marathon organizers abruptly change the rules, limit rest periods and adjust incentives to strain contestants’ endurance.

It's all too similar to studio contracts and brutish demands that set long work hours, introduced unpredictable script rewrites and image “retooling.” Except for top-tier actors, talent had little say about work conditions. 

The audience is part of the exploitation

In a scene showing the publicity campaign promoting the marathon we see the audience’s voyeuristic fascination interspersed with shots of photographers and newsreel coverage. 

A woman volunteers to sponsor Robert and Gloria and seems absorbed in the illusion of a romantic relationship between them. In moments of audience participation, spectators are told that their enthusiasm “keeps the dancers going,” as if their passive gaze helps ease the suffering on the dance floor, thus relieving them of any guilt that might impede their enjoyment of such savage entertainment.

Reaching the breaking point

Gloria, finally broken and unable to escape the vicious cycle she’s stuck in,  makes a final dreadful choice and Robert becomes a party to her collapse. 

The dance marathon disguises cruelty under a veil of competition, similar to the way Hollywood glamorizes the struggle of hopefuls who are ultimately exploited and often tossed away. 

In the end, “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They” is one of the least romanticized depictions of the Gold Age of Hollywood to hit the screen. “Sunset Boulevard” (1950) and “The Day of the Locust” (1975) similarly take a hard look at Hollywood's decadence and exploitative practices. 

In all, we may love the movies, but when it comes to seeing how the sausage is made, not so much.

What does a Dancer, an Actor, a Magician and a Disenchanted Cop Have in Common? They All Meet in a “City that Never Sleeps”

Marie Windsor, Gig Young, Chill Wills, "City That Never Sleeps" (1953).

A cloud of failure hangs over a handful of Chicagoans whose dreary lives are about to become a lot more dramatic. In “City That Never Sleeps” a would-be ballerina, reduced to dancing in a burlesque house; an out of work actor, his face painted silver, poses as a mechanical man in the burlesque theater’s front window;  and an unemployed magician who uses his sleight of hand skills to pick pockets and commit robberies all figure into the story. 

Thwarted dreams and bitter resignations to less than ideal lifestyles drive the younger generation’s general sense of dissatisfaction. But it’s not just the frustrated show biz types who have a beef with the system. 

Wally Cassell, Mala Powers.

At the center of this tale of woe is Johnny Kelly (Gig Young), a young Chicago cop who’s having an affair with the burlesque dancer, Angel Face (Mala Powers), and plans to resign from the force the following day. The idea is to leave his wife, Kathy (Paula Raymond), and run off with the paramour. But his last graveyard shift turns out to be a doozie and Johnny begins to rethink every wrong footed step he’s set to take.

But before he has any revelations, the otherwise straight arrow law officer decides to get his hands dirty in order to finance his split from his wife and his job. He accepts an offer from a crooked lawyer, Penrod Biddel (Edward Arnold), to kidnap the equally crooked magician, Hayes Stewart (William Talman), and bring him over state lines where he’s a wanted man. Stewart has been getting in Biddel’s hair, and the shady attorney aims to put the pesky prestidigitator on ice.

In a marvelous scene that tells us almost all we need to know about the relationship between the two, Biddel plucks an invisible hair or some other morsel of debris from the sleeve of Stewart’s sport coat and dismissively blows it free from his fingers. Their interactions all go downhill from there.

Gig Young, Ron Hagerthy, William Talman,
"City That Never Sleeps."

The tension between Biddel and Stewart is just the tip of the iceberg. Johnny’s life becomes more complicated by the minute. If his extramarital affair and plans to vacate his wedding vows weren’t vexing enough, Johnny’s family members become entangled in the goings that unfold on this absurdly crazy night: his dad, Johnny Kelly Sr., (Otto Hulett), is also one of Chicago’s finest, and Johnny’s delinquency-curious kid brother, Stubby (Ron Hagerthy), is also on the scene. The senior Kelly’s presence plays a significant and tragic role in the film’s final scenes. 

Yes, there are a stunning number of coincidences in this story — way too many to be at all credible. On this evening, not only is Stubby out aiding and abetting the villainous Stewart, but John Kelly Sr. is also on the beat, patrolling the same mean streets of “Chi Town,” as his son.

Adding to the strangeness of this remarkable confluence of Kelly family members is Johnny Jr.’s patrol car partner on this nerve shattering evening, a sergeant who will only identify himself as Joe (Chill Wills). His voice sounds remarkably like the one that narrates the film’s opening scenes, which is meant to be the voice of Chicago — a rather strange device if there ever was one. 

As they drive together, Joe gives Johnny sound advice about life and codes of conduct, none of which the younger patrolman is in the mood to hear. Might he have listened more closely if he realized it was the city itself offering sage advice? Probably not.

Marie Windsor

A network of love triangles help this heated pot of soup boil over: Biddel learns that Stewart is having an affair with his wife, Lydia (Marie Windsor); robotic man Gregg Warren (Wally Cassell) is smitten with Angel Face, who is in love with Johnny; meanwhile, dancer Agnes DuBois (Bunny Kacher) is sweet on Gregg, but he hardly knows she’s alive.

We learn that the source of Johnny’s turmoil is two-fold: he became a police officer to please his father and he dislikes the job; he wants more money, not because he’s particularly materialistic, but because his wife earns more than he does and that hurts his pride. Successful women in the workplace were a threat to 1950s American men, it seems, and Johnny’s ego is wounded deeply enough to make him want to pull up stakes and head for the hills.

Meanwhile, over the course of his last shift, Johnny delivers a baby and busts up a rigged craps game, returning money to the swindled gamblers. He realizes, with the help of Joe’s words of wisdom, that he’s playing a useful role in the community and that it’s essential that he salvage his marriage before it’s too late.

That’s not the harbinger of doom that many would demand of noir. Some will say it’s not noir, but so what? As Sara Smith suggested in her thought provoking book, “In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City,” noir can be evaluated by the noir elements it contains, much like the way alcohol is rated by proof. Not all noirs contain all of the elements associated with the genre, and some are more noir than others. Noir or not, call “City that Never Sleeps” what you want; it’s an entertaining crime story.

Now, it’s time to talk about two silly little points from this movie that jump out at me.

First, it’s New York, not Chicago that’s known as the “city that never sleeps,” but I suppose “The Windy City” isn’t a very noir title.  

Secondly, toward the end of the film someone gets shot in a very public space, a hotel room. We’ve all seen this in films and TV shows, old and new. The shooter never seems to expect that anyone will hear the very loud gunfire and call the cops, and in the movies and TV they usually don’t. In “City that Never Sleeps” a shooter reasons that people will probably think it’s just a car backfiring (right, that’s always my first thought). 

I’m not a firearms expert, but I suspect that discharging a weapon inside a public building would attract attention — a whole lot of attention — like firing a cannon or riding a horse through the lobby.

It’s just another one of those “only in the movies” moments that just seems to wash over us without making a dent in the conscious mind. Sure, it’s strange, but I’m willing to give the shooter a pass on this one.