They Shoot Horses, Don't They? - 1969 film review

Horace McCoy's excellent Thirties novel, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? was turned into an equally good film in 1969 by Sydney Pollack. The book is short, and the film is long (perhaps too long), but in different ways they present a chilling story about a dance marathon of the kind that was popular in Depression era America.

We might be tempted to feel rather superior about the behaviour of the contestants, organisers, and audiences of these dreadful events, when people half-killed themselves dancing for hour after hour in the hope of winning cash prizes - until we realise that in many ways the marathons were simply forerunners of the modern reality TV show. They appeal to much the same instincts.

The excellent cast includes the likes of Bruce Dern, in an early role, Red Buttons, and Michael Sarrazin, but there are three stand-outs. Two are contestants - Jane Fonda and Susannah York - both of whom give superb performances. York was nominated for an Oscar, and must have been dismayed not to have won. Like Fonda, she was such a beautiful woman that perhaps her very considerable acting talents tended to be under-estimated. One person who did win an Oscar was Gig Young, who plays the deeply unpleasant M.C. Again, his is an outstanding performance. But Young's story was a very sad one: he was an alcoholic who, six years after this film was made, murdered his fifth and latest wife and then killed himself.

I first saw this film a long time ago. If anything, I liked it even more the second time around. It's a very powerful story, and despite the movie's length, I think it shows Pollack's great ability as a film director. And it's a reminder of what a compelling and interesting writer McCoy was. Few books give quite such a memorable insight into life during the Depression, and the same can be said of this very watchable film.

Three Days of the Condor

Three Days of the Condor was a successful 1975 thriller movie, which I saw when it first came out in my long ago student days. I enjoyed it very much at that time, and wondered how it would stand up to a second viewing in 2012, especially as the techno-thriller aspects of the story-line have inevitably been overtaken by time. The answer was that it remains very watchable indeed, a real credit to the excellent director, the late Sydney Pollack, many of whose films I've enjoyed.

The story is based on the debut novel of James Grady (someone I've never read); the book is called Six Days of the Condor. The cast is superb, with Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway as glamorous leads, and Max Von  Sydow as a suitably enigmatic assassin. John Houseman plays a minor part as a senior CIA man with his customary gusto.

The set-up is terrific. Redford is a nerdy researcher at a strange kind of library in New York, and just because he pops out of a basement exit to avoid the rain while getting a quick bite to eat, he is lucky enough to escape an attack by a group of gunmen who burst into his workplace and mow down everyone there. Within minutes, Redford is on the run. It turns out that he is in fact a researcher for the CIA. But one of his superiors seeks to lure him into a fatal trap. It seems he can trust no-one.

He therefore kidnaps Faye Dunaway in an attempt to get away - a very good choice of victim, not least because they fall for each other, and she helps him to fight back against those who are out to kill him. We move into fairly standard conspiracy thriller territory, but the pace is well maintained, and although I had some reservations about the later scenes,and the assassin's behaviour, the ending is pleasingly ambiguous.Good entertainment.