They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969)

 The plot of this film was excellent though the character development was beyond weak.

Jane Fonda earns her first Oscar nomination for her indefatigable Gloria Beatty, hellbent on winning a dance marathon. Focusing on the dance marathons that apparently swept the country during the Great Depression, these pushed people to the limits forcing them to move until they dropped (quite literally). How the amount of couples survived as long as they did is beyond me as it appears that you only got a ten minute break every two hours but still the marathon continued for at least a month and a half. 

Now of course Gloria has a dance partner and that is last minute fill-in, Robert Syverton (the attractive Michael Sarrazin) and in what appear to be flashbacks, he's served time in prison (this twist shook me) but you barely get to know either of them, literally nothing more than their hometowns and Gloria's dashed dreams of being an actress. We don't know what Robert did for a living. Some of the supporting characters are even more developed. 

Gloria goes through three different partners over the course of the film, one of whom literally dies on her during the wretched and inhumane sprints, and then she finds out that everything's a lie. If you win, they  deduct the expenses from the winning total. And that must be some total as the contestants are fed seven times a day, and there is the music to consider, almost always a live band is on hand. Still, it makes no sense as the contestants get sponsorships and tickets and concessions are sold daily. So Gloria quits the contest and I don't blame her as the whole thing is rigged and when she asks Robert to shoot her, he obliges. So the scenes I thought were flashbacks are actually flash forwards which gave the film some much needed spark. 

While this film had a great premise and excellent acting and though I hate remakes, I feel that this would have worked better as a mini series so we could truly know the characters and get tons more development as the film suffered mightily because of it. However, the set (the dance floor) was great and the twist clever. Grade: B+

Side Notes:

-There are two excellent supporting characters: Gig Young as the MC with whom Gloria has a checkered (albeit unknown) past. He also tries to liven up the marathon unnecessarily and asks Robert and Gloria to get married so the crowd has something else to root for. Susannah York is great as the British actress who has a breakdown after Red Button's sailor suffers a fatal heart attack though the MC refuses to admit it to the fellow dancers or the audience but it's obvious.

-Another great supporting couple is Bruce Dern and Bonnie Bedelia as married couple James and Ruby. She's pregnant but powers through everything. She's also far more naïve and doesn't even know how pregnant she is when asked. 

-Crazy as it seems, some of the dancers get discovered by Hollywood and actually get a true career out of the whole thing. 

-I have no idea how it is possible for these dancers to sleep standing up.