Tony Maietta:
 Hello, I'm film historian Tony Maietta

Brad Shreve:
 And I'm Brad Shreve, who's just a guy who likes movies. 

Tony Maietta:
 We discuss movies and television from Hollywood's golden age. We go behind the scenes and share our opinions too. 

Brad Shreve:
 And, of course, being the average guy, my opinions are the ones that matter,

Tony Maietta: 
 as does your self-delusion. 

Welcome to Going Hollywood. 

Brad, I want to start this episode a little differently, which is funny to say because we never started the same way. But I want to do something here. If you'll let me, I want to steal one of your bits. I want to tell what I want to give the background of what was going on in the world at the time of this film. Can I do that? Well, I don't know what I want to give the background of what was going on in the world at the time of this film. Can I do that? 

Brad Shreve:
 Well, I don't know what else I'll talk about, but go ahead. 

Tony Maietta:
 Well, this film was being developed. First of all, we're talking about. They Shoot Horses, don't they? From ABC International Films in 1969. This film was being developed in 68. Films in 1969. This film was being developed in 68. And 68 was kind of unofficially known as the summer of hate. In 67, we had the summer of love and now in 68, we have the summer of hate, mostly because of all the widespread unrest and violence. I mean, you had the assassinations of Martin Luther King, you had the assassination of Robert F Kennedy, there were anti-war protests growing and increasingly violent, and street protests, social upheaval, you know, yippies and yupp, being the up-to-date, forward-looking, hip organization that it always is came out with their list of nominees for the five best films of 1969. And I'm going to read them off to you. Okay, they were Midnight Cowboy, which won no-transcript, new kind of Western Z, a French political thriller directed by Costa Gavras, anne of a Thousand Days for a little pedigree there and the film that really spoke to the times. Yes, the one you've been waiting for, hello Dolly

Brad Shreve:
  Yes, one of Barb's best movies. 

Tony Maietta:
 So here are our five nominees for best films, and I want to play that little game we played way back when we did our Green Acres episode last year from Sesame Street. Which of these things does not belong here? 

Brad Shreve:
 Running through the list again in my head. Hello, Dolly Midnight Cowboy in my head, Hello. 

Tony Maietta:
 Dolly Midnight Cowboy. What was it? 

Brad Shreve:
 Hello Dolly. 

Tony Maietta:
 Yes, Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding ding, Of course, Hello Dolly. 

Brad Shreve:
 It's the one that sucks, 

Tony Maietta:
 you have the first X-rated film to win Best Picture. And you have Hello Dolly. And the reason I'm bringing this up it's no shade to Hello Dolly. I actually like Hello Dolly, so I never do Barbara Shade, unless it is Star is Born. But the reason I bring it up is because very easily and very much should have slipped into this little slot. Where Hello Dolly is is our film of today. They Shoot Horses, don't they? And the reason I'm bringing this up is because, as you know, they Shoot Horses, don't they. Received five Academy Award nominations but not one for Best Picture. It's the reverse of Grand Hotel. We just talked about Grand Hotel getting Best Picture and nothing else. They Shoot Horses, don't they? The exact reverse. And it holds the record for obtaining the most Oscar nominations without receiving one for Best Picture, which is insane, don't you think, 

Brad Shreve:
 yeah, it's funny because I'm looking at the list and it's like all these people did a great job, but I guess not the movie's so good. 

Tony Maietta:
 So all these fantastic performances and direction, but the movie's not worth, not when you have Hello Dolly not when you have Barbara and Walter Matthau. No, anyway, it's our way of, it's my way of introducing this unintroducible film, I guess because it's so to me in my life. I love this film. It's in my top 10, definitely, and I so excited to talk to you all about it today shall I just lay it on the line now please, because I don't want to pull the plug on this podcast halfway through. 

Brad Shreve:
 I'm absolutely shocked I’ve never seen this movie, and I think it's because of the title. It just never. Despite hearing how good this movie is, it just the titles turned me off and I knew it was never about horses. I knew it was a metaphor for something, I didn't know what, yeah, but it just turned me off. I don't know if I'll ever watch this again. It reminds me of Schindler's List in the sense that they're two very, very different movies, but I don't know if I'll ever watch either again, but to me they're both masterpieces. This movie gave me chills. It was so good, I was in awe and I'm like. 

Tony Maietta:
 I'm getting chills hearing you say that. Yes, and I will say through much of it I kept thinking, oh my god I'm glad I'm getting. 

Brad Shreve:
 I'm getting chills hearing you say that. Yes, and I will say, through much of it I kept thinking, oh my God, I'm glad. Um, jane Fonda redeemed herself after Barbarella the year before. It's hard to imagine it's the same person we're going to talk about that. 

Tony Maietta:
 We're going to talk about that. I did see. 

Brad Shreve:
 Barbarella one time and I'll. I wish I could erase it from my mind. Actually, I don't remember the details, I just remember it was extremely painful. I don't think I finished it, which is rare for me, I just it. Just when it ended, I just sat here and I'm like wow. 

Tony Maietta:
 Yeah, it kind of leaves you that way. It does kind of leave you that way. Well, I think then we should talk about this film and what this film is about. And I'm not surprised you had, because this film was unavailable for many, many years Because the company that owned the distribution, Cinerama, went bankrupt and a lot of these films that they had released were unavailable and it was a lot of legal wrangling. But we'll get to that after we talk about the film. 

Brad Shreve:
 When I started looking for this film, I started crying because I'm like I can't find this film anywhere. I'm really strict about making sure, if it's out legally, that you know the people that are due get their payment. But I gave, I was just about to give up and then it's all over YouTube. 

Tony Maietta:
 I'm sure it's not going to surprise you that I had this movie on VHS. 

Brad Shreve:
 Well, that doesn't surprise me. 

Tony Maietta:
 I had this movie on Laserdisc. There's a beautiful box set Laserdisc and children. For those of you who don't know what Laserdiscs are, look it up. I'm not going to spend time telling you. 

Brad Shreve:
 It's like a big DVD. 

Tony Maietta:
 They probably don't know what DVDs are A big, big, big laser disc signed by Sidney Pollack, which I love and treasure, and of course I had the DVDs, I had the Blu-rays. I got it all because I love this movie so much, this movie to me on so many levels, because it's. I guess we should start saying what it's about. And since we talked about Jane a bit, I kind of want to put it in Jane's words. Jane talked about her feelings about this movie a lot in her book and she, which Jane Fonda said was she said this film is an existential story. That used the marathon dances of the depression as a metaphor for the greed and manipulativeness of America's consumer society. Now, that's from the lady herself. 

Brad Shreve:
 And that is brilliant. I would have given more of a standard on the surface description, because we're going to get into the other stuff. 

Tony Maietta:
 Yeah, but I want to say too, there's a lot of hoity-toity descriptions of this film online. You know they talk about that. Talk about it as a grim allegory for the dehumanizing nature of capitalism. You know it's people. The tagline of this movie was people are the ultimate spectacle and you know it didn't start with the squid game, people. It started with this. People are the ultimate spectacle because it is. It's about a dance marathon at the darkest year of the Depression, 1932. We've already talked about that and the desperation that people were in to simply survive, putting themselves on display kind of like, you know, in Roman times, with the gladiators and the Christians and all that. It's very much like that, except it's set in air. Quotes modern day America. 

Brad Shreve:
 You took the words out of my mouth. I sat there thinking I am watching gladiators. I am watching people enjoying cruelty and degradation of other individuals. 

Tony Maietta:
 Yeah, exactly, exactly. 

Brad Shreve:
 We haven't come that far. 

Tony Maietta:
 No, we haven't. 

Brad Shreve:
 We haven't. 

Tony Maietta:
 And the book they Shoot Horses, don't they? On which this film is based, by Horace McCoy, was actually written in 1934. So it was written two days after the film takes place, so it's very contemporary telling. Now there's a lot of differences between the book and the film, which we'll talk about, but I think what's important is that you know, in my mind this film's always been the last dance, because in every respect it was the last dance for so many of these people. They were so desperate. Think about it no Social Security, no unemployment insurance. Herbert Hoover was still president, so FDR hadn't begun the New Deal yet. These people were in a fight for survival, and that's what this film is about. These people are literally fighting to survive on the dance floor and in life, and it's a brilliant, brilliant allegory for that. 

Brad Shreve:
 And I want to put things in perspective, because I'd always heard about the dance marathons and you know they were torturous and people would occasionally die and and uh, that's why they put laws into place to to prevent these things from being made today. They have to give a certain number of breaks and that sort of thing. But when I watched this movie I thought this is, this is kind of over the top, I think. So I did a little research. It's true, there is nothing exaggerated in this movie. 

Tony Maietta:
 Not at all. 

Brad Shreve:
 I was like no, I mean, everything was described in detail, just like in this film. I'm like oh, this is. It made me sad for society. It made me disgusted, just disgusted, and it gave me, you know, what it? Reminds me of my favorite book and I've told you this before because I cannot watch the movie, because the novel is so ingrained in my head and it's a painful, beautiful read the Grapes of Wrath. 

Tony Maietta:
 Well, yeah. 

Brad Shreve:
 And this reminds me of that you just feel the pain and the struggle. 

Tony Maietta:
 You don't think Robert is a version of Tom Joad. 

Brad Shreve:
 Yes. 

Tony Maietta:
 Jane Fonda certainly thought so. You know she saw him and she went. Oh my God, you look like my father in the Grapes of Wrath. 

Brad Shreve:
 Yeah, that's why I don't watch the Grapes of Wrath, because I don't want to see those people. I have those pictures in my head. 

Tony Maietta:
 My favorite description of this movie is this People going round and round in a closed world and, in the end, being exploited and winding up with nothing. Now, I'm not sure where I read that. I think I actually might have written it, but anyway, that's my favorite because that's it in a nutshell. They're going round and round in this closed world and in the end, after hours and hours and days of struggle to achieve, they find out there's nothing. It's the ultimate Chinatown. I also thought of that, Brad, the futility of life. 

Brad Shreve:
 Here was my description, which is much different it's a brutal dance marathon. I wrote this out last night. It's a brutal dance marathon where desperate people push themselves to the limit for prize money. Jane Fonda's glory is a woman whose bitterness matches the grind of the contest, while Gig Young's slick MC turns their suffering into entertainment Raw hunting and unforgettable. I wrote that right after I watched the film. That's good. 

Tony Maietta:
 You should be a writer, Brad. 

Brad Shreve:
 It's been so long since my last novel people are wondering when I ever was one anyway. 

Tony Maietta:
 So, as we said before, these marathons really did happen. There were a lot of marathons in Los Angeles. This marathon is based on a real ballroom, the Aragon Ballroom in Santa Monica, which was a real place where these dance marathons happened. It actually appears in movies later on, on the beach at Santa Monica, basically at land's end, kind of like the end of the world, is where this is happening and all these people are at the end of their world. Most of them, most of them, are so desperate and that's why they're thinking I'm going to stay awake, moving for hour after hour after hour in order to win a prize of $1,500 at the very end. Now, $1,500, I looked it up, is this correct? $1,500 on 32 is about $35,000 today, somewhere around there. 

Brad Shreve:
 It sounds about right and I would say that it's probably more than that when you consider people were penniless. So it may be equal money-wise, but considering the state of people it would be a million. I mean, it's just. You know, as I said, the guy had 17 cents in his pocket. No, exactly, exactly, he was hoping he could get seamstress to do some work. So that puts things in perspective. 

Tony Maietta:
 And where does the story take place? It takes place in Hollywood, Of course, because so many of these people at this time flooded Hollywood to get into the movies, to become movie stars, and everyone to a minute. Gloria can't even get into central casting. Now, for people who don't know, central casting casts extras. We're not talking about even getting a speaking role. She couldn't even get a job as an extra. Doesn't make me feel so bad about my acting career hearing that to tell you the truth, because I got more than extra work, but you know what? It's incredible. So the desperation of these people to simply survive is astounding. So I want to go into the background of this, the backstory of how this all came about. The film they Shoot Horses, don't they? Is that good we good with doing that? 

Brad Shreve:
 Sure, I'm okay with that. Okay. 

Tony Maietta:
 So, as I said, it was based on the book by Horace McCoy, which was written in 35. And in the book it's kind of interesting back to the movie theme the main characters meet outside Paramount Studios and they decide neither one of them get a job, decide neither one of them get a job. Robert wants a job as a director and Gloria wants a job as an actress. And they decide to go to this marathon because they're both so desperate and they sign up together. Now in the film they meet at the dance marathon, which I think is much better. But anyway, that's the way the book starts. And at the end of the book remind me, I'll tell you the end of the story. It's different in the book than it is in the movie as well, and again, I think the movie is a better ending. 

So this film has a long and complicated backstory, so I am simply going to hit on the highlights, because this property had many takers over its long gestation. Think about it this book was written in 35. This film is in 69, you know, 34 years there, somewhere around that time frame for this film to be made. So did you know, Brad, that it was actually optioned by our friend of the pod? We just talked about him not too long ago, norman Lloyd? 

No, I didn't know, that he purchased the rights to this book in the early 50s as a project for he and Chaplin. Chaplin was going to produce it, he was going to direct it and he wanted to cast Chaplin's son, Sidney. Sidney Chaplin and a young star that we've also talked about this season not too long ago, a certain Marilyn Monroe. Now, that's pretty interesting. That is pretty interesting. That really is Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn as Gloria. Pretty interesting that is pretty interesting Marilyn Monroe. 

17:45

Marilyn as Gloria, I think she would have been brilliant. But let's not go down that road because we'll be here forever. 

Chaplin's problems with the INS see, there were problems back then with the INS Chaplin's problems with the INS put a pause on the project and it was finally canceled. He wasn't allowed back in the country, basically after he left, because of his alleged communist leanings, which was total bullshit. So the rights lapsed and the McCoys refused to renew it to Norman Lloyd again. 

So it was eventually purchased by wait for it, a company called Palomar Pictures, which was pretty interesting, with producers Robert Chardoff and Erwin Winkler attached and writer James Poe, who was a screenwriter but he also wanted to direct it. Now this is where it kind of gets murky, okay, because somehow a former agent named Martin Baum wormed his way into this and he was now the head of ABC Pictures International and the project was brought to ABC. Now you can be forgiven for not knowing that ABC had a film division, because it lasted for about a minute, a little bit longer than a minute, but it's a subsidiary of ABC Television. And what happened was they purchased the David O Selznick Film Library, which sounds great, except you remember that didn't include Gone with the Wind, because MGM had Gone with the Wind. 

Brad Shreve:
 I did not know that. And when it popped up, when the film started and it said ABC, I'm like damn it, this is a TV version of the movie. I was really pissed off. And then I noticed it said film studios or something. I'm like okay, we're going to give it a try here. I was relieved. 

Tony Maietta:
 No, it was the film division, and they produced a few films, some of which were really noteworthy films. A few made a profit. There was Charlie, the Killing of Sister George, which features a star of this film. Take the Killing of Sister George, which features a star of this film. Take the Money and Run, and a big one you might have heard of called Cabaret. Oh, so yeah, they produced Cabaret, but the film, the studio, shut down in 72. You know it? Just, there was no money in it, and so this film that was then released by Cinerama Releasing Corporation which, as I said, went bankrupt. So the rights of the film were all over the place. 

James Poe wrote the script on spec to be his first film as a director, I said, and nobody was happy with this first script. It was too melodramatic. They said they wanted it to skew closer to the book. And they all realized that James Poe was out of his depth as a director and nobody was happy with him. But here's the problem he brought Jane Fonda on. 

Now I'll get into Jane Fonda's background with this. But Jane Fonda felt obligated to him. But Jane Fonda had director approval and this was the key. So Winkler and Baum thought there's got to be a way we can get him off this project because it's just not working. So they arranged for Poe to direct some tests with Fonda and another actress, possibly Bonnie Bedelia, to see how she felt about him as a director, and then she agreed he needed to be replaced. So he was out and they had to find a new director. So the considerations were they thought of William Friedkin, bob Fosse and a director that Erwin Winkler had worked with before, named Sidney Pollack, and Pollack is the one who got the job. This was only his fourth film, but he got the job. 

Brad Shreve:
 That's pretty amazing. 

Tony Maietta:
 That's a lot of background, that's a lot of background on that we talked a bit about Pollock when we were talking about Tootsie, Do you remember? Because Sidney Pollock directed Tootsie yes yes. 

Brad Shreve:
 A much different film. 

Tony Maietta:
 Well, yes and no. You know I love Pollock. Pollock's one of my favorite directors. The great thing about Pollock was is that Pollock was a former actor. He was actually an acolyte of Sanford Meisner, who was one of the big three from the group theater, with Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler. So he knew actors and actors love Sidney Pollock. 

He began directing in 1960 at the suggestion of Burt Lancaster. He was directing mostly TV, but after that, in 62, he was in a film called the War Hunt as an actor and he met one of his co-actors, a lifelong friend and collaborator named Robert Redford, who he worked with frequently. So he began directing television. He made his directing debut in 65 in the Slender Thread and, like William Wyler, directing debut in 65 in the Slender Thread and, like William Wyler, actors as I said, actors loved working with Pollock. He led a number of them to Oscar nominations 12. But unlike Wyler, he didn't harangue his actors into good performances. He had been an actor. He understood, he knew how to talk to actors and out of to a man. Everyone who's ever worked with Pollock said that. Streisand said that, jane Fonda said that. Michael Sarazin said that he knew how to deal with actors in a way that would help them give their best performance, and I think these performances are phenomenal to a T in this film, don't you? 

Brad Shreve:
 Yeah, everyone in this film just blew me away. I guess this is what I was going to talk about earlier. Gig Young, because when we talked about Blazing Sides, you were explaining to me that Gig Young had the Waco Kid. 

Tony Maietta:
 Yeah, it was Waco Kid, Waco Kid. 

Brad Shreve:
 Yeah, he was booted because of being so drunk on the first day and we know that at the end he killed himself and his wife and it's very tragic. And I watched this movie and he was so damn good I'm like it was hard for me to even imagine and deeply saddened that that all happened to him. 

Tony Maietta:
 So Gig Young plays Rocco, who is the emcee, if you will, of the film, who's always saying Yowza, Yowza, Yowza, yes, and I've always wondered what Yowza Yowza, Yowza meant. 

Brad Shreve:
 Do you know what it means, brad? I looked up Yowza last night and it's oh, now I forget. I couldn't find Yowza, yowza, yowza, but I did find Yowza. Well, yowza, yowza, yowza, but I did find Yowza. 

Tony Maietta:
 Well, yowza, yowza, yowza was a popular expression in the 30s on radio. Young actually patterned his character after a band leader and a radio personality named Ben Burney and that was his famous catchphrase was Yowza, yowza Yowza. It basically means oh, wow, yes, sir, step on, you know what I mean. It's to get your attention. Yowza, yowza, yowza. Yeah, I would like to talk about Gig Young, because this was so unusual for Gig Young, kind of like Red Buttons you know we talked about Red Buttons in the Poseidon Adventure. He was a comic, he was a singer, he had variety shows on TV, kind of changed his image when he did this dramatic part in Sayonara in 1957 and won a supporting actor Oscar. Same thing with Gig Young. Okay, gig Young, he had a reputation as a boozy charmer, well established both professionally and in real life. At this point. I mean, his reputation as an alcoholic preceded him, but he was a charming alcoholic and his characters he did films like Desk Set, teacher's Pet Old Acquaintance. He usually played the man who didn't get the leading lady at the end, but he was charming as hell. So he had a very lightweight reputation. Is because Marty Baum, who was the head of ABC that we talked about earlier, who brought this thing to ABC Films, was a former agent and he represented Gig Young and he also represented Red Buttons and Susanna York and he pushed for the casting. Now that was a real risk because, like I said, he had this reputation of being an alcoholic. This just wasn't his persona of being an alcoholic. This just wasn't his persona. This kind of seedy, gross, you know, emcee of this. He's a little bit like the emcee in Cabaret, you know what I mean. He keeps the thing together and he's really seedy and questionable. 

But Pollock agreed to meet with Gig Young just to get it over with, but Gig Young had the flu. Do you know this story? Just to get it over with, but Gig Young had the flu. Do you know this story? Gig Young had the flu and he didn't want to come and Pollock was under time pressure. He says, no, I have to see you today. I have to see you today. So Gig Young came to the reading with the flu, shaky, seedy, looking green, and Pollock's like oh my God, that's Rocco, you're cast. I mean. So, you never know, never say no to an audition, go if you're sick, because it might be exactly what the director is looking for and it was, and he's brilliant in this and, as we said, he won the only Academy Award this film received, as Best Supporting Actor. 

Brad Shreve:
 It's well-deserved and it's funny because you talked about how charming he was. He was such a disgusting vile person in this role and it really showed when he was the emcee in front of the stage. He was gregarious. 

Tony Maietta:
 Yeah, charming. 

Brad Shreve:
 But all in the time that he's exploiting these people. And then behind the scenes you see he's just scum. But there were. He was not black and white, he had shades, a lot of shades of gray as time went on. I'm like wow. And when he was in the showers with trying to coax Alice out of her mental state, he was very charming, yeah. 

Tony Maietta:
 Oh yeah, no, he could totally turn him on. Well, he was, it's that manufactured star. He was a manufactured star. He was a manufactured star in real life. I mean, believe it or not, he wasn't born Gig Young. He was born Byron Ellsworth Barr and he was actually billed under Byron Ellsworth Barr for his first few films, until he was in a movie called the Gay Sisters, and the character he played in that film was called, was named Gig Young and Jack Warner's. Like I like that name, you're now Gig Young. And there you go, hollywood. Should we talk about some of the other brilliant actors in this? 

Brad Shreve:
 Well, I want to go back to Red Buttons

Tony Maietta:
 Well, why don't we just give a list of the people and their characters and we can do it that way? 

Brad Shreve:
 And then we'll get into depth about them. 

Tony Maietta:
 So you want to run down the cast on this. Wannabe, yeah, wannabe. 

Brad Shreve:

But she couldn't even get to central casting and she has teamed up with Michael Sarazin, who plays Robert, and they are dance partners through most of this film. Susanna York plays Alice. She's a bombshell, looks very much like a Marilyn Monroe wannabe, even though this was before Marilyn. 

Tony Maietta:
 Monroe, it's a Jean Harlow. Jean Harlow, yeah, there you go. 

Brad Shreve:
 And then we have Gig Young, who was Rocky, as you said. Red Buttons played Harry Klein. He was the oldest of the bunch. Actually, it looked like he lied about it. He lied about his age. He was a former sailor, he had experienced all this before. I found him very interesting. Bonnie Bedelia played Ruby and I haven't mentioned Bruce Dern, but she was Bruce Dern's dance partner and she was really—Bonnie Bedelia, I don't think has ever gotten the credit she needs. She is such a good actress. 

Tony Maietta:
 She hasn't. 

Brad Shreve:
 She did a great job here, and I just don't think she was given enough time to shine the way she should have. Oh, I think she's wonderful. 

Tony Maietta:
 This is only her second film too. She's a very, very young, very pregnant uh, young woman in this film doing a dance marathon with her husband who's played by bruce stern, and, like the others, the pain and suffering that she gave us as the audience was just it was chilling. I got a lot to say about Bonnie Bedelia. 

Brad Shreve:
 Then we have Bruce Dern, who kind of we didn't really know a lot about other than he kept trying to push Bonnie Bedelia. And those are the main ones I can think of. 

Tony Maietta:
 Those are. There's one more that I just want to know if you I'm sure you recognize him. 

Brad Shreve:

I did, and you know we're talking about he played. Turkey. 

Tony Maietta:
 Yes, we're talking about Turkey, who was played by Al Lewis, who played Grandpa Munster. 

Brad Shreve:
 Yes, when he first came on I said that guy looks a lot like Al Lewis. But I didn't think it was because they had a skin so shiny and his mannerisms were so different. I was convinced this is a guy that looks and he's got a very unique look. I'm like, well, you don't see many guys that look like him and of course, in the end it's him with hardly any words in the film, which disappointed me. 

Tony Maietta:
 You know it's so funny because Al Lewis you know he lived until 2006?. 

Brad Shreve:
 Yes, I mean, it's incredible. Yes, I actually looked at his background after watching this. It was very interesting. 

Tony Maietta:
 It's so funny Al Lewis, and one of the funniest things is because everybody thinks of him as Grandpa Munster. I mean, they just can't get around that. But do you know? Jane Fonda said that he would come into her trailer during the shooting and they would talk politics. 

Brad Shreve:
 Oh yeah, I knew he was big in politics. 

Tony Maietta:
 You don't think of Grandpa Munster and Jane Fonda and Hanoi Jane sitting and talking politics 

Brad Shreve:
 But that's just like Adam West, and probably neither had much of a choice. But rather than like a lot of the people on Gilligan's Island that were bitter at their typecasting, they both embraced their typecasting. They're like nothing, we can get around it. He actually asked to be put on the ballot when he ran for governor of New York as Grandpa Smart guy and the court turned him down, but he's like that's how everybody knows me. 

Tony Maietta:
 Well, and he worked until the two thousands. 

Uh, the woman you were thinking of, um, as dance partner with Bruce Stern was Ellen McCleary. She played Cheryl and she's the redhead and she's. She has a wonderful scene where she goes through the. It's a wonderful scene where she goes through the, she's hallucinating because they've been dancing for hundreds of hours and she begins to hallucinate. She's a wonderful scene. So, if you want to, let's go back to the top here and we'll start to to break down these people that work for you. 

Brad Shreve:
 Yowza, yowza, yowza, let's do it. 

Tony Maietta:
 All right. Well, we got to start at the top, and this and this one's a big one. So this is. I'm gonna try to be very succinct, but it's very hard to be succinct. When you talk about this woman, this icon, this shining light I don't care what anybody says in the world and that is Ms Jane Fonda. Lady Jane Fonda, born to you, might've heard of him, an actor called Henry Fonda, so I just wanna touch briefly on where Jane Fonda was at this point in her life. I'm not going to go into the background. 

Believe me, if you want details, I highly, highly, highly recommend her book. It's called my Life in Three Acts. It is an amazing read. It's on Audible, so Jane Fonda reads to you for hours which I was in heaven, and there's also a fabulous HBO documentary about it. So if you want that detail, watch that. But suffice it to say that this film was really the beginning of her great acting years. This is the first film in which she felt she was working on a film that was relevant to current issues and not peripheral to them. It was a real seminal experience for her because, as we said, the film she made right before this was what Brad. 

Brad Shreve:
 Barbarella, another classic film, but for a whole different reason, in a different way. 

Tony Maietta:
 Barbarella. I love that theme song. Now she had done some good films before this. She had done Cat Baloo. She'd been working since 1960 making films. 

She was living in France at this time. She just had a baby and she was married to the director, roger Vadim, who directed her in Barbarella. And it's interesting because, you know, we have this idea of Roger, of Roger Vadim. It's kind of like this misogynistic hedonist. But he urged her to do this film when she got the script. Did you know that? I find that fascinating that he knew she had to do this and he was smart. He was smart, he was very smart about it and it appealed to her because her political awakening was just happening at this time in France through her friend Sinon Signoret, and she was just becoming politically aware. Now, obviously, she took that and ran with it. But this was the beginning of it and she was looking around her and the world around her she was seeing of 1968, 1969 was falling apart and she knew she had to do some work that was a little more meaningful. So she was not happy with the script, as nobody was. 

What is amazing is is that when Poe left and she's like you're right, he needs to go and they brought on Pollock. She said it was relevatory for her because Pollock was the first director to ever ask her opinion. Isn't that astounding? This woman had made a dozen films at this point and even her husband, roger Vadim, never came to her and asked her for her opinion. And she said this was the beginning of her. You know, she eventually became a kick-ass producer of her own films and this is where it began. But she was also very, very frightened because she had never been challenged like this before. You know, this is a tough character. She said it was very hard for her not to be nice and that was one of the big challenges, she said. But Pollock worked with her and put her through this. And the character of Gloria it's right up there with Diana Christensen in Network, don't you think, as being totally unapologetically raw and kind of ruthless first came on, I'm like, wow, I hate to keep going back to it. 

Brad Shreve:
 It was astounding to me that this was just after Barbarella. And when she first came out, I've never seen her so beautiful. I didn't even I knew Jane Fonda was the star of this film and I didn't recognize her. When she first came out I just thought, well, that's a beautiful woman. And then when she started talking, I heard her voice. I'm like, oh good Lord, that, oh good Lord, that's Jane Fonda. Later, when she looked so horrible, you could see more of her face. 

Tony Maietta:
 Do you know she still had her Barbarella hair when she was making this Hair is a big thing to Jane Fonda, and she still had her Barbarella hair when she did this movie. Now I don't know if Cindy Gillaroff cut it for this or that's a wig, I'm never sure but yeah, she was still very much. She was just coming out of that Barbarella cocoon with Roger Padilla her portrayal of this character. 

Brad Shreve:
 When she first started, I'm like, wow, she's doing a really good job. This is a very unlikable character, but she's believable because typically when you have somebody that's that evil um, just like Faye Dunaway even though it's probably my favorite movie it's um for lack of a better word cartoonish, you know, a little over the top. I wasn't feeling that with her. I'm like this is just a woman that's angry because she's bitter. And then I was like, well, she's starting to push it too far. Then now it's becoming unbelievable. And then when I started to really feel her pain and her anger, it all came back to me. I loved this role. I just loved her. 

Tony Maietta:
 I loved hating her in the beginning, I think Pollock hit the nail on the head. When Pollock described Gloria, he said she's not tough, she's petrified. Yes, and that's the difference. Perfect, that defense mechanism she has is what? 

because she's so scared. She's kind of across and I should clarify this when I mentioned Diana Christensen. She's kind of across between Diana Christensen and you know who, beth Jarrett from Ordinary People, two characters, beth Jarrett and Gloria so wounded by life and by what life has done with them that they put up an armor, they put up a shell. They're different shells and they both crack. And that's what's so interesting. Diana Christensen has no vulnerability whatsoever. Jane Fonda does. Jane Fonda shows her vulnerability in this movie, especially at the end. 

Brad Shreve:
 Well, and that's where I'm going to give your, give your criticism, where you say she's like Faye Dunaway. Faye Dunaway, we never knew why she was the way she was. And this character. As the movie progressed and you, you really started feeling like she. That was her defense mechanism against the world. Oh yeah. 

Tony Maietta:
 Well, you get little hints of her previous life and how horrible it must have been and how you know coming to Los Angeles to be a star was like a last effort for her. She was escaping from a really horrible life you can imagine, with sexual abuse and physical abuse and just horrible things. But she's not like Joan Crawford in that she actually became a star. She couldn't even get into central casting, which is so sad. 

Brad Shreve:
 Her hardness and her cruelty towards others for lack of a better word was her defense mechanism. It's like I can't become close? 

Tony Maietta:
 She can't. She's a fatalist, which I think is interesting because you get the clues all through the movie. She's always talking about death in this film. 

And if you've watched this film, if you haven't, spoiler alert, all right, we can go now. She ends up dead in the end, killed by robert, killed by at her request, but we'll get to that. But you get the clues of that ending all throughout this movie. This was so brilliant about this script. She's always talking about death. She's talking about rat poison. She accosts Bonnie Bedelia's character about keeping her baby. She gets really interested in the story Robert's telling her about this movie, about the girl with a brain tumor, which was actually Dark Victory, which was in 1939, but never mind. And when the matrons tells her to wait to rest, during her rest break, to go to sleep, she says why I just wake up. I mean, you get those little signals that this is a fatalist, this character is. It's not going to end well for Gloria and and it doesn't, it doesn't, yeah, yeah. 

And I just want to say one more thing about about Fonda and her approach to this role, because it was so unlike any of her other roles, you know, because she was trained at the actor's studio, so I mean it wasn't like she didn't know what she was doing when she was doing Barbarella in Tall Story and these things. She actually lived at the studio during the filming. Did you know this? It was filmed on a soundstage in Burbank at Warner Brothers. She didn't go home. She wanted that feeling of claustrophobia. She wanted that feeling of that Gloria was feeling, so it could really seep into her bones and I think that is phenomenal. I mean, that's an actress. Baby, that is an actress. 

Brad Shreve:
 So let's get to Michael Sarazin, okay, because he was so good in this film and this really should have propelled him to top level stardom, and he seemed to have faded away, so I'm really surprised. What's his story? 

Tony Maietta:
 That is kind of sad about him, isn't he? He's so wonderful in this. You know, and as we said before, that Sarazin reminded Jane Fonda of her dad, and you look at him and he does. He's Henry Fonda in Grapes of Ralph, with the big blue eyes, even though that's in black and white 

Brad Shreve:
 and lanky. 

Tony Maietta:
 Lanky and handsome and you know Fonda had a softness along with his edge, especially when he was younger, so beautiful, and it's interesting because that helped very much. She also had a nickname. She and Pollock nicknamed him Bambi because of his character and because that character is a Bambi, because that character comes from nowhere. 

Brad Shreve:
 Yeah. 

Tony Maietta:
 You know, he's basically a drifter that just drifts on to the marathon dance floor and because Jane Fonda's intended partner gets sick and is not allowed to dance, there's this guy saying this. So that's how he becomes her partner. So different from the book. And yeah, they. Um, he didn't, unfortunately, have a really great career after this. He did some films after this. He's in probably his most high profile film after this and I almost hate to say it, after the Hello Dolly shade, but it was uh, for Pete's sake, with Barbara. 

Tony Maietta:
 So, there’s Barbara, again, you know it's a kind of a lesser Streisand film, but he's very charming in that. So he never really had a high profile film and he died, unfortunately in 2011. So, yeah, I think that's a real loss career there. That's a really lost career because he was wonderful in this. He's wonderful. 

Brad Shreve:
 Yeah, and you could probably say this about every cast member in this film and their character, but he was Robert. 

Tony Maietta:
 Oh yeah. 

Brad Shreve:
 I mean just even when they're showing. You know, they kept showing them going around this circle, which I got to say on paper I would have said you know no way this movie looks ridiculous, but uh, uh, to see when they kept showing them go around in the circles and it was he must have been running 30 miles before every shooting because he looked in pain and struggle and oh, it was so hard to watch him yeah, pollock put all of them through the paces, especially in the derby scenes which we'll we'll get to. 

Tony Maietta:
 So we also have have Susanna York, who Brad briefly touched on, playing Alice. She was a British film actress and everybody said that everybody in this cast who talked about her said she kept very much to herself, she was very remote. She was kind of like the epitome of the swinging 60s London it girl in theUK in the 60s. She was in Tom Jones, she was in A man for All Seasons. She was in that movie I talked about before Killing of Sister George, where she plays a potential lesbian, and she was actually going to leave the film at one point because of another film commitment she had and she was going to be replaced by Sally Kellerman, you know who was in MASH, who played Hot Lips in MASH, but she decided to stay. But Pollack said that it not that that she was difficult, but he was constantly having to bring her down Because it's a very, very. 
 
 Alice is a very showy part. She's like a Jean Harlow type wannabe actress. She's British but she's also she's got a screw loose. She's a little out there and as the dance marathon goes on and on and on, her grasp on reality becomes lighter and lighter and lighter, from lack of sleep, insufficient nutrition, dancing for thousands of hours at a time till finally she has an epic breakdown in a shower in her dress and Gig Young does come to her rescue in that and pull her out. But don't forget Gig Young is also one of the perpetrators of that mental breakdown and the fact that at one point in the film one of her other dresses is stolen and she doesn't know who took it. And we find out in the end that it was Gig Young, because he wanted the spectacle. 

He wanted the drama of this woman at her wits end going further and further and further off the side of sanity oh brilliant yep purposely brought her down for the good of the show and jane fonda said that, um she, she didn't really understand what suzanne new york was doing when she was watching this. And then she saw on film and she was like and she's perfection, and she was. She was nominated for best supporting actress for this best supporting act. 

Brad Shreve:
 I'm gonna go to red buttons next. Okay, I've seen red buttons and I knew of red buttons. I I really don't know a whole lot about career other than seeing him in there. What I most know him from is the poseidon adventure, and what really shocked me is in the Poseidon venture. I thought he was okay. His acting didn't seem all that great, probably because of the role he was playing. I didn't think that much of him. He, like the rest of them, blew me away here. He just cause. My first time I'm like, oh, there's that guy and not a dislike, but just like a Hmm there. Because my first time I'm like, oh, there's that guy, and not a dislike, but just like, hmm, there he is. Yeah, he was just totally different than what I expected. 

Tony Maietta:
 Well, yeah well, even his name Red Buttons, you think, oh comic. 

He was a comic, he had variety shows in the 50s, tv shows in the 60s, but like Gig Young, he had so much more to him than just his name. Think of those two names Red Buttons, gig Young. You think, oh, like you know, you don't think this allegory and metaphor about the futility of life. I mean they had a lot more to them, a lot more substance to them than people realize. And that's one of the wonderful things about this film is it highlights that, you know, it shows you that. 

Brad Shreve:
 It shows you that and as the next sailor, they kind of gave him that cliche like a sailor in a in a musical, where you know he's, he's gregarious and talks about his career and just totally self-assured, you know, and I was like, ok, we're going to play this up. And then no, you, like the rest of them, that was a facade. He was in pain, just like the rest of these folks, he was. 

Tony Maietta:
 What a performance. 

What a performance, and his death at the second derby is one of the most astounding scenes, I think, ever captured on film. 

Brad Shreve:
 I was really surprised about that. Yes, I thought for sure it was going to be Bonnie Bedelia. I certainly thought she was going to lose her baby. I was really surprised that didn't happen. 

Amazing she held on to that. Huh, oh, my God, that might be the one thing that was a stretch for me, but it didn't seem like a stretch until the movie was over. But who knows that when I heard that these things went on for months which I never I saw it within a thousand hours I'm like that's 40-something days. I'm like that's ridiculous. It's true, though it wasn't ridiculous. I don't know how they made it that long. I thought for sure she was a goner, or at least the baby was a goner, and when it turned out to be Red Buttons, I was like wow. 

Tony Maietta:
 Yeah, well, speaking of her is a Bedelia, bonnie Bedelia, who plays Ruby, who is a young woman who we get the impression. Oh, she tells us that she and her husband, played by Bruce Dern, go around to dance marathons. This is what they do, this is how they're surviving, this is how they have to survive a young, healthy couple in this economy of 1932, pushing themselves to the brink of exhaustion and death in order to live. It's so sobering. You know a personal story about Bonnie Bedelia. I met Bonnie Bedelia because, of course, through the wonderful Del Shores, bonnie Bedelia played Latrell in Del's film Sorted Lives, and Del knew how much I loved they Shoot Horses, don't they? So he introduced me to Bonnie. We had a great brunch one time, lucky bastard. 

Brad Shreve:
 She's great, she's wonderful. 

Tony Maietta:
 Yeah, she's so wonderful and luminous still to this day. And of course you know we talked all about it and she told me how kind Sidney Pollack was to her, Very soft-spoken, as we've heard before, Not haranguing, Would take her and talk to her because she was a young girl. She just she had her 18th birthday party on the set. She had her 18th birthday party on the set. Jane Fonda threw it for her on the set. I mean, she was also very struck by how kind Jane Fonda was to her. 

Brad Shreve:
 Whoa whoa whoa, she was 18? Yeah, she turned 18 while they were filming this. That’s amazing.

Tony Maietta:

Isn't that. she played the wife of Bruce Willis in the Die Hard film. She played the wife of Harrison Ford in Presumed Innocent. But she's so much more than that. She's a brilliant, brilliant actress. She's in a lot of TV, a lot of film, Gutsy just a real joy, a real light. And I'm so grateful to Del to have made that introduction. 

Thank and I'm so grateful to Del to have made that introduction. Thank you, del, if you're listening. 
 
 Brad Shreve:
 She was at Leslie Jordan's when they did his star in Palm Springs Right and I didn't know her from this movie. I loved her in Sorted Lives and of course I didn't talk to any of them because it was packed. But at the after party I talked to Del for a little while. Had I known her I don't know if she was there at the party or not the wall. Had I known her I don't know if she was there at the party or not. Had I known who she was beyond Sorted Lives, I would have said if she's here, you need to take me to her. So I would like you. Unfortunately, my situation with her was backwards from your understanding of her. 

Tony Maietta:
 She's great. She's great. She's also the aunt of Macaulay and Kiernan Culkin. Did you know that? No, she's their aunt, her brother's, their father, yeah, great. So this is our primary cast. So I think we're almost an hour in here. We need to talk about this film and what happens in this film because, believe it or not, we haven't told you everything that happens in this film. It's incredible. The book they shoot horses. It's incredible. The book they shoot horses, don't they? The novel, the story is told in flashbacks. The marathon is a flashback and the present scene is Robert's trial for murder of Gloria. 
 
 Pollock didn't like that. This is one of the problems with the original script and this is why they brought in another screenwriter, robert Thompson, to work with Pollock to polish this script and change it. So in the film, the dance marathon is the air quotes present time and we have flash forwards yeah, that's what I was gonna say the flash forwards Of the trial. So it's exact opposite, and a lot of people didn't like those flash forwards. Baum wanted to cut them, but Pollock liked them, because what's great about them is they give you little hints. You don't know what's going to happen if you haven't seen this film, but you get little hints of what might happen. Like one of the flash forwards, robert's wearing his Jonathan's Iron Tonic jacket and you're like where's that jacket from? Well, then we go back to the dance marathon and you find out they get a sponsor. So that's really cool. Those flash forwards they stayed in the film because there were two previews and it worked with them and it worked. It did not work when they took them out, so they left them out. 

Brad Shreve:
 Oh really, because I can't really say whether they would have been better. You know, once you see something you can't really say I disappointed that it was giving a little bit away. It would have been so shocking at the end had I known what was going to happen. But because he, you know, on trial and all that sort of thing, I knew something tragic happened. It was obviously killed someone I didn't know who. I thought maybe jane fonda seemed too obvious. What I liked in the flash forwards was trying to think it was the very simple black and white sets that were really just. There was no background, almost. It was I'm trying to think of, like the opening of Perry Mason. 

Tony Maietta:
 Very sparse.  You know why it was like that? Why? Because they had no money. 

Brad Shreve:
 Oh well, it worked. 

Tony Maietta:
 The flash forwards were filmed at the very end of all filming. Everybody was gone except for Michael Sarazin, sidney Pollack and the crew. So they did those all in one day, at the very end, and very monochromatic, black and white, almost black and white and very fast. Yeah, and you said it was exhausting. 

Brad Shreve:
 You never would have known that it looked like it was for artistic reasons. That's the way it was done. Suits it right yeah. 

Tony Maietta:
 Sometimes practical. What did we say about mentoring candidate? Practical sometimes serves the artistic Yep Brilliantly, yep, brilliantly. So the other big difference between the book and the film is, in the book, the dance marathon. After 879 hours of dancing and there's 20 couples remaining, the contest is shut down when there's a murder at the dance hall bar. So the promoters give everybody 50 bucks and they're gone and that's it. And you're like what? Because when you see the ending of this film and what happens in the end, it's so much more devastating, it's so much more meaningful how this film ends. So we'll get to that. We'll get to that. But I think that's a really that's a fascinating difference. To me it kind of takes the teeth out. I've never read the novel, but to me that kind of takes the teeth out of it to find out that's the way it ends. 

Brad Shreve:
 Yeah, it's hard to say without reading it, but it'd be hard to picture that for sure. 

Tony Maietta:
 When the production began, this film took three months to shoot and it was shot in continuity. In other words, it was filmed in order, if you will except for the flash-forwards. 

Brad Shreve:
 I would think it'd have to be. 

Tony Maietta:
 It would have to be because not only for the emotional state of the actors in specific moments and helping them get to those emotional states, their physical appearance. You know, you can't be looking like shit tomorrow and looking beautiful the next day and then having to look like shit. You know, just like we said in the Poseidon Adventure, these actors didn't go to make up, they went to make town. They were really made to look bad. 

Brad Shreve:
 And I was going to talk about that because, wow, this was not a typical. Uh, let's splash a little makeup on the actor to make them look like they're dirty. No, these people looked awful awful, awful. We've been dancing for thousands of hours yeah, I mean it's you believe they were going through this? I was like, oh my God, I can't believe they put these actors through this. 

Tony Maietta:
 Well, yeah, exactly. But also what also assisted in that was the lighting. Overhead lighting was used because of the fact that it helped for two reasons. The overhead lighting helped with the mobility of the camera because Pollock wanted the camera to dance too. He wanted the camera kind of, you know, like Edmund Goulding wanted the camera to walk with, walk with Gobbo and walk with Barrymore, pollock wanted this camera to dance around the dancers. So that helped. There were no lights in the way the camera moved for the mobility and the overhead lighting helped because it made the actors look like shit. 

Brad Shreve:
 That's it. 

Tony Maietta:
 There's nothing worse than overhead lighting to make you look like crap. 

Brad Shreve:
 And the one I noticed the most was Jane Fonda, where in the beginning she was so beautiful and halfway through the movie she was pasty and sickly looking. She, she looked near death like all of them did, but she, just because of her, the way her skin look was like that woman's sick. 

Tony Maietta:
 Pollock did so many amazing things with this. In filming this, you know all the actors had to be there all the time, because if you're not, even if you're not the focus of the scene, you're in the background dancing. So this is an exhausting, exhausting thing, and he knew that it would be very challenging to give the film variety, because you have the same characters you said this a little bit before Same characters basically doing the same thing over and over and over, except it's getting slower, not faster. 

So how do you make this interesting. So he did a lot of montages, which gives the film a different energy and also gives you a sense of time passing. And he also did something really interesting during the derbies Now we'll talk about the derbies are but he actually had a camera. He held a camera, was strapped to hip level and Pollock would be on roller skates just like the guys rolling around the roller rink to get these shots to go around the actors with that camera at hip level, filming these things on roller skates, and he would fall. And those shots are in the movie when they have the pile up in the first one, that’s Sidney Pollack falling with the camera. He left it in. It's incredible that he wanted to get that kind of erratic, kinetic feeling of the derby as it went on. And he got that. And he also used wide angle anamorphic lenses because he felt it was great storytelling. Because you get so much information in one shot. You don't have to cut to see what's going on in the background. You can see it because it's happening behind you. We talked about that with Chinatown. You know what's going on in the background and in the foreground because you have these wide lenses, which keeps most of it in focus. 

Brad Shreve:
 Yeah, and back to the montage. Those montages not only gave you a sense of time. These were not wardrobe montages or out on a date montages. These were fast and spinny and-. Dizzy dizzying, dizzying and it kind of made you feel sick and it was a passage of time, but it wasn't like a pleasant it was. It was like gross feeling in a good way. Yeah, because this film was good. 

Tony Maietta:
 Anyway, go on so I think we've come to the time where we we have to talk about them. Brad, we have to talk about the derbies there. There are two derbies in this movie. Tell everybody what is the derby. 

Brad Shreve:
 Well, you know, exploiting people and having them move nonstop for weeks on end isn't enough. You have to really push them hard and cruelly and make them run a derby around the rink rather than just standing there dancing as the audience is cheering and these people near death are clinging to be ahead and not get thrown out. And uh, it's it. What a sad statement. 

Tony Maietta:
 It's a faster way of eliminating people. So what happens is, yeah, these people have been dancing for hundreds of hours and, as they're dancing on the floor, barely standing up, sleeping on their partners, getting 10 minute nap breaks, eating, standing up, always moving, you have to keep moving, you have to keep moving. They see them begin to paint lines on the floor and Pollock's camera goes from one character to the other to their reaction and most of them are like, oh shit. But my favorite reaction is Jane Fonda. All Jane Fonda does is go, son of a bitch, because she knows, they know what's going to happen. They're races. They all get in uniforms, most of them with their partners, and they have to run around the, the marathon track, run around the ballroom for 10 minutes and the last three to get over the finish line are eliminated. These people have been dancing already for hours and now they have to run. 

Brad Shreve:
 It's insane, and that's the. That's the thing to point out. It's it's not running for 10 minutes, which sounds like well, what's the big deal? No, these are people that have not slept in weeks for more than 15 minutes at a time, and who knows that they can't sleep deeply at that and have eaten and continually moved. Do that and run for 10 minutes as fast as you possibly can, so you don't get thrown out. Yeah, and that's where you really saw the pain in these people's faces. 

Brad Shreve:
 Those were the most difficult to watch. It was most difficult to watch Robert and it was most difficult to watch Bonnie Bedelia's character and, to a lesser degree but still very painful, jane Fonda's character. 

Tony Maietta:
 Well, jane Fonda said filming the derbies was horrible and wonderful because you didn't have to act. You were really feeling that, she said, but it was also obviously very painful. 

And I think I said might've said this earlier is that what Pollock would do was he would film them. He would run them up to a certain level where they were at exhaustion, and then he would break and they would take a short break, calm down, and then he would have to work them up again and start it again. So it was a long process filming these derbies. And he also said that they're so extreme, they go from comic to horror. Because, as I just said, when they're painting the lines on the floor and all the characters are giving their comments on what it is, it's kind of funny, oh God, I can't believe this. And then it starts and it's got this bouncy kind of carousel music, you know, but they go from comic to horror, very much so, as you realize what these people are going through. And also the derbies signify and this is from Pollock the tonal shifts in the film, if you will. So just bear with me for a minute. So the derby divides the film into three parts or three acts. You have the first act before the first derby, which is kind of hopeful. You know it's. These people are going to earn a dance marathon. They have energy. It's fun. How fun. They're going to win some money. There may maybe Hollywood talent scouts in the audience and you know they're eating for the first time in God knows how long and they're getting a little rest break somewhere. 

And then the first Derby happens and the exhaustion begins to set in. And then the second half of the film is just a sustaining it's. You know they're trying to get through, so the hope is kind of gone. They're just trying to get through and trying to get, and this is where all the changes happen. This is where the partners are changed. This is where people begin to fall. It's a real difficult time. And then the second derby happens, and the second derby after that the film was about mourning. It's about death. That's where your death happens. People begin to lose their mind, people begin to die. So the derby's kind of, like I said, divide the film into three sections and by the time of the second derby they've been dancing for 1,200 hours. Now you do the math I'm not going to do the math how many days that is? 

Brad Shreve:
 it's a shit ton of days well, I think, as I said when, when he said it was a thousand hours, I did a calculation. I think the number was it was 40s. I think it was 44 days, right, so they went after that yeah, yeah, I went on after that. 

Tony Maietta:
 But the second derby now, jane Fonda, is with the Sailor because she and Michael Saracen, she and Robert, gloria and Robert have had a falling out and she's now partnered with Sailor after some machinations. As I said in the second part, people start dropping out and there's quick staccato shots and this sailor is barely holding it together, barely holding it together, and you get the sense of, with these quick cuts it gets faster and faster and faster and you get the sense of the harried, desperate feeling of this derby and then suddenly it goes to slow motion and it's even more horrific and more beautiful, but more horrific. It's got this haunting kind of music behind it and with like a little tinkling, like a child's toy, and they're moving in slow motion and it's almost beautiful until sailor has his heart attack and it goes right back into real time and like something's going on here. They're not sure, and Pollock said that Fonda was such an athlete. She was, was actually, and you can see this carrying red buttons on her back. I mean he was dead weight. 

Brad Shreve:
 You could tell that. And yeah, she played dead. Man is on my shoulders and I don't know he's dead, really well oh god, yeah, 

Tony Maietta: so sailor dies has a heart attack and he's out, 

Brad Shreve:
 You know, I knew all along this was going to be exploitation in some way. This is the beautiful thing about this film. I knew absolutely nothing about it, except that it had been praised Nothing whatsoever. I had no idea what I was getting into when it started. It was a dance marathon. I'm like oh, this is interesting Because I saw the conflict in the characters, I knew it was going to be a character thing. But when Gig Young and it was not even talked about because in this movie there's so much, that is better because it's not spoken when he's talking about the sailor and he announces to the people that they need to praise the sailor because in the war he wound up with 33 pieces of shrapnel. And you can tell by Red Button's face That was a total bald-faced lie that he made up on the spot but they didn't. He would have ruined it if he said that didn't happen. You know his dance part. But he didn't, he just looked. He didn't even look shocked, just this look of okay, I'll go with it. 

Tony Maietta:
 Yeah, no, it's amazing. It's amazing. So Fonda carries red buttons on her back through the last I think it's like the last five minutes of the Derby and they succeed. They don't get eliminated, except red buttons dead lying there dead, but they don't. 

They don't say that, they say, oh, that healthy sailor, he gave his best, we'll see him again. I think Gig Young says We'll see him again, folks, but he's dead. 

Brad Shreve:
 He's dehydrated, that's all. 

Tony Maietta:
 He just needs a sip of water. They carry him out in the stretcher, but he just needs a sip of water. He ain't coming back. 

And when he fell, at the very end, he fell on susannah york. And this is the tipping point of susannah york's sanity. This is the point when she she says is he dead? Is he dead? You know, he was on her. She pushes, she pushes him off her dress and she goes into the ladies room because they're on a break and she goes into the shower fully dressed and turns it on and basically she's gone, she's left the world of sanity, folks. And yes, gig Young shows some humanity in the fact that he's able to coax her out by lying to her and telling her that Sailor's not dead, he's fine, so she's gone, which brings our two heroes back together. It brings Robert and Gloria back together after this musical chairs of partners. They've been playing, so they're reunited, isn't that wonderful? And this is where the book and the movie part. In the movie, which I think is so much more effective. Gig Young's character calls Gloria and Robert into his office and says I got an idea You two are the love couple of this marathon. You were together. You were pushed apart. You came back together again. You're reunited. Why don't you kids get married on the dance floor? 

Brad Shreve:
 And before then he even announces to the audience boy meets girl, boy loses girl boy meets girl again and he was trying to play further on that. 

Tony Maietta:
 And of course, gloria Jane Fonda's like I'm not getting married to anybody. And he's like what do you care? It's showbiz. You get a divorce. When it's over with, you might get something out of it. You got to get some toasters, some money. At least you'll get something. And Jane Fonda says I intend to win this thing, and I intend to win this thing and I'm going to win $1,500, because that's the prize. And that's when she finds out the truth. There's not $1,500. You don't think I'm feeding you and clothing you and housing you for free, do you? Of course, if you lose, we're not going to charge you for this what a guy. But if you win, we need that money. So and this is what's so devastating about this film and why it's so much better than the book is you realize this whole thing has been a sham. It's only a paper moon, folks. This is not real. They go through this and at the very end they get nothing. 

Brad Shreve:
 Yeah, oh, astounding, Again, with the thing with the shrapnel and Red Button's face, this situation. Well, this whole movie again, what made it so beautiful is none of that was in your face. It was in your face in the sense that you knew. Eventually, you figured out what this was about, but nobody ever said oh, this is like life, this was the struggle of life. And then, at the end of her life, Jane Fodder's character realized this is all there is. It's going in circles. It never gets better. 

Tony Maietta:
 Exactly. It's a dance of illusions. 

01:09:46

It's a dance of illusions. They got the whole. What did she say? They got the whole goddamn thing rigged before you even get into it, or something along those lines, and that's it. She's like it's just such a gut punch. And she's like, okay, I'm done Gloria out of here. So she goes back to the women's room to start packing and you know, neither one of them knows what they're going to do and she can't find her stocking. She had one pair of good silk stockings and she can't find one of them. And they're looking all over the room for the stockings because she wants to get out, she wants to get out of this ballroom. And he finds it and he goes is this it? And as he hands it to her, it rips. And that's it the ripped stocking is the straw that breaks Gloria's back. This little insignificant thing. But what is a straw that breaks a camel's back? It's a little insignificant thing that's had other things piled on it and piled on it and piled on it, and the stocking is it. She loses it, she breaks down it. And piled on it. And the stocking is it. She loses it, she breaks down, she begins to sob and we see the pain this character has been in for this entire film. 

Brad Shreve:
 Silk stockings were a big deal back then. They weren't cheap. I would think that that's her last hold on to something valuable in her life. 

Tony Maietta:
 She didn't ride streetcars for a month to be able to buy them. I think she says it's not about the stocking. She even says it's not about the goddamn stocking. Yeah, I love how many times jane fonda says goddamn in this movie. It's not about the goddamn stocking, it's about everything. Everything is rigged before you even start. It's the futility of this life. So they leave the ballroom not sure what they're going to do. And this is when it happens. Do you want to tell a little bit about what happens in the very last scene? 

Brad Shreve:
 Yeah, I was surprised. You know, you figured out through these flash forwards, even though they were very brief, that clearly there was going to be a murder. And at the end you're like, well, he's going to kill her. I thought when she started packing he's like he would be like no, we're not, you're not ending it like this. We've come this far and he would kill her out of rage. Much better ending that they have than what I always thought was going to happen. They're walking along like on a pier it looked like it was dark out so you couldn't really tell, but it looked like a pier and they're talking and she pretty much says I'm done, I'm done. And she pulls out a gun and makes it clear she's going to kill herself. I do have this scene. It's probably one of my biggest challenges with the movie, but it's still well done. She pulls out a gun and she can't do it and so she asks him to do it and, seeing her pain and seeing her suffering, he does. He shoots her in the head. 

Tony Maietta:
 Yeah, it's amazing. She says you know? She says the whole goddamn world is like central casting. She says they got the whole thing rigged before you even start and she's at the end of a rope. All through this movie she has been alluding to death, she's been talking about death, she's been fascinated with death, so it kind of makes sense. So it all comes full circle. She's not going to go on and she pulls a gun out of her purse and I'm like you've had that gun in your purse the entire time In this crowded ballroom. That was the one thing I'm like. 

Brad Shreve:
 Okay bit of a stretch there. That was weird and I will say, even though she alluded to death, she was such a harsh and for lack of a better word a strong character even though that was really the softness underneath was coming through that she would be the last one I would picture killing herself by the time the film ended that's when you learn that she was so abrasive for a reason, right, right, right. 

Tony Maietta:
 Well, it goes back to what Pollock said about her. He said she's not tough, she's terrified. Yes, a strong woman would not kill herself. Now, who knows what? The circumstances here are ridiculous, so I'm not going to even talk about depression and everything that goes on with that, of what this woman has gone through. But that's when we see the real, the crux of who Gloria is. 

She's not strong, she's terrified. Everything that life has done to her has made her terrified. She's a woman without a future. Basically, she does not see a future and after everything she's just been through. And, by the way, I want to point out that when they walk out on the boardwalk, that's the first time they've been outside in over 1,200 hours. 

Let's think about that for a minute, with the stale air and the smells and the sweat and the stench and the static air. I mean you go outside with the sea breeze, they're at the end of the land, they're at Santa Monica Pier or wherever. They are at the end of the world. She's at the end of her rope and she says she's had this gun, she's tried to do it but she can't. And that's when she asks him would you do it for me? And sweet obliging guy that he is, he does it. 

Brad Shreve:
 As brilliant of an ending it was, I also think it was probably one of the worst acted and worst directed parts of the film, and when I say worst, I mean compared to the rest. Here's the reason. When she is in the marathon, she looks sickly and bad, and I was really impressed with how well how all these actors allowed themselves to look so terrible, which you know as well. There are some characters, some actors, that would never have done that in their heyday. Of course, none of these were really in their heyday that much, but she just looked awful and she looked beautiful again at the end, and I don't maybe that was done on purpose, but she'd put her hair up a little bit, she, she didn't look as pale and bad I thought also outside. 

Tony Maietta:
 They're outside different lighting, moonlight, wind, yeah, okay, 

Brad Shreve:
 and she didn't seem as distraught as I would have liked her. She became self-assured again, or at least act. Obviously she wasn't self-assured, she acted self-assured. She seemed like she really had it together when it came time to kill herself, which which I understand. People aren't sobbing and crying when they kill themselves. Well, I shouldn't say in every case never. Sorry about that, but I would have liked to seen her. I mean, he saw, you see that she's a wounded animal. I would like to have seen her a little more wounded, looking for me to believe that Robert would have said this is a mercy killing. 

Tony Maietta:
 That's all here's the thing about, and I'm not going to be an expert on suicides either. I'm not pretending to be about this, but I've done a little research on when I was acting, I played a character who killed himself. And I wanted to understand exactly what, get a grasp of the mental state. And what I found and again, and this is just what I found, I'm not making any proclamations here is that the decision to finally end your pain is a positive feeling. 

Yeah, yeah, it's terrifying because you don't know what's going to happen, but the very act of doing something to change something is actually a positive sensation to that person. Now that can change very quickly. I'm sure I'm not making that and she has a look of relief on her face because it's over. It's startling to me and you know this is not for nothing. Jane Fonda knew suicide. Her mother killed herself. Now this was long before Jane Fonda investigated the background of her mother and what caused her mother to kill herself. But she wasn't a stranger to suicide. She knew that. She talks about it in her book. She talks about it about this film. She says you know, it wasn't like it was a deep analytical thing because my mother committed suicide, but she knew what she knew about suicide, maybe better than she another actress would have. So I find her very touching in that scene, especially when she closes her eyes and says now 

Brad Shreve:
 let me back up a little bit bit because I probably didn't come across very clearly.  I know people that killed themselves. Not when they were, uh, involved in my life, like people in my past, I learned that they killed themselves. But I have a friend that's a minister and she deals with grief counseling and she's worked with people that were suicidal, ended up killing themselves. And yeah, I mean they they very calmly. And again, we're not. I'm not talking about every case. Some people are like in the movies where they're just distraught, pull out a gun and blow their brains out. But what she's experienced most is they, they very calmly get their things in order. Then do it just matter of. So yeah, I think I needed her to be more in distress to believe that Robert, with what I presume is little education being raised in the country and that era, I felt like something would have needed to push him a little bit more, especially with the closing lines. 

And that's my. If I have any issue with this film and it's a very minor issue I don't with Jane, in that she's putting an end to her suffering. 

Tony Maietta:
 I get that completely. It's the audience having to buy the fact that this guy would actually kill this woman because she asked him to At the beginning of the movie. Over the credits we have a beautiful bucolic scene of a horse racing through the fields and at the same time we have Gig Young, you know, doing the yowza, yowza, yowza, talking about the rules of the marathon. It's a brilliant opening and in this bucolic scene the horse falls and obviously breaks his leg. At the same time the Gig Young says two knees down, you're out. It's very funny how it's cut together, or very, very brilliant the way it's cut together. And in the bucolic scene there's a young boy who obviously loves this horse, who we assume then is Robert, and an older man. An older man has a gun. The horse can't get up and the older man shoots the horse because the horse is in pain. There's no hope for the horse. So Robert's justification at the end is when they ask him why did you do it? He says what? Brad? 

Brad Shreve:
 They shoot horses, don't they? 

Tony Maietta:
 Hell of a guy yeah. That's what one of the cops says. So that's what we go on Now. In the book he tells her that story, but in the movie it's beautifully realized in the beginning and when he shoots her to drive the point home, when the gun goes off, jane Fonda falls back and then suddenly she's not on the pier anymore, she's in the field where the horse fell and she falls. So Pollock is showing us Robert's mind, his inner motivation. He is doing the mercy killing, just as he did to the horse. That's how that all kind of comes together, which was a scene that was shot much later because they knew they had to have that in there to really drive the point home about how this guy could kill her Like that. 

Brad Shreve:
 And, like I said, I think they were the worst part of this film, but that doesn't mean I thought it was bad. I'm nitpicking here. No, no, no. 

Tony Maietta:
 And that's the end of the movie. Folks Woo. 

Brad Shreve:
 Yowza, yowza, yowza. 

Tony Maietta:
 Yowza, yowza, yowza. So, Brad, do you want to tell us a little bit about how this movie performed when it was released? 

Brad Shreve:
 I would be happy to. First of all, it was nominated. You said was it nine nominations? Yeah, nine nominations, and Gig Young won one, which well deserved in my opinion. 

Tony Maietta:
 Let's run them down. Best Director Sidney Pollack, best Actress for Jane Fonda, supporting Actress for Susanna York, adapted Screenplay for Robert Thompson and Gig Young. Who won Best Supporting Actor? Is that nine? 

Brad Shreve: 
 The ones that nobody pays attention to, and they should. 

Tony Maietta:

I had the major ones. I apologize. it won one. Oscar Gig Young won Best Supporting Actor. 

Brad Shreve:
 Now give an idea before I give the numbers. Other films, as you mentioned, that came out this year. Well, I was going to give Easy Rider was another one that came out and True Grit and Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid you may mention that one. Yes, the film was made for almost $5 million, $4.8 million, and it grossed almost $13 million. So three times, almost three times, what it was made for. Yes, rotten Tomatoes, I'm really really surprised about this. The audience score is 89% and considering that this film is not an art film, but when it starts out and you see the horse and you hear the yowzy, yowzy, yowzy, it feels like this is going to be some kind of art film and I thought the audience would have given a lower score, but they gave 89%. And what really surprises me is they gave better than the critics did, which was 82%, and that just floors me that the critics only gave it 82%. 

Tony Maietta:
 That's crazy. 

Brad Shreve:
 Something is wrong there. 

Tony Maietta:
 So, yeah, so, as I said, so the film actually premiered at Cannes and it was. It was a big hit, it made money. It set Jane Fonda on an incredible acting career. Yeah, she had a pretty good career after this. Right after this, she did clute and she won the oscar. And then she had some problems in vietnam, but we're not going to talk about that because we're a hollywood podcast. 

Brad Shreve:
 But I mean, come on, any veterans in the audience, please don't get angry 

Tony Maietta:
 coming home and nine to five and fun with dick and jane. And I mean, come on, she's jane, freaking fonda, still vital, still alive today. I love her, love her, love her. Sydney paul, because this is one of my very favorite directors. Um went on to direct a little film which we'll never talk about because I will not have brad dis the way we were. But yes, he made the way we were. He made tootsie as we talked we Were. He made Tootsie as we talked about before he finally won his Oscar in 85 for Out of Africa. 

And then what was really what's interesting to me about Sidney Pollack, and is always very interesting about him, is near the end of his career he kind of went back to acting again. I mean, he was in Tootsie, as we said. He played the agent in Tootsie because Dustin insisted he play it. But then he did like. He was Will's father in Will and Grace. He was on the Sopranos. He was in Woody Allen's movie Husbands and Wives. He did things on. He was on Euphoria. I mean he just did some incredible I'm sorry, not Euphoria Entourage. I'm like where the hell did Euphoria come from? 

Brad Shreve:

01:24:10

They both begin with an. E 

Tony Maietta:

01:24:10

he was on. Sopranos, mad About you. He did Death Becomes Her Michael Clayton, so he's a wonderful actor too. That's what I think I love about Sidney Pollack, but unfortunately he died in 2008 of cancer and we lost a true, true, in my opinion auteur, unheralded auteur, because his films are unique and wonderfully, wonderfully presented and acted. I just love Sidney Pollack. I just love Sidney Pollack. 

Brad Shreve:
 Yeah, he should have a statue just for this movie alone. 

Tony Maietta:
 He should, and we've talked about it before. This film is really the second golden age of Hollywood. It's that wonderful period, after the studio system and the production code broke down and these wonderfully free and daring films were being made, that really challenged society and society's norms and made people think you know films like we've talked about a lot of them. We talked about chinatown and we talked about rosemary's baby and we talked about Chinatown and we talked about Rosemary's Baby and we talked about what's Up, Doc. And there was also Clute and the Graduate and Harold Mott. I mean I could go Paper Moon, I could go on and on and on. You had people like Alan Bakula, Roman Polanski, Bogdanovich, Coppola, Scorsese, Friedkin, Ashby Lumet and Sidney Pollack, and I think one of the best films of the second golden age is they shoot horses, Don't they? And what was first the best film? Yeah, the golden age. What's up, doc? 

Brad Shreve:
 What are you talking about? I, you know I. That was my assumption, but I didn't want to say it. 

Tony Maietta:
 I wasn't putting them in order. Of anything I was just listening, but of anything I was just listening, but yes, I'm impressed when you said this was the second film. I thought you meant no, the second Golden Age of Hollywood. 

Well, brad, is there anything else you want to say about the movie, or about the podcast, or anything else? 

Brad Shreve:
 I have nothing else to say about the movie other than you know. I say I don't know if I could ever watch again because it was so painful, but I think I probably could because it just again it blew me away For our listeners. If you are new to this show, welcome. We're happy to have you and we're glad that you found us. And please hit the follow button so that you'll know when we have a new episode come out, because you don't want to miss it If you're a long-term listener. Thank you. Please rate and review us Apple, spotify or wherever you get this podcast. 

Tony Maietta:
 Absolutely, Absolutely. We would love it. Well, Brad, I guess then they shoot horses, don't they? Well, Brad, I guess then they shoot horses, don't they? And that was a long one, but it was worth it, because this film deserves a really wonderful analysis, and I hope we did that. So I guess there's only one thing left to say, but as usual, I don't want to say it. So let's not say goodbye, let's just say what do you think? Yowza, yowza, yowza. You knew that was coming.

Brad Shreve: I was hoping you were going to say. I was like, if he doesn't say yowza, yowza, yowza, I'm going to have to. But yowza, yowza, let's say goodbye, 

Tony Maietta:
 goodbye everybody.