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

The title alone was a good warning that this would not be uplifting. When I noted the Depression setting and the year of release, when unhappy endings were all the rage, there could be no doubt. But my curiosity about the high ratings got the better of me.

The story focuses on a 1932 California dance marathon, a staple of the era I'd never heard of before. For weeks, couples -- 102 to start -- seek a cash prize by dancing for hours a day (mostly at a mellow pace), occasionally mixing it up with a joint speed-walking race that eliminates the last three pairs to cross the finish line. As time wears on, the remaining contestants aren't looking so good, and neither is the contest itself.

Jeremiah Johnson (1972)

Confession: I skipped a review of the last western I watched, Fort Apache. It had been too soon after El Dorado, and while it was more distinctive in plot and possibly better overall, I just couldn't muster the motivation to write about it. Well, four months is plenty of time to get back in the mood, this time with a feature inherently more different, coming from the '70s.

Under the direction of mainstay Sydney Pollack, Robert Redford plays a mountain man in the Rockies. His story starts out as possibly the most episodic western I've seen, but patterns emerge. For all the loneliness of his lifestyle, certain people show up either for an extended period or repeatedly, as if for "bookends." Others die quickly, because there is a lot of tension on the frontier, particularly involving Crows. His victories allow him to pass into legend (based loosely on a real legend recorded in a few books).